Betty White rules!

I realize Betty White's SAG lifetime achievement award acceptance speech is a bit off topic for my blog. But Ms. White has been a champion for animal rights and conservation for decades and she is such a strong and sassy woman, I just had to post it.-MA

More of Moscow's stray dogs

Biologist Andrei Poyarkov

Follow up to last year's posting "Moscow's stray dogs well adapted to Russian metropolitain life" (originally published in the Wall Street Journal) - Last year when i blogged about the story an anonymous reader answered with this video: http://smotri.com/video/view/?id=v9388066dbc. I never got any follow up from the reader, but I think its important to keep such things in mind when reading such an overall heart warming story as the one about the Moscow dogs...-MA

Moscow’s stray dogs
By Susanne Sternthal
From the Financial Times

Russians can go nutty when it comes to dogs. Consider the incident a few years ago that involved Yulia Romanova, a 22-year-old model. On a winter evening, Romanova was returning with her beloved Staffordshire terrier from a visit to a designer who specialises in kitting out canine Muscovites in the latest fashions. The terrier was sporting a new green camouflage jacket as he walked with his owner through the crowded Mendeleyevskaya metro station. There they encountered Malchik, a black stray who had made the station his home, guarding it against drunks and other dogs. Malchik barked at the pair, defending his territory. But instead of walking away, Romanova reached into her pink rucksack, pulled out a kitchen knife and, in front of rush-hour commuters, stabbed Malchik to death.

Romanova was arrested, tried and underwent a year of psychiatric treatment. Typically for Russia, this horror story was countered by a wellspring of sympathy for Moscow’s strays. A bronze statue of Malchik, paid for by donations, now stands at the entrance of Mendeleyevskaya station. It has become a symbol for the 35,000 stray dogs that roam Russia’s capital – about 84 dogs per square mile. You see them everywhere. They lie around in the courtyards of apartment complexes, wander near markets and kiosks, and sleep inside metro stations and pedestrian passageways. You can hear them barking and howling at night. And the strays on Moscow’s streets do not look anything like the purebreds preferred by status-conscious Muscovites. They look like a breed apart.

I moved to Moscow with my family last year and was startled to see so many stray dogs. Watching them over time, I realised that, despite some variation in colour – some were black, others yellowish white or russet – they all shared a certain look. They were medium-sized with thick fur, wedge-shaped heads and almond eyes. Their tails were long and their ears erect.

They also acted differently. Every so often, you would see one waiting on a metro platform. When the train pulled up, the dog would step in, scramble up to lie on a seat or sit on the floor if the carriage was crowded, and then exit a few stops later. There is even a website dedicated to the metro stray (www.metrodog.ru) on which passengers post photos and video clips taken with their mobile phones, documenting the ­savviest of the pack using the public transport system like any other Muscovite.

Where did these animals come from? It’s a question Andrei Poyarkov, 56, a biologist specialising in wolves, has dedicated himself to answering. His research focuses on how different environments affect dogs’ behaviour and social organisation. About 30 years ago, he began studying Moscow’s stray dogs. Poyarkov contends that their appearance and behaviour have changed over the decades as they have continuously adapted to the changing face of Russia’s capital. Virtually all the city’s strays were born that way: dumping a pet dog on the streets of Moscow amounts to a near-certain death sentence. Poyarkov reckons fewer than 3 per cent survive.

Poyarkov works at the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution in south-west Moscow. His office is small, but boasts high ceilings and tall windows. Several wire cages sit on a table in the centre of the room. Inside them, four weasels scurry through tunnels and run on a wheel. Poyarkov and I sit near the weasels and sip green tea.

He first thought of observing the behaviour of stray dogs in 1979, and began with the ones that lived near his apartment and those he encountered on his way to work. The area he studied came to comprise some 10 sq km, home to about 100 dogs. Poyarkov started making recordings of the sounds that the strays made, and began to study their social organisation. He photographed and catalogued them, mapping where each dog lived.

He quickly found that the strays were much easier to study than wolves. “To see a wild wolf is a real event,” he says. “You can see them, but not for very long and not at close range. But with stray dogs you can watch them for as long as you want and, for the most part, be quite near them.” According to Poyarkov, there are 30,000 to 35,000 stray dogs in Moscow, while the wolf population for the whole of Russia is about 50,000 to 60,000. Population density, he says, determines how frequently the animals come into contact with each other, which in turn affects their behaviour, psychology, stress levels, physiology and relationship to their environment.

“The second difference between stray dogs and wolves is that the dogs, on average, are much less aggressive and a good deal more tolerant of one another,” says Poyarkov. Wolves stay strictly within their own pack, even if they share a territory with another. A pack of dogs, however, can hold a dominant position over other packs and their leader will often “patrol” the other packs by moving in and out of them. His observations have led Poyarkov to conclude that this leader is not necessarily the strongest or most dominant dog, but the most intelligent – and is acknowledged as such. The pack depends on him for its survival.

Moscow’s strays sit somewhere between house pets and wolves, says Poyarkov, but are in the early stages of the shift from the domesticated back towards the wild. That said, there seems little chance of reversing this process. It is virtually impossible to domesticate a stray: many cannot stand being confined indoors.

“Genetically, wolves and dogs are almost identical,” says Poyarkov. “What has changed significantly [with domestication] is a range of hormonal and behavioural parameters, because of the brutal natural selection that eliminated many aggressive animals.” He recounts the work of Soviet biologist Dmitri Belyaev, exiled from Moscow in 1948 during the Stalin years for a commitment to classical genetics that ran counter to state scientific doctrine of the time.

Under the guise of studying animal physiology, Belyaev set up a Russian silver fox research centre in Novosibirsk, setting out to test his theory that the most important selected characteristic for the domestication of dogs was a lack of aggression. He began to select foxes that showed the least fear of humans and bred them. After 10-15 years, the foxes he bred showed affection to their keepers, even licking them. They barked, had floppy ears and wagged their tails. They also developed spotted coats – a surprising development that was connected with a decrease in their levels of adrenaline, which shares a biochemical pathway with melanin and controls ­pigment production.

“With stray dogs, we’re witnessing a move backwards,” explains Poyarkov. “That is, to a wilder and less domesticated state, to a more ‘natural’ state.” As if to prove his point, strays do not have spotted coats, they rarely wag their tails and are wary of humans, showing no signs of ­affection towards them.

The stray dogs of Moscow are mentioned for the first time in the reports of the journalist and writer Vladimir Gilyarovsky in the latter half of the 19th century. But Poyarkov says they have been there as long as the city itself. They remain different from wolves, in particular because they exhibit pronounced “polymorphism” – a range of behavioural traits shaped in part by the “ecological niche” they occupy. And it is this ability to adapt that explains why the population density of strays is so much greater than that of wolves. “With several niches there are more resources and more opportunities.”

The dogs divide into four types, he says, which are determined by their character, how they forage for food, their level of socialisation to people and the ecological niche they inhabit.

Those that remain most comfortable with people Poyarkov calls “guard dogs”. Their territories tend to be garages, warehouses, hospitals and other fenced-in institutions, and they develop ties to the security guards from whom they receive food and whom they regard as masters. I’ve seen them in my neighbourhood near the front gate to the Central Clinical Hospital for Civil Aviation. When I pass on the other side with my dog they cross the street towards us, barking loudly.

“The second stage of becoming wild is where the dog is socialised to people in general, but not personally,” says Poyarkov. “These are the beggars and they are excellent psychologists.” He gives as an example a dog that appears to be dozing as throngs of people walk past, but who rears his head when an easy target comes into view: “The dog will come to a little old lady, start smiling and wagging his tail, and sure enough, he’ll get food.” These dogs not only smell who is carrying something tasty, but sense who will stop and feed them.

The beggars live in relatively small packs and are subordinate to leaders. If a dog is intelligent but occupies a low rank and does not get enough to eat, he will separate from the pack frequently to look for food. If he sees other dogs begging, he will watch and learn.

The third group comprises dogs that are somewhat socialised to people, but whose social interaction is directed almost exclusively towards other strays. Their main strategy for acquiring food is gathering scraps from the streets and the many open rubbish bins. During the Soviet period, the pickings were slim, which limited their population (as did a government policy of catching and killing them). But as Russia began to prosper in the post-Soviet years, official efforts to cull them fell away and, at the same time, many more choice offerings appeared in the bins. The strays flourished.

The last of Poyarkov’s groups are the wild dogs. “There are dogs living in the city that are not socialised to people. They know people, but view them as dangerous. Their range is extremely broad, and they are ­predators. They catch mice, rats and the occasional cat. They live in the city, but as a rule near industrial complexes, or in wooded parks. They are nocturnal and walk about when there are fewer people on the streets.”

My neighbourhood is in the north-west of Moscow and lies between a large wooded park and one of the canals of the Moscow river. Leaving the windows open once the thaw of spring finally took hold, I found myself pulled out of a deep slumber by a cacophony that sounded as if packs of dogs were tearing each other apart in the grounds of our apartment complex. This went on for weeks. I later learned that spring is when many strays mate – “the dog marriage season”, as Russians poetically call it.

There is one special sub-group of strays that stands apart from the rest: Moscow’s metro dogs. “The metro dog appeared for the simple reason that it was permitted to enter,” says Andrei Neuronov, an author and specialist in animal behaviour and psychology, who has worked with Vladimir Putin’s black female Labrador retriever, Connie (“a very nice pup”). “This began in the late 1980s during perestroika,” he says. “When more food appeared, people began to live better and feed strays.” The dogs started by riding on overground trams and buses, where supervisors were becoming increasingly thin on the ground.

Neuronov says there are some 500 strays that live in the metro stations, especially during the colder months, but only about 20 have learned how to ride the trains. This happened gradually, first as a way to broaden their territory. Later, it became a way of life. “Why should they go by foot if they can move around by public transport?” he asks.

“They orient themselves in a number of ways,” Neuronov adds. “They figure out where they are by smell, by recognising the name of the station from the recorded announcer’s voice and by time intervals. If, for example, you come every Monday and feed a dog, that dog will know when it’s Monday and the hour to expect you, based on their sense of time intervals from their ­biological clocks.”

The metro dog also has uncannily good instincts about people, happily greeting kindly passers by, but slinking down the furthest escalator to avoid the intolerant older women who oversee the metro’s electronic turnstiles. “Right outside this metro,” says Neuronov, gesturing toward Frunzenskaya station, a short distance from the park where we were speaking, “a black dog sleeps on a mat. He’s called Malish. And this is what I saw one day: a bowl of freshly ground beef set before him, and slowly, and ever so lazily, he scooped it up with his tongue while lying down.”

Stray dogs evoke a strong reaction from Muscovites. While the model Romanova’s stabbing of a stray demonstrated an example of one extreme, the statue erected in his memory depicts the other. The city government has been forced to take action to protect the strays, but with mixed results. In 2002, mayor Yuri Luzhkov enacted legislation forbidding the killing of stray animals and adopted a new strategy of sterilising them and building shelters.

But until Russians themselves adopt the practice of sterilising their pets, this will remain only a half-measure. One Russian, noting that my male Ridgeback is neutered, exclaimed: “Now, why would you want to cripple a dog in that way?” Even though the city budget allocated more than $30m to build 15 animal shelters last year, that is not nearly enough to accommodate the strays. Still, there is pressure from some quarters to return to the practice of catching and culling them. Poyarkov believes this would be dangerous. While the goal, he acknowledges, “is to do away with dogs who carry rabies, tapeworms, toxoplasmosis and other infections, what actually happens is that infected dogs and other animals outside Moscow will come into the city because the biological barrier maintained by the population of strays in Moscow is turned upside down. The environment becomes chaotic and unpredictable and the epidemiological situation worsens.”

Alexey Vereshchagin, 33, a graduate student who works with Poyarkov, says that Moscow probably could find a way of controlling the feared influx. But that doesn’t mean he thinks strays should be removed from the capital. “I grew up with them,” he says. “Personally, I think they make life in the city more interesting.” Like other experts, Vereshchagin questions whether strays could ever be eliminated completely, particularly given the city’s generally chaotic approach to administration.

Poyarkov concedes that sterilisation might control the number of strays, if methodically conducted. But his work suggests that the population is self-regulating anyway. The quantity of food available keeps the total steady at about 35,000 – Moscow strays are at the limit and, as a result, most pups born to strays don’t reach adulthood. “If they do survive, it is only to replace an adult dog that died,” Poyarkov says. Even then, their life expectancy seldom exceeds 10 years. Having spent a career studying the stray dogs of Moscow and tracing their path back towards a wilder state, he is in no hurry to see them swept from the streets.

“I am not at all convinced that Moscow should be left without dogs. Given a correct relationship to dogs, they definitely do clean the city. They keep the population of rats down. Why should the city be a concrete desert? Why should we do away with strays who have always lived next to us?”

Thanks to Cleve H. for the link!

Feet hold the key to human hand evolution

from BBC.co.uk
By Victoria Gill
Scientists may have solved the mystery of how human hands became nimble enough to make and manipulate stone tools.

The team reports in the journal Evolution that changes in our hands and fingers were a side-effect of changes in the shape of our feet. This, they say, shows that the capacity to stand and walk on two feet is intrinsically linked to the emergence of stone tool technology. The scientists used a mathematical model to simulate the changes. Other researchers, though, have questioned this approach. Campbell Rolian, a scientist from the University of Calgary in Canada who led the study, said: "This goes back to Darwin's The Descent of Man. "[Charles Darwin] was among the first to consider the relationship between stone tool technology and bipedalism. "His idea was that they were separate events and they happened sequentially - that bipedalism freed the hand to evolve for other purposes. "What we showed was that the changes in the hand and foot are similar developments... and changes in one would have side-effects manifesting in the other."

To study this, Dr Rolian and his colleagues took measurements from the hands and feet of humans and of chimpanzees. Their aim was to find out how the hands and feet of our more chimp-like ancestors would have evolved. The researchers' measurements showed a strong correlation between similar parts of the hand and foot. "So, if you have a long big toe, you tend have a long thumb," Dr Rolian explained."One reason fingers and toes may be so strongly correlated is that they share a similar genetic and developmental 'blueprint', and small changes to this blueprint can affect the hand and foot in parallel," he said. With this anatomical data, the researchers were able to create their mathematical simulation of evolutionary change. "We used the mathematical model to simulate the evolutionary pressures on the hands and feet," Dr Rolian explained. This model essentially adjusted the shape of the hands or the feet, recreating single, small evolutionary changes to see what effect they had. By simulating this evolutionary shape-shifting, the team found that changes in the feet caused parallel changes in the hands, especially in the relative proportions of the fingers and toes. These parallel changes or side-effects, said Dr Rolian, may have been an important evolutionary stem that allowed human ancestors, including Neanderthals, to develop the dexterity for stone tool technology.

Robin Crompton, professor of anatomy at the UK's Liverpool University, said the study was very interesting but also raised some questions. "I am not personally convinced that the foot and hand of chimpanzees are a good model [of human ancestors' hands and feet] - the foot of the lowland gorilla may be more interesting in this respect," he told BBC News. He pointed out that there was a lot more to the functional shape and biomechanics of the human foot than just its proportions. Paul O'Higgins, professor of anatomy at the Hull York Medical School, UK, said: "The results are quite exciting and will doubtless spur further testing and additional work."

Citation:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/123228521/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
Rolian C, Lieberman DE, Hallgrímsson B (2009) The Co-Evolution of Human Hands and Feet. Evolution (online first)

ABSTRACT
Human hands and feet have longer, more robust first digits, and shorter lateral digits compared to African apes. These similarities are often assumed to be independently-evolved adaptations for manipulative activities and bipedalism, respectively. However, hands and feet are serially homologous structures that share virtually identical developmental blueprints, raising the possibility that digital proportions co-evolved in human hands and feet because of underlying developmental linkages that increase phenotypic covariation between them. Here we show that phenotypic covariation between serially homologous fingers and toes in Homo and Pan is not only higher than expected, it also causes these digits to evolve along highly parallel trajectories under episodes of simulated directional selection, even when selection pressures push their means in divergent directions. Further, our estimates of the selection pressures required to produce human-like fingers and toes from an African ape-like ancestor indicate that selection on the toes was substantially stronger, and likely led to parallel phenotypic changes in the hands. Our data support the hypothesis that human hands and feet coevolved, and suggest that the evolution of long robust big toes and short lateral toes for bipedalism led to changes in hominin fingers that may have facilitated the emergence of stone tool technology.

Cannibalism in wild bonobos

Last year we found out bonobos eat monkeys and now a case of cannibalism in bonobos is being reported by Drs. Fowler and Hohmann from the MPI-EVA. The chimpanzee-bonobo gap gets smaller and smaller...-MA

Fowler A, Hohmann G (2010) Cannibalism in wild bonobos (Pan paniscus) at Lui Kotale. Am. J. Primatol. 71:1-6

Abstract
We describe the cannibalization of an infant bonobo (circa 2.5 years old) at Lui Kotale, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The infant died of unknown causes and was consumed by several community members including its mother and an older sibling one day after death. Certain features concerning the pattern of consumption fit in with previously observed episodes of cannibalism in Pan, whereas others, such as the mother's participation in consuming the body, are notable. The incident suggests that filial cannibalism among apes need not be the result of nutritional or social stress and does not support the idea that filial cannibalism is a behavioral aberration.

Commitment to protecting forests may fail forest people - apparently, its complicated

from BBC.co.uk
Copenhagen 'fails forest people'
By Mark Kinver
A multi-billion dollar deal tabled at the Copenhagen climate summit could lead to conflicts in forest-rich nations, a report has warned.

The study by the Rights and Resources Initiative said the funds could place "unprecedented pressure" on some areas. Six nations offered $3.5bn as part of global plans to cut deforestation, which accounts for about 20% of all emissions from human activity.

Campaigners warn the scheme fails to consider the rights of forest people.

The money - tabled by Japan, Norway, Australia, France and the US and UK - was made available under the UN's Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (Redd) scheme. However, delegates in the Danish capital failed to reach agreement on the mechanisms needed to monitor and manage the framework.

"One of the things that the world has learned over the years is that Redd is far more difficult than many people imagined," said Andy White, co-ordinator of RRI, a US-based think-tank, and one of the report's lead authors. "The forested areas of the world - by and large - have very high levels of poverty, low levels of respect for local rights, and a very low level of control among local people to shape and control their destiny. "So the rather simplistic notion that money from the rich North can control or limit deforestation was unrealistic." Redd was developed as a global concept that would provide developing countries with a financial incentive to preserve forests.

The Copenhagen conference was expected to finalise an international Redd finance mechanism for the post-2012 global climate change framework. The RRI's report, The End of the Hitherlands, said that there would be "unparalleled" attention and investment in forests over the coming year. It asked: "But who will drive the agenda and who will make the decisions?"

The authors said studies showed that there was the potential for "enormous profits", but this would lead to increased competition for forest resources between governments and investors on one hand, and local communities on the other. Dr White told BBC News that the UN-Redd scheme still had "tremendous potential". "It requires, from our perspective, that the governments who tabled the $3.5bn quickly get together and decide on the standards and mechanisms that they will set up," he suggested. "This would send the necessary signals to the private sector, as well as forest-rich nations, about what is expected from them in order to comply with the policy. "Sorting out the institution arrangements in developing nations in order to manage the forest market is a huge undertaking."

But the report said that the "unprecedented exposure and pressure" on forest regions was being met by a rise in local groups setting up co-operatives and representative bodies. The authors added that it gave "nations and the world at large a tremendous opportunity to right historic wrongs, advance rural development and save forests".

Genetics Helps to Crack Down on Chimpanzee Smuggling

image from Ape Aliance (4apes.com)

From ScienceDaily.com

The population of chimpanzees across western Africa has decreased by 75% in the past 30 years, due in part to widespread chimp hunting. New strategies are needed to curb this illegal activity, experts say.

Research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Ecology suggests that genetics may provide valuable clues as to how to crack down on the animal smuggling trade, while also helping to safely reintroduce rescued apes into the wild.

A smuggler can get up to US $20,000 for a live chimpanzee on the international black market and around US $100 in the local market in Cameroon. It's perhaps not surprising then that despite the existence of enforced wildlife protection laws, smugglers in this poor country will risk the penalties.

In a collaboration between the University at Albany, State University of New York and Limbe Wildlife Centre in Cameroon, researchers have been comparing genetic sequences from rescued chimpanzees with those of their wild counterparts across several areas of the country and its border with Nigeria. In doing so, they hoped to determine where the rescued chimps come from and thereby assess whether smuggling was a widespread problem, or if hunting hotspots existed.

Lead scientist Mary Katherine Gonder said, "The data that we collected were put into a sophisticated computer program that mapped out the origins of the rescued chimpanzees. We found that all the rescued chimps were from Cameroon, implying that international smuggling is less of a problem than local trade. Worryingly though, the problem seems to occur throughout Cameroon, with some rescued chimps even coming from protected areas."

Chimps are often taken while hunters poach other animals, many of which are also endangered, so it is hoped that by identifying hunting patterns in smuggling routes the study could help reduce other illegal animal trade. Since as many as ten chimpanzees are killed for every one that is rescued, the findings of this study could have a significant impact on the restoration of the population.

Happily, for those chimpanzees that are rescued, the genetic information obtained in the study will also help to reunite them with their relatives in the wild. According to Gonder, "Most of the chimpanzees at Limbe Wildlife Centre belong to the most endangered subspecies of chimpanzee. They only inhabit Nigeria and adjacent parts of Cameroon. In 2004, this subspecies was predicted to be extinct within the next 25 years if current rates of decline continue. For these reasons, understanding where these refuge chimps are from is really important from a conservation point of view."

reference:
Lora Ghobrial, Felix Lankester, John A Kiyang, Akih E Akih, Simone de Vries, Roger Fotso, Elizabeth L Gadsby, Peter D Jenkins Jr and Mary K Gonder (in press) Tracing the origins of rescued chimpanzees reveals widespread chimpanzee hunting in Cameroon BMC Ecology

Abstract (provisional)
Background: While wild chimpanzees are experiencing drastic population declines, their numbers at African rescue and rehabilitation projects are growing rapidly. Chimpanzees follow complex routes to these refuges; and their geographic origins are often unclear. Identifying areas where hunting occurs can help law enforcement authorities focus scarce resources for wildlife protection planning. Efficiently focusing these resources is particularly important in Cameroon because this country is a key transportation waypoint for international wildlife crime syndicates. Furthermore, Cameroon is home to two chimpanzee subspecies, which makes ascertaining the origins of these chimpanzees important for reintroduction planning and for scientific investigations involving these chimpanzees.
Results: We estimated geographic origins of 46 chimpanzees from the Limbe Wildlife Centre (LWC) in Cameroon. Using Bayesian approximation methods, we determined their origins using mtDNA sequences and microsatellite (STRP) genotypes compared to a spatial map of georeferenced chimpanzee samples from 10 locations spanning Cameroon and Nigeria. The LWC chimpanzees come from multiple regions of Cameroon or forested areas straddling the Cameroon-Nigeria border. The LWC chimpanzees were partitioned further as originating from one of three biogeographically important zones occurring in Cameroon, but we were unable to refine these origin estimates to more specific areas within these three zones.
Conclusions: Our findings suggest that chimpanzee hunting is widespread across Cameroon. Live animal smuggling appears to occur locally within Cameroon, despite the existence of local wildlife cartels that operate internationally. This pattern varies from the illegal wildlife trade patterns observed in other commercially valuable species, such as elephants, where specific populations are targeted for exploitation. A broader sample of rescued chimpanzees compared against a more comprehensive grid of georeferenced samples may reveal 'hotspots' of chimpanzee hunting and live animal transport routes in Cameroon. These results illustrate also that clarifying the origins of refuge chimpanzees is an important tool for designing reintroduction programs. Finally, chimpanzees at refuges are frequently used in scientific investigations, such as studies investigating the history of zoonotic diseases. Our results provide important new information for interpreting these studies within a precise geographical framework.

Dr. Brian Hare stands up against chimps in entertainment

Brian Hare and Alan Alda taping "the human spark"

From PBS.org
Hollywood Chimps - The Debate
By Maggie Villiger
Most of the scientists who work closely with chimpanzees in their research are also sensitive to the species’ endangered status. A number of factors contribute to chimps’ precarious position in their native Africa: habitat loss, the bushmeat trade, and the pet trade. And some chimp experts also have concerns about how media portrayals here could affect chimpanzee survival abroad. Read on to learn about The Human Spark’s interaction with evolutionary anthropologist Brian Hare and why he says it’s problematic to have chimps in the pet and entertainment industries.

Part of my job as Associate Producer for The Human Spark is getting each person who appears on camera to sign our release form, which gives us permission to use what we film with them. To be honest, it’s usually the easiest part of my job! But when we filmed with Duke University’s Brian Hare at the North Carolina Zoo, he resisted.

Brian wanted to wait to grant his permission to air the footage we shot with him until we could guarantee that we’d used no “Hollywood” chimpanzees in our show. He’d recently had a bad experience with another film crew that did include Hollywood chimps in their program about human cognition, and he was adamant that he wouldn’t sign until he could know for sure that The Human Spark had not done the same.

So our crew left North Carolina with footage of a fantastic exchange between Brian Hare and Alan Alda – but with the release form unsigned. At the time, it just seemed like a speed bump, not a brick wall. The Human Spark had no intention of turning to stunt trainers to get footage – our interest is in the behavioral studies that respected scientists do with chimps, not tricks they can be trained to perform. We continued on our travels around the world, filming as we went.

One of our most important scenes was the open of the second program, So Human, So Chimp. Each Human Spark episode begins with Alan Alda setting up the hour’s theme by speaking directly to camera. In this case, the theme is that chimps and human beings share a lot of characteristics, but are also 6 million years of evolution apart. After hearing about a docile, home-raised chimp from another one of our experts, Series Producer Graham Chedd had an idea; he decided the most effective way to get this theme across was to have Alan introduce it while sitting with a young chimp and a young child. Filming with Noah, this young pet chimp who was well-accustomed to being around people, seemed like the safest and most responsible way to create this kind of compelling scene.

Cut forward several months. We needed to get that appearance release signed by Brian once and for all in order to broadcast the footage of him. But through email exchanges, it quickly became apparent we hadn’t fully understood Brian’s objections. He was OK with the material we had shot at zoos, sanctuaries and research centers because they are regulated by tough animal welfare standards. But featuring ANY privately owned chimp in the program would be enough for him to refuse to participate. And so we came to an impasse.

Brian patiently explained his ethical objections to us. He believes that filming pet or entertainer chimps helps contribute to the illegal international trade in infant chimpanzees – a trade that is helping push this endangered species closer to extinction. Brian worried viewers would get the mistaken impression that chimps make good pets; in fact, once they mature into strong and unmanageable adult chimps, virtually all of these animals are given up by their owners. Brian says some are even killed. There’s simply not enough space or resources to rehabilitate the hundreds of pet chimpanzees that are kept across the United States. Brian is troubled by the overall effect on the chimp species in the wild as well as by the suffering endured by individual privately owned chimps. Others agree, and in fact, major scientific, welfare and health organizations have policies against using privately owned primates in films.

Brian’s arguments were thoughtful and reasonable to The Human Spark team though he did concede that there is little scientific evidence that links TV portrayals of animals to the illegal pet trade. His group is currently conducting research into just this question so in future the debate can be informed by empirical evidence in addition to compassion for our primate relatives.

On the other hand, Graham pointed out how important the opening scene was to the film. Alan’s narration clearly included the facts that the differences between the child and the chimp would increase as they each grow up, and that the native habitats of chimps and their continued survival in the wild is in jeopardy. Graham also explained that the shot that follows this introduction is of Hondo, a full-grown alpha male at the North Carolina Zoo, lunging at his glass enclosure and scaring Alan. Graham felt the contrast between the cute baby chimp reaching up to Alan and the aggressive adult chimp trying to hit him, would powerfully transmit the idea that keeping chimps as pets is a very bad idea. He also added a line of narration that explains how Hondo was captured illegally in Africa as an infant, and shipped to the United States as a pet before he was rescued and eventually brought to the zoo.

We needed to come up with a compromise. Since all of us involved in this debate are in possession of our own human sparks, we called upon our sociability and ability to work together to move toward a solution. First, Graham made sure that Alan’s narration clearly explains the threats to chimpanzee survival posed by the bushmeat business and the illegal international trade in baby chimps. Graham also took out a portion of the opening scene where the baby chimp climbed up unbidden to hug Alan – it was undeniably cute, but in light of the points Brian had raised, Graham agreed that it might give the wrong impression.

Then The Human Spark production team arranged for Brian to take part in an ethics panel at a major nature film festival. Panelists discussed the use and abuse of animals in documentary films, and Brian was able to educate a vast group of filmmakers about the dangers of filming with privately-owned chimps. He even had a pamphlet [.RTF] ready for festival participants. So, as a result of our experience on The Human Spark, filmmakers are now better informed about the controversy surrounding the use of Hollywood chimps, and more aware of the possibility of unintended consequences.

Finally, we all eagerly agreed to post an explanation of this issue on the Human Spark website. By exploring the controversy and explaining our case study, we hope to get our viewers thinking about the issues as well, something that wouldn’t have happened if we had simply cut the problematic scene and moved on.

Read an article Brian Hare wrote for The Human Spark about why chimpanzees are not pets.

Thanks to Steve R for the link

updated: In the comments section of this post on the PBS website the following great exchange occurred as well:

Carol -- January 20th, 2010 at 9:51 pm

“He (Brian) was OK with the material we had shot at zoos, sanctuaries and research centers because they are regulated by tough animal welfare standards.”

What silly nonsense. Not only is 2 year old Noah not a ‘pet’, but his owner is by law permitted by the USDA and must meet the same ‘tough animal welfare standards’ as all other permittees. She also did not ask for or receive any compensation for Noah’s participation in The Human Spark.

Brian Hare -- January 22nd, 2010 at 12:46 am

Dear Carol,

If the private owner of Noah had to follow the same standards followed by accredited zoos, labs and sanctuaries Noah would never have been in a room with a young child. The U.S. needs a federal law against private ownership of chimpanzees (and other primates). This will help protect the public and these endangered animals in their native habitat countries. Otherwise – if U.S. citizens can have pet chimpanzees…then why shouldn’t Africans be allowed to take wild chimpanzees as pets? There is thriving (illegal) international trade in primates. If we want chimpanzees and other endangered primates to make it into the next century we must do everything to discourage this trade. I hope Noah’s owner and Carol will join the International Primatological Society, the Humane Society, and the AZA in trying to end the primate pet trade in this country and in Africa. There is nothing silly about extinction.

Thanks to Carol R (a very different Carol ;)) for bringing it to my attention