Category Animal World

Kanzi’s trainers do not claim that he can create grammatical sentences, but he does produce two words and three words statements that appear spontaneous, he communicate on his actions and describes to his trainers those he intends to carry out. He uses the keyboard to communicate with other pygmy chimpanzees undergoing the same training, so as telling one to tickle the other. His sentences also represent his own response to a situation. For example, when deprived of the company of another chimpanzee called Austin, Kanzi apparently felt lonely without the normal bedtime visit from his friend. After several nights, he punches the symbols for Austin and TV on his keyboard, and was shown a videotape of Austin, after which he went happily to sleep.

There is no evidence yet that animals are capable of abstract ideas or of active conversations. Even if we do improve our understanding of how they communicate, they may not have anything of enormous interest to say to us.

 

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Similar experiments have done the chimpanzees, orang-utans and other apes. Because they do not have the same vocal cords as humans, apes cannot be expected to speak. So the pioneers of this research, Allen and Beatrice Gardner of the University of Nevada, had the idea of teaching one of them sign language. In 1967 they obtained a one year old female chimpanzee named Washoe, and by 1971 had taught her to use American sign language, the method used by the deaf in the United States. She was repeatedly shown the signs and then was rewarded with a tickle or with food when she responded correctly. Washoe learned fast and soon knew a large number of words. She was eventually able to use 150 hand gestures.

Walking by a Lake one day, her trainer pointed at a dog. ‘What’s that?’, He asked in sign language. ‘Water bird’, said Washoe, apparently inventing her own word for ducks. Encouraged by this, other American scientists started training their own chimpanzees, using a range of different methods of communication. Some involved the identification of plastic shapes which symbolised, among other things, objects such as apples, or the trainers name. Others meant pressing different keys on a computer to communicate words or phrases. The result seemed to show that the chimps could indeed master language: they could respond to simple commands and use the language to ask for things.

Later, cold water was poured on the whole idea by another American psychologist, professor Herbert Terrace of Columbia University, New York. When Terrace analysed all Washoe two word phrases, he found that the word order was in fact a random. Washoe might just as easily have said bird water. Terrace also found that unlike human babies learning language, the chimps did not gradually increase the complexity of their sentences.

More recently, a pygmy chimpanzee called Kanzi has rekindled interest. Kanzi lives at the language research Centre near Atlanta, Georgia. His success in picking up the elements of language appears to show that pygmy chimpanzees have greater intellectual potential than gorillas, orang-utans and common chimpanzees.

Kanzi has been provided with a keyboard, linked to a computer. Each key is marked with the geometrical symbol which represents a word. As a baby, Kanzi played in the laboratory while his mother was taught to use the keyboard, and apparently picked up the skill by watching her. To the surprise of the scientists, Kanzi began using the symbols correctly at the age of two and a half, and by the age of three had acquired skills which common chimpanzees could not manage at the age of seven.

 

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The understanding that can develop between people and animals is often almost uncanny. Dogs are good at interpreting their owner’s wishes so that at times they appear to possess a sixth sense. Horses, too, can respond to the subtlest of cues, as the complex movements of Dressage demonstrate. But will it ever be possible for people to communicate with animals using ordinary language?

Some years ago intensive efforts were made to communicate with dolphins. These mammals have brains which are similar in size to that of a human being, and they seem to be very intelligent. Dolphins are also capable of making a wide range of sounds, including squeaks, groans, clicks, barks and whistles, to indicate alarm, threat and a recognition.

Attempts to interrupt this language have not been successful. But scientists have proved that these creatures, and sea lions, can recognise hand gestures – a form of language – and can respond correctly.

Rocky, a 13 year old sea lion at the Long Marine laboratory in Santa Cruz, California, has been trained to identify objects, by being rewarded when he gets it right, and he can now collect from his pool only the toy that he is asked for. His trainer, Ron Schusterman of the university of California, scatters up to a dozen different toys in the pool- balls, discs, bottles and so on. An assistant who sits on the edge of the pool makes signs to the sea lion asking him to collect a particular toy, and Rocky picks up the right item 95% of the time.

More significantly, he has also been taught the meaning of much more complex commands such as ‘take the ball to the disc’, or ‘take the small Black disc to the bottle’. The success rate of his responses on such a task is only 40%. However it would be impossible for him to do even that well by chance. To some extent at least, he appears to understand simple sentences.

 

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Extinct in Malaysia

The saddest news I heard last week: The Sumatran rhinoceros is now extinct in Malaysia.

Iman, the last female in Malaysia, at the Tabin Wildlife Reserve, in northeast Borneo, died in November 23, 2019. Another Sumatran rhino, Puntung was put to death in 2017. He had cancer. Tam, Malaysia’s last male rhino, died in May 2019. Fewer than 80 Sumatran rhinos are thought to exist in the wild, most on the nearby island of Sumatra. The rest are scattered across Kalimantan in Indonesia Borneo.

Christine Liew, Sabah State’s Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment, said, “Iman was given the very best care and attention since her capture in March 2014 right up to the moment she passed. No one could have done more.” The saddest part is this. Once these rhinos roamed the jungles of Malaysia in large numbers. With habitat loss and killing of these animals for their horns, their numbers came down. Now, no Sumatran rhino is left in Malaysia.

Tam’s death is a wakeup call to find more animals in the wild, say experts coordinating WWF International’s Sumatran rhino efforts for the last two years.

This is Tam’s story. Forest officials noticed Tam wandering around an oil pam plantation in 2008. He was captured and transferred to the Tabin Wildlife Reserve in the state of Sabah. Efforts were made to mate him with two female rhinos – Puntung, captured in 2011, and Iman, captured in 2014. They were not successful.

Where do they live?

Sumatran rhinos live in remote areas of tropical rainforests. The Leuser Ecosystem, which abounds in mountains and tropical rainforest, in Indonesia is home to several small, scattered populations of Sumatran rhinos. Since these are thick jungles, sightings of rhinos are rare. No one can say exactly how many exist. Forest officials count the rhinos through what they see in camera traps.

In 2015, Sumatran rhinos were declared extinct in the wild in Malaysia. Naturalists count these reasons for the population count of rhino diminishing in Malaysia and elsewhere.

Sumatran rhinos live in small herds, scattered across islands. A small population means the Sumatran rhino’s potential to reproduce is reduced. This puts the rhino at a higher risk for extinction.
The number of Sumatran rhinos everywhere has dropped an estimated 70% in the past twenty years. This is mostly due to poaching. Fewer than a hundred remain in Indonesia, in isolated pockets. Besides, Sumatran rhinos give birth about every three to five years. So their population remains small.

Efforts to save the species

In 2018, the world’s leading conservation NGOs including the National Geographical Society, decided to form a collaboration group called the Sumatran Rhino Rescue. The members would go out, find and safely capture as many wild rhinos as possible and bring them together for captive breeding. Officials at the WWF International said, “Tam’s death underscores how critically important the collaborative efforts driving the Sumatran Rhino Rescue project are. We’ve got to capture those remaining, isolated rhinos in Kalimantan and Sumatran and do our best to encourage them to make babies.”

The experts, however, were able to understand the kind of animal Sumatran rhinos are by monitoring Tam in captivity. This information should help biologists in their rhino breeding efforts in the future. “The work that the Borneo Rhino Alliance did with advanced reproductive techniques, especially harvesting eggs and attempting to create embryos, took us one step further towards understanding of the species’ biology,” said Susie Ellis, executive director of the International Rhino Foundation.

What can we do?

We must understand how precarious the survival of Sumatran rhinos is. Don’t we want this small rhinoceros to survive? The death of Tam represents roughly one percent of the Sumatran rhino population.

But there is good news. The coalition group, Sumatran Rhino Rescue has managed to capture a new female named Pahu. She has been transferred to a new breeding facility in Kelian, Indonesia. This effort was seen as extremely important and the rhino was given escort by the Indonesian police who helped to clear the mudslides on the way with bulldozers. As far as experts can tell, Pahu does seem to be reproductively healthy. She is doing well in her new home, and we can all keep our fingers crosses for her to have company soon. Pahu’s capture shows that there are other rhinos still roaming in Kalimantan’s forests and that in turn gives hope for the animal species future. Experts say that the world needs to be laser-focused on saving the remaining 80 Sumatran rhinos, using a combination of intensive protection and captive breeding, and working with local people to instill pride that the rhino is part of their biological heritage. “This is a battle we cannot afford to lose.”

 

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When the 2004 tsunami hit, a baby hippo was separated from his family in Kenya. The orphan found a home in Haller park a sanctuary in Mombasa. In the beginning, to help him adjust, Owen was housed with a 130-year-old Aldabra tortoise called Mzee.

The tortoise did not respond initially but with Owen’s repeated nuzzling, he warmed up. The two slept together, ate together and appeared to cuddle up! The tortoise taught the hippo to eat cut leaves and carrots, so it became easy for the keepers to look after Owen.

The pair inspired a website and children’s books, but eventually Owen was introduced to a female hippo and Mzee got a new tortoise companion of his own.

 

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Doc Antle is the founder of a sanctuary in South Carolina, USA. A stray dog Roscoe, followed Antle and Suryia, an orangutan in the Centre, through the park’s gate in 2006. Suryia immediately began playing with the dog. The two animals would frolic in the enclosure for a few hours every day, swimming in the pool and rolling on the grass. The orangutan would even take Roscoe for a walk on a leash!

Suryia will take Roscoe for walks around the enclosure and even feeds him some of his monkey biscuits. When they are both feeling a little lazy they will go for a ride on the back of Bubbles, our 27-year-old African elephant.’  That was two years ago and they’ve been fast friends since.  Their story has been featured in many articles and TV shows including National Geographic’s Unlike Animal Friends.

 

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