![]() The tale of the African chimps, told by Dora Biro from the University of Oxford, differs in its details but has many parallels. There is even a dramatic photograph that reached cyberspace.” Legendary primate researcher Frans de Waal says, “I have seen chimpanzees die in captive colonies, sometimes unexpectedly and sometimes after a long illness, and the reactions described here correspond with my experiences. For the following week, none of the chimps nested on the platform where Pansy died, even though all of them had frequently done so before. His alarm calls drew the other two back to the day area, where the trio spent the night. When they were allowed to return to the sleeping area, Blossom and Rosie did so hesistantly, but Chippy refused. They removed straw from Pansy’s body, ate less than normal, and watched silently as the keepers took Pansy away. All the three surviving chimps slept restlessly and the next morning, they were all subdued. Rosie, meanwhile, stayed with her mother’s body throughout the night, on a platform that she had never previously slept on. Blossom groomed her son for an extraordinary amount of time, perhaps an act of consolation or social support. More unusually, Chippie attacked Pansy’s corpse on no less than three occasions (see video below) Gillies thinks that he may have been trying to rouse her or expressing frustration or anger. They groomed her with unusual frequency in the 10 minutes before her death and afterwards, they seemed to test for life by inspecting her mouth and lifting her limbs. At 4pm on December 7th, she started breathing erratically and laboriously and Gillies let the others join her. Instead, of sleeping on their usual platforms, they nested near her. Her fellow chimps seemed to know that something was up. She started becoming lethargic in November and started receiving veterinary care. Pansy’s final hours were documented by Alasdair Gillies, head keeper at Blair Drummond. When studying animal behaviour, it is always important to avoid the trap of anthropomorphism, but one cannot help but draw comparisons between Rosie, Blossom and Chippie’s actions and the responses of humans to peaceful death. In stark contrast, Pansy’s peers were calm and restrained. And in other cases, chimps have been shown to attack or even cannibalise the corpses of dead infants, despite the protestations of their mothers. This time, the others frequently touched the body and some males even dragged it for short distances before abandoning it. They stared and sniffed at the corpse, but no one touched it and after four hours, the group left.Įlsewhere, in the Tai Forest, a leopard fatally mauled a young female and the same mass excitement ensued. The others made alarm calls and aggressive displays, and they touched and held each other. At Gombe National Park in Tanzania, the death of a male who fell from a tree was greeted by an eruption of noise. These examples of quiet, calm behaviour are incredibly different from previous anecdotes. Even after both babies had completely mummified into dry, leathery husk, the mothers still carried them, and other groups members investigated them. They groomed the dead youngsters and chased away the flies that circled them (see image and video below). Their mothers, Jire and Vuavua, carried their babies’ lifeless bodies around for 68 and 19 days respectively. In 2003, a respiratory epidemic killed five of the local chimps, including two babies called Jimato and Veve. The second took place several thousand miles away in the forests of Bossou, Guinea. This footage provides a rare glimpse into how one of our closest relatives deal with death, and it’s one of two such examples that have been published today. Rosie even conducted the equivalent of an all-night vigil. The others seemed to care for Pansy in her final minutes, examine her body for signs of life, and avoid the place where she died. Their reaction to her passing was recorded by the park’s cameras (see video above) and many of their actions seem remarkably human. She was over 50 years old and lived on an island in Blair Drummond Safari Park with three other chimps – her daughter Rosie, another adult female called Blossom, and Blossom’s son Chippie. On the 7th of December, 2008, in the heart of Scotland, a chimpanzee called Pansy died peacefully.
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