Most were snatched from the wild as infants, and some bred in a laboratory, and used in medical experiments. Their reactions as they venture into the outside world clearly show that chimps are sentient, emotional beings.

It’s well worth visiting the sanctuary’s website for great photos of the chimps and their individual stories.  How fantastic that these chimps finally have a life worth living!

This helping is not just reserved for other chimps too – in a previous study by Warneken, chimps were also witnessed helping humans in a similar task and handing a stick to them on request. Videos of both of these experiments can be found below.

Chimp helps human- scroll down the page, and play the first video in the list.

Sources:
Yamamoto, S., Humle, T.,Tanaka, M. (2009)
Chimpanzees Help Each Other upon Request
PLoS ONE, 4(10): e7416

Warneken, F., Hare, B., Melis, A. P., Hanus, D., Tomasello, M.
Spontaneous Altruism by Chimpanzees and Young Children
PLoS Biol 5(7): e184

Santino, another clever chimp, who's at www.livesofanimals.org/2009/03/santino-rocks/

This shows us more fascinating evidence about the sentience of chimps. In this case, Sakura is in a human-designed, captive environment, which may be somewhat enriched, but which is still unnatural for a chimp. The fact that Sakura works out what to do in these circumstances tells us even more about chimp awareness and understanding. These abilities are strong indicators of animal sentience.

Sakura is not alone in preferring sweet music. Back in 2001, there was research investigating how cows reacted to fast beats or to softer music. The researchers said: “We found that slow music improved milk yields perhaps because it relaxes the cows in much the same way as it relaxes humans.”

Despite increasing awareness of animal sentience, there is still resistance to appreciating or acknowledging that animals are sentient beings and there is reluctance to peer over the barrier of “human vs other animals” that we ourselves have created.

Cows enjoy soothing sounds. Photo (c) Compassion in World Farming/Karen Playford

It was previously thought that this kind of choice and preference about music was a “uniquely human trait.” So we see that Sakura and the dairy cows have overcome yet another barrier!

Jane Goodall and friend. Image (c) Michael Neugebauer

Dr Jane Goodall’s pioneering studies of wild chimpanzees revolutionised our knowledge about the sentience of these amazing animals.

This event is an exciting chance to meet Dr Goodall, hear more about her fascinating life and work, and take part in an informative question and answer session. Tickets are £20 for members of the Jane Goodall Institute and £40 for non members.

For more information and to book tickets, please contact Claire Quarendon at The Jane Goodall Institute, UK . 
Tel: 023 8033 5660 or email claire@janegoodall.org.uk

Santino makes plans. Image courtesy of Mathias Osvath

Santino the chimp, who is in a Swedish zoo, gathers up stones and even makes missiles out of concrete to hurl at visitors later on.

Western scrub-jays have also been tested to see if they can make plans for the future.

The jays were kept in cages with a ‘breakfast’ area and a ‘no breakfast’ area. Given the first chance to cache food, the jays cached three times more pine nuts in  in the ‘no breakfast’ area than they did in the ‘breakfast’ area.

This seems to show that they understood there might be no food given to them the following morning and so they tried to ensure they’d have something to eat.

Jays have unexpected abilities. Image: iStockphoto.com

Previously scientists had thought only humans were capable of this sort of thinking, but these kinds of observations seem to indicate amazing abilities in many animals too.

Hens can anticipate the future too. Researchers carried out an experiment where hens could either get a smaller food treat more quickly, or wait a little longer to get a bigger treat. The hens decided to wait!