Can Chimps Wage War? | Tales From the Bottle

for a long time humanity has had a fascination with monkeys especially chimpanzees some of her closest relatives from an evolutionary standpoint by observing these creatures we get a glimpse into what humans were like before we were humans before we wore clothes before we learned to farm before we invented the Internet and tragically regressed back into slobbering mindless apes but chimps have proven to us that some behaviors are more nates than all of those and come more naturally to us perhaps most interesting of these and most depressing is war often thought to be the scourge of mankind war was first observed in chimpanzees not too long ago when one fraction of chimps drew blood on another in Tanzania leading to a power struggle lasting years our story starts in the 1960s when not a lot was actually known about chimpanzee behavior primatologist Jane Goodall achieved fame as the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees for her research on a community of chimps in Gombe National Park Tanzania she discovered that chimps were much more alike humans than previously thought in her initial groundbreaking research Goodall came to recognize behaviors and personalities in the chimps that meant she could tell them apart she even started to give them names she had set up bins of food for the monkeys and observing their behavior and visiting the food sources allowed her to discover the relationships the chimps had with each other not only would she know how much time certain chimps spent together during the visits but also what chips arrived together and in what direction they came from the community of chimps was a few dozen strong and very close-knit she also observed that they have two making capabilities which until this point was taught to separate humans from every other animal the chimps would sometimes dip stalks of grass or branches into termite mounds and then removed the implement which would now be covered in termites for them to eat it's a little bit like fishing or coming up with a good title and thumbnail for a YouTube video yes you are all my termites and I am the big monkey in doing this the chimps would strip leaves and other protrusions from their makeshift fishing rod before using it which demonstrated that they were able to modify their basic tools this stuff is common knowledge now but back then it was unprecedented I mean the research when I say that as well not the act of taking leaves off a branch we've had that technology for a long time Jane Goodall became very fond of the monkeys who appeared to her as little peaceable humans and you know also played a pretty vital part in her becoming one of the leading primatologists at the time but they weren't as peaceable as they seemed apart from eating bugs it was thought that chimpanzees were vegetarians but Jane had seen the chimps organize hunting parties and prey on the smaller colobus monkey why look at them that looked like little skunk monkeys little skunk 'yes Jane was fairly shocked to discover her lovely friendly chimps had been hunting down and eating what are essentially Pokemon but by the 1970s the chimpanzees would commit acts that would break her heart and give her nightmares that kept her up at night for years to come it all began with Leakey the alpha male of the group he's like the bastion he makes all the rules under Leakey's leadership the group was strong but Leakey died at the end of 1970 his successor as alpha male was Humphrey but Humphrey was not as good a leader as Leakey I don't really know what that means in monkey terms maybe he didn't give as good of a pep talk Humphreys leadership was challenged by two brothers Charlie and Hugh Humphrey could take either brother alone but together they were a force to be reckoned with over the next few years Jane noticed the chimp community becoming splintered at the food bins they interacted less as a whole group and often came from different directions by analyzing the relationships the chimps had previous to Leakey's death compared to now good Alcatel that the chimps were dividing into two factions those who supported Humphrey and those that supported Charlie and Hugh it began slowly with the two groups interacting less and less they wouldn't attend birthday parties of the chimps on the other side and by the end of the year they weren't even sending Christmas cards the two groups isolated from each other splintering the community into two distinct tribes in the south the Coahoma tribe consisted of seven adult males three females and their young led by Charlie and Hugh the other males were wholly the Goliath sniff and Willy Willie wali to the north the Casa kala tribe was led by Humphrey and was made up of 12 females and their young as well as eight adult males Humphrey himself Mike Cheri Everett rode off jo mio feegan and Satan Jesus Jane really named one of the monkeys Satan so a lot right we've got Willie Wally and then another we have Satan I wonder who the bad guys are Jay notice that after the two tribes had isolated from each other they would stand off any time they met and display signs of aggression before ultimately retreating the began border patrols where a group of males would line up single file and Scout an area of contested territory in complete silence which is unusual for groups of chimps they were looking for intruders on the border there was even one chimp who campaigned to build a wall and make the other tribe pay for it sorry too political the first death of the war occurred in 1974 when a patrol of six Casa kala males Humphrey feegan Joe mio sherry Everett and Rudolph descended upon the common hodie while he was eating alone a chase ensued but Humphrey cart haughty and threw him to the ground the chimps began to pound on haughty and bite him while Humphrey held him down when he was dead the Casa College imps celebrated loudly the Casa College imps had developed a tactic for their battles even though chimps are social creatures and live in groups they tend to temporarily split from a group so they can eat in peace the Casa kala tribe uses to their advantage and would assemble a group to come down on a long common while he was eating over the course of the four year war every pass Acala kill was achieved thusly D from the kama tribe was the next to fall Goodall was struck with the image of Joe meow tearing a strip of flesh from his thigh next was leader Hugh later in the war the older chimpanzee Goliath would be ambushed Goliath was the only chimp who was on somewhat friendly terms with the Casa kala tribe and offered little resistance as the unreciprocated in Casa collet chimps beat him Goodall was struck by the sight of feegan charging and attacking the quivering lieth over and over saying that Goliath had been feegans childhood hero now vastly outnumbered the remaining Kahana tribes stood little chance against the Cossack ala the leader Charlie was soon felled and Willie Wally suddenly disappeared presumably to the same fate and was never seen again not Willy Wally for over a year sniff escaped the grasp of the Cossack alla tribe and survived by himself the possibility of sniff forming an alliance with another tribe seemed likely but sadly sniff too was cut down by the Casa Collins in 1978 Jane Goodall's last memory of him was Satan cupping his hands under sniffs chin to drink the blood Welling from a great wound on his face the Kurama tribe was no more [Music] you know I was kind of hoping the last survivor sniff would have been able to turn things around and avenge his tribe he was young he had a year to grow strong and survive on his own possibility of bringing in some other chimps and turning the tables he even has a cool name like this is a stray out of a movie I was really rooting for him sadly in real life you rarely get the happy ending Danlos monkeys [ __ ] you sing the cassock allah tribe took over the Qayamat territory but they ran into another much bigger tribe the : d they were forced to concede much of their newly gained territory but after some violent skirmishes peace soon returned to the land the war had a lasting effect on Jane Goodall who had previously seen chimps as a nicer version of humans of course her research on the war was very important many in the scientific community did not actually believe it they accused Jane of applying human characteristics to the monkeys and overdramatizing events giving a report that was skewed by human perspective son said her feeding bins had bred conflict where previously there was none but it has since been proven that Jane was correct chimpanzees do wage war in their natural state before this ever thought that chimpanzees were as peaceful as bonobos another close human relatives but hey maybe we just haven't been keeping as close an eye on the bottle balls who knows how many Satan's Thailand the bond of all ranks not that any of this information stops idiots in keeping chintzes pets and promptly being brutally mauled and disfigured and ships are [ __ ] strong too and have a serious bite not only do they possess the physical prowess to tear you to pieces but they're not mindless in their violence either a dog will just grab onto a leg or whatever can get hold of the chimps go for the face they'll bite your fingers off they're known to castrate and disembowel their enemies they pick their spots overall it's pretty sad to know that war is so deeply ingrained in our nature and came before civilization before medicine and settlements government and industry language and diplomacy the chimpanzees in Gombe had none of that arguably but if they showed us one thing it is that war [Music] war never changes [Music] [Music]

Channel: Qxir

Views: 732,836

Keywords: gombe chimpanzee war, gombe national park, chimp, chimps, chimpanzees, monkeys, war, warfare, tactics, chimpanzee, research, explained, animated, wild, fight, attack, clans, tribes, tribe, clan, group

Id: MvOjQAL7q6U

Length: 10min 13sec (613 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 17 2020