Zoos

As It Happens6:24Great apes get a kick out of 'playfully teasing' each other, study findsWhat do you call it when a chimpanzee offers his buddy a delicious piece of fruit only to pull his hand away at the last second? Or when a bonobo repeatedly pokes, prods and pulls on the hair of an older relative not hard enough to hurt, but just enough to be annoying?It's not quite play, argues anthropologist Erica Cartmill, but it's not quite aggression either. It's "playful teasing." And, according to a new study, it's a very…

After a stay in Leukerbad, James Baldwin affirmed: "From all available evidence, no black man had ever set foot in this tiny Swiss village before I came. I was told before arriving that I would probably be a 'sight' for the village; I took this to mean that people of my complexion were rarely seen in Switzerland and also that city people are always something of a 'sight' outside of the city. It did not occur to…

We all had to make adjustments as the coronavirus pandemic unfolded – even zoo animals who were suddenly not seeing crowds of visitors pass by every single day.In a study published last year, researchers discovered how primates reacted to that shift, looking at the behavior of bonobos, chimpanzees, western lowland gorillas, and olive baboons, and finding that the animals changed their habits in a variety of ways, including the amount of time they spent resting and eating.Visitor interactions are thought to be crucial to…

Photo: Oli Scarff (Getty Images)In the latest in a string of troubling incidents at the Dallas Zoo, two emperor tamarin monkeys have vanished, just weeks after a clouded leopard also disappeared from its habitat and an endangered vulture was found dead under suspicious circumstances. On Tuesday, the Dallas Police released a photo of a man they say is person of interest in the case.Zoo officials said they noticed the monkeys were missing on Monday morning, noting that it appeared the enclosure was “intentionally…

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain The benefits of zoos to society and local communities are largely underestimated by the wider population, new research shows. Researchers found zoos have a unique platform to engage visitors with important messages that contribute to human health and well-being and sustainability. Zoos and…

We all had to make adjustments as the coronavirus pandemic unfolded – even zoo animals who were suddenly not seeing crowds of visitors pass by every single day. A new study shows how primates reacted to that shift.The research looked at bonobos, chimpanzees, western lowland gorillas and olive baboons, finding that these animals changed their habits in a variety of ways, including the amount of time they spent resting and eating.Visitor interactions are thought to be crucial to the welfare of zoo animals. Yet these…