Photo courtesy of Tasikoki Wildlife Rescue

We are finding out more and more about animals who use ‘tools’ in their daily lives. Animals in a group may also learn from each other and pass this information on to each other. Scientists call this ‘cultural transmission’.

The first documented case of wild orangutans making and using tools was reported from a population of orangutans in Indonesia in 1996. They used tools which they had crafted either for extracting insects or seeds to eat.

Researchers then went on to look at how tool-use varied between orangutans living in different regions. They compared the tool-use of orangutans at six different areas. It was found that the different orangutan populations behaved differently and these differences were greatest between groups living furthest apart. Orangutans who lived in larger groups and who were socially tolerant used tools more than those who were isolated.

Photo courtesy of Tasikoki Wildlife Rescue

The evidence suggested that the differences in behavior were cultural: firstly, because the extent of the differences increased with distance, and secondly, because the extent of the orangutans’ tool-use increased according the amount of social contact in their group. Social contact increases the amount of cultural transmission.

This video clip shows orangutans at a sanctuary copying behaviours they learned through observing their human counterparts. They learned how to manoeuvre a canoe, paint, wash with soap and even use a saw!

Orangutans are fascinating animals but their future is under threat. Their rainforest habitat is being cut down at an alarming rate for logging and agriculture, including plantations of palm oil, a vegetable oil widely used in food and everyday products. You may wish to choose products which do not contain palm oil. Some companies claim to use sustainably-produced palm oil.

Sources:

van Schaik C.P., Fox,E.A., Sitompul AF. (1996). Manufacture and use of tools in wild Sumatran orangutans – implications or human evolution. Naturwissenschaften 83: 186-188.

van Schaik C.P., Knott C.D., (2001) Geographic variation in tool use on Neesia fruits in orangutans. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 114:331-342

van Schaik C.P., van Noordwijk M.A., Wich, S.A. (2006) Innovation in wild Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii). Behaviour 143: 839-876

van Schaik C.P., Ancrenaz M., Borgen G., Galdikas B., Knott C.D., Singleton I., Suzuki A., Utami S.S., Merrill M. (2003). Orangutan cultures and the evolution of material culture. Science 299: 102-105

The humpback whale was on the migratory route around the California coast when she became terribly entangled in crab trap lines. Her life was at great risk.
She was tangled up in weighted ropes up to 240 feet long around her tail, her flipper and even in her mouth. The ropes were so tight they cut into her blubber and caused visible wounds. She was completely helpless  and the weight of the traps was causing her to struggle to keep her blow hole out of the sea.

A rescue team of divers went out to her but she was in such a state  they were  unsure that they stood any chance of saving her. They were at risk themselves, as the flick of a humpback’s tail can kill a human.

But they reported that as they worked to free the unfortunate creature, she did not struggle at all and they were aware of her eyes simply following them around as they worked.

Thankfully, the rescuers were successful but must have been astonished by the whale’s heartwarming response. When she felt herself come free, she began to swim around in circles and then went up to each diver one by one and nudged them. One of the rescuers is reported as saying: “It seemed kind of affectionate, like a dog that’s happy to see you … I never felt threatened. It was an amazing, unbelievable experience.”

Her response makes us think about the common ground that humans can have with animals who might appear so very different from us. A whale-watching expert who helped co-ordinate the rescue is quoted as saying: “You hate to anthropomorphize too much  but the whale was doing little dives and the guys were rubbing shoulders with it … I don’t know for sure what it was thinking, but it’s something that I will always remember. It was just too cool.”

An interesting point about our understanding of these large sea mammals was made by Gould and Gould in their book ‘The Animal Mind’. They suggest that perhaps we have been quicker to appreciate the intelligence and sentience of primates as they are so much more similar to us in their gestures and experiences, and therefore easier for us to read. We may have been slower to understand the complexity and richness of underwater creatures simply because they appear to be so very different to us.

Humpback Whale

Sources:
San Francisco Chronice (14/12/05). Daring rescue of whale off Farallones. Accessed 17/12/09.

Gould, J. L. and Gould, C. G. (1994) The Animal Mind. Scientific American Library, New York.

Credit: Roger Steene

The veined octopus is a truly amazing underwater character. Researchers in Melbourne have discovered that they get up to some surprising antics – using coconut shells.

These octopi collect coconut shells discarded by their human neighbours, gather them under their body and then carry them and walk, rather awkwardly, for up to 20m at a time. The scientists dubbed this as ‘stilt-walking’ due to the unusual way the octopus has to use its legs whilst carrying the shells.

The octopus goes to this considerable effort so he or she has portable ‘armour’. If suddenly under threat the octopus could create instant camouflage and protection by climbing in between two coconut halves.

This is really significant, as use of tools by animals is said to be a sign of higher mental functioning, as is planning for the future. Some people used to believe that only humans had such advanced abilities, but we increasingly find that other animals have so many unsuspected abilities – including a mind of their own. (see Rooks, Pigs).

Here is another shining example of amazing animals and a valuable reminder that animals can have many hidden abilities that we are yet to notice and appreciate.

Watch original video footage here.

ITN coverage:

Source: Finn, J. K., Treganza, T. and Norman, M. D. (2009) Defensive tool use in a coconut – carrying octopus, Current Biology, 19 (23): R1069-R1070.

Julian K. Finn^{1, 2,} , Tom Tregenza^3, and Mark D. Norman¹

Animal welfare consultant Heather Pickett has written a special article for our animal sentience pages. It’s a fascinating  read  about  horses’ behaviour, cognitive abilities (such as ‘thinking’) and welfare needs.  Horses have remarkably complex social lives; with membership of a herd being of ultimate importance to them and sometimes roaming for up to 80km in one day. They are great diplomats, able to resolve many conflicts in order to keep the herd together.

Self reflection. Copyright Compassion/ Ed Posposil

Mares often form lifetime relationships, spending most of their time together. Their foals often become good friends too as a result. They have remarkable memory skills and have even been shown to understand that a 3-D image can be shown in a photograph. For example, horses had been trained to have a ‘favourite’ object (for example a soft toy or a frisbee), using treats as positive reinforcement. Then they were shown photos of a range of things, including their ‘favoured toy’, and more often than not they would choose the photo of that toy. In a similar experiment (Stone 2009), horses were found to be able to tell the difference between photos of people, even identical twins!

Domesticated horses are often kept stabled alone and fed on concentrated food that is eaten quickly, rather than grazing the whole day as they would do in more natural conditions. These factors sometimes lead to destructive behaviours such as weaving, biting the stable doors and pacing. The occurrence of these unnatural behaviours illustrates that horses, just like many other animals, need an environment that more closely fits their needs and fully takes into account their sentience and intelligence.

Download the full article Pickett, H. (2009) ‘Horses: Their Behaviour, Mental Abilities and Welfare’. animalsentience.com
Shorter version also available

Reference: Stone, S. M. (2009) Human facial discrimination in horses: can they tell us apart?  Animal Cognition, Online first.

The grandmother saw what was happening and stepped in to help, even producing milk for the youngster. From then on she took it in turns with the mother to care for the kid, being there to support the mother goat and also ensure the kid had plenty of food.

Across the generations

Another example of grandmothers helping out was in the news last week. Researchers in Japan had been observing free-ranging macaque family groups when they noticed some interesting situations. A grandmother macaque took over the care of her grandchild when the mother disappeared; carrying, grooming and allowing her to suckle,  although the researchers believe she didn’t produce any milk. Perhaps letting the baby macaque suckle may have been an act of reassurance for the youngster.

When the mother returned after a period of time (believed to be 6-14 days) she resumed her duties in caring for the youngster.  Another grandmother was witnessed ‘sharing care’ with a struggling mother, and this time was believed to be producing milk as well.

A key feature in all of these stories is the fact that the grandmother was prepared to get involved quickly if needed, but was not overly possessive of the youngster. In both cases they seemed happy to share care with the mother, or hand the infant back when their job was done. This shows sensitivity to the needs of the situation, and more flexible thinking than if they were to simply ‘take over’ an abandoned youngster.

Sources:
BBC News – Grandmother Monkeys care for baby

Nakamichi, M., Onishi, K. and Yamada, K. (2009) Old grandmothers provide essential care to their young granddaughters in a free-ranging group of Japanese monkeys (Macaca fuscata)Primates, Online first. 10.1007/s10329-009-0177-7

Clever Hans

At the time, people thought he was working out the maths himself, and were disappointed to learn that he was reading their body language instead. But the fact that Hans could answer the questions by this method is in itself amazing. He was seeing small changes in the behaviour of his questioners which people did not see – and it took an extensive experiment for us to find out what Hans knew all along.

Other animals are also more tuned in to us than we might expect. In a previous post about Sociable sheep we found out that sheep preferred the faces of smiling people rather than stressed or angry people.

This leads us to consider, how much do animals really know about what we’re thinking?

Sources:
Clever Hans (BBC website)
McGreevy (2004) Equine Behaviour: A Guide for Veterinarians and Equine Scientists.

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

Mirror Image. Copyright Compassion/Elli Goodlet

A recent test found that pigs understand mirrors, and can learn where a food bowl is through looking at the reflection. One group of pigs had time to get used to the mirror before they were tested, and another group were only shown a mirror at the beginning of the test. A hidden food bowl was then shown to them in the mirror. The food bowl was empty – so the pigs would not be relying on their sense of smell to locate it.
All but one of the pigs who were familiar with the mirror found the food bowl in less than 23 seconds – whereas the pigs who were new to it looked behind the mirror for the bowl.

Again, we see the amazing capacities of animals to work out their environment and shows the importance of using only high welfare farming systems as pigs easily become bored and frustrated in barren factory farms. At a minimum, all pigs should have access to bedding materials that let them root and explore like their wild ancestors.

Source:
Broom, D. M., Sena, H., Moynihan, K. L. (2009)
Pigs learn what a mirror image represents and use it to obtain information.
Animal Behaviour, Article in Press

Socialising in the village square. (c) Compassion in World Farming/Chi Keung Wong

Pigs are very chatty, communicating with grunts, squeals, snarls and snorts, champing their jaws and clacking their teeth. Sows have a special call for their piglets when it’s time for the piglets to suckle. Sows and piglets keep contact with each other and with their mother by squeals and grunts. If piglets are separated from Mum, they squeal for her. Scientists found that sows responded more strongly to the desperate squeals from cold, hungry piglets than they did  to calls from larger, more well-fed piglets.

Animals can also understand each other’s language. For example, some animals can understand the meaning of another’s alarm call.

Dogs and humans have a long history of living together. While dogs are often quick are picking up what humans are saying – perhaps by the tone of voice rather than by all the actual words – we humans often seem to struggle to understand dog ‘bark language.’ In this really interesting video, courtesy of the social networking site Petstreet ,  dog communication expert John Rogerson helps us decipher what our furry friends are wanting to tell us.

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!