When Animals Resist

May 10, 2012 (Fox News)

“Santino,” a male chimpanzee at Furuvik Zoo in Sweden, is devising increasingly complex attacks against zoo visitors.

At first Santino was famous for throwing rocks and other projectiles at visitors who annoyed him. Now he has improved his technique, which requires spontaneous innovation for future deception. Researcher Mathias Osvath, lead author of a paper about Santino in PLoS ONE, explained what the clever chimp did:

“After a visitor group had left the compound area, Santino went inside the enclosure and brought a good-sized heap of hay that he placed near the visitor’s section, and immediately after that he put stones under it,” Osvath said.

“He also appeared to have placed projectiles behind, just before he went in after the hay. After this, he sat down beside the hay and waited. When the visitors came back, he waited until they were close by and, without any preceding display, he threw stones at the crowd.”

March 9, 2009 (Discovery News)

If non-human primates could be arrested, Santino the chimp might be behind jail bars for throwing stones and handcrafted weapons at zoo visitors, since a new study found his cleverly orchestrated attacks were premeditated.

The discovery, published in the latest issue of Current Biology, provides evidence that chimpanzees can plan for a future, rather than a current, mental state. This, in turn, implies “advanced consciousness and cognition traditionally not associated with animals,” according to Mathias Osvath, who conducted the study.

Staff at the Furuvik Zoo in Sweden first became suspicious in 1997 when they spotted multiple stone piles at the park’s “chimpanzee island” where Santino lives, explained Osvath, a Lund University researcher in the field of cognitive science.

A caretaker performed surveillance by hiding herself behind a blind to investigate what was going on.

She observed that “on five consecutive days, before the zoo opened, the chimpanzee gathered stones from the water and placed them in caches.” Later on each of these days, Santino was seen throwing the rocks at unsuspecting zoo visitors.

“Stone throwing toward a crowd of people has an instant and dramatic effect,” Osvath wrote, “and was a way to evoke reactions across the water moat that enclosed the chimpanzee.”

In 1998, Santino tweaked his method by adding pieces of concrete to his ammunition. In order to do this, he had to detect invisible weak areas in concrete rock structures located at the center of the island.

“The chimpanzee was observed to gently knock on the concrete rocks, from time to time delivering harder blows to break off the detached surface in section in discoidal pieces, and sometimes breaking these into further smaller fragments,” Osvath explained, adding that “these manufactured missiles were often transported to the caches at the shoreline.”

Since Santino’s behavior was first noticed, Osvath and various zoo staff have observed him gathering stones on at least 50 distinct occasions, and manufacturing concrete “missile” discs around 18 times.

Santino is the lone male on the island, which he has shared with multiple females over the years. The females “seem to show little interest in the stone caches and concrete disc manufacturing.”

The chimp’s calculating behavior began one year after the group’s dominant male died, and appears to somewhat mirror primate dominance displays in the wild. Due to weather and other restrictions, the chimps are only on public display for 25 percent of the year, so the Swedish chimps may be less accustomed to human gawkers than are chimpanzees housed at other zoos.

Chimps may not even be the only animals that feel compelled to attack humans with rocks from time to time.

Antonio Moura, who conducted research while in the Department of Biological Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, observed capuchin monkeys at Serra da Capivara National Park in Brazil. Moura noticed that whenever he approached, the monkeys would move to higher ground and search for a loose stone, which they would then hit on a rock surface several times.

This activity not only led to a disturbing noise racket, but it also dislodged other stones that could hit Moura, or any other approaching individual, from below.

Scientists at the Primate Research Institute in Kyoto have additionally documented Japanese macaques making noise with stones, as well as throwing them.

“The recent emergence of a unique behavior, stone throwing, may serve to augment the effect of intimidation displays,” concluded primatologist Michael Huffman and his colleagues. “Research on such transformation may shed light on the evolution of stone-tool use in early hominids.”

May 16, 2012 (Sioux City Journal)

Authorities in five Northwest Iowa counties are still looking for a handful of buffalo believed to be on the loose after escaping from a ranch. 

About 200 buffalo went through a gate at the Frick and Joe Buffalo Ranch at 4982 200th St. in Sibley, Iowa, on Sunday.

The animals have been spotted in Lyon, Osceola, Sioux and O’Brien counties in Iowa and Nobles County, Minn., said Osceola County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Seth Hofman.

“They can go really, really fast,” he said.

Most have been captured or killed, but one was seen early Wednesday near Highway 60 and 280th Street north of Sheldon, police said. Police suspect more are still loose.

No injuries have been reported.

[as of this writing, 30 remain free and have been reported stampeding across five counties.]

May 18, 2012 (The Raw Story)

North Carolina scientist Fred Boyce is lucky to still have both arms today after a run-in with an alligator on Wednesday. A motorist spotted the 10 foot, 200 pound reptile sunning itself on the side of the road and called authorities.

Boyce, an employee of the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores, arrived at the scene just after first responders.  Wildlife officials had been called but were still hours away.  Boyce, who has handled alligators before, stepped in and attempted to wrangle the animal on his own, with nearly disastrous results.

The alligator grabbed Boyce in its powerful jaws and gave him a violent shake before letting him go.  Boyce, who appeared on “Good Morning America” this morning said that he was lucky the animal was “nice” to him, not biting down with its full strength, which would have take his arm off at the shoulder.

Watch video of this story here, which ran Friday, May 18 on ABC.

May 11, 2012 (Huffington Post)

Many people try to get by on a wing and a prayer, but the parishioners at an Indiana church could do without the wings, thank you.

Recently, a pair of hawks swooped down to the St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Mishawaka, Ind., and moved in upstairs.

At first, they were good neighbors who respected the sanctity of the church, but things have turned hellish recently, according to church pastor Father Terry Fisher.

“Up until a couple weeks ago they really weren’t bothering anybody and we weren’t bothering them,” Father Fisher told WSPT-TV.

However, they have just started getting a little too protective about their nest and have begun swooping down and attacking people.

“They got one lady on the top of her head and she had to have stitches, and another woman on the side of her face,” Father Fisher said.

They’ve been acting so satanic, in fact, that the church asked a higher power to intervene: the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.

But don’t expect the DNR to fly in to the rescue. Officials said the hawks are a protected species, so nothing can be done until they decide to fly the coop of their own volition, The Republic reported.

Even if that happens tomorrow, it won’t end the bird-brained problem overnight, Fisher said.

“Once they build their nest, I guess you have relatives moving in for a few months until their babies hatch and are old enough to fly away,” Fisher told the South Bend Tribune.

Until then, he suggests that anyone worried about the birds should use an umbrella when entering the church or use a rear entrance.

Apr 26, 2012 (ABC News)

The workers of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant received a very slimy surprise this week when they discovered hoards of jellyfish-like creatures clinging to the structure, leading to the shutdown of the plant.

The organisms, called salp, are small sea creatures with a consistency  similar to jellyfish.

The influx of salp was discovered as part of the plant’s routine monitoring system, according to Tom Cuddy, the senior manager of external and nuclear communications for the plant’s operator, Pacific Gas & Electric.

“We then made the conservative decision to ramp down the affected unit to 20 percent and continued to monitor the situation,” Cuddy said. “When the problem continued, we made another conservative decision that it would be safest to curtail the power of the unit.”

The salp were clogging the traveling screens in the intake structure, which are meant to keep marine life out and to keep the unit cool.

“Safety is the highest priority,” Cuddy said. “We will not restart the unit until the salp moves on and conditions improve. No priority is more important than the safe operation of our facility.”

The plant consists of two units. Unit 1 was shut down previously because of refueling and maintenance work and will not be functional for several weeks. Now that Unit 2 has been shut down because of the influx of salp, the plant has ceased all production.

Even with the Diablo Canyon plant out of commission, PG&E has pledged to continue production using other sources of power so that customers are unaffected by the closure.

“We’ve had salp cling to the intake structure before, but nothing to this extent,” Cuddy said.

The plant’s strategy? Simply wait until the salp move on and resume production once the filters are clear.

March 12, 2003 (CNN)

COVINGTON, Louisiana (AP) — Two dozen monkeys escaped from a research center and holed up in a forest, where animal-control workers used bananas and oranges to try to lure them out.

The monkeys are classified as disease-free and posed no health risk to humans, but workers trying to capture the animals wore protective gowns and gloves as a standard precaution, said Fran Simon, a spokeswoman for the Tulane Regional Primate Center.

By Wednesday, eight of the 24 rhesus macaques remained on the loose.

“When they get hungry enough, they’ll come back,” Simon said.

The Tulane Regional Primate Research Center, established in 1964, is the largest of eight federally funded primate research centers, with 500 acres of land, eight buildings and about 5,000 monkeys. Its main study area is infectious diseases caused by viruses, bacteria and parasites.

It was not clear how the monkeys escaped from a fenced area outside the research facility Tuesday, said James Hartman, a spokesman for the St. Tammany Parish sheriff.

In the past, animal-rights activists have freed or attempted to free monkeys, but there were no signs that vandalism played any role in Tuesday’s escape, Hartman said.

April 2, 2012 (io9.com)

Sweden’s grey seal was once terribly endangered, its population thinned almost to nothing in the 1970s from pollution and hunting in the Baltic Sea. But then the seal population began to bounce back in the 1980s. And today, in the coastal waters off Sweden, there is a pitched battle going on between the restored ranks of grey seals and the Swedish fishing industry. A new study reveals that the seals are eating as many fish as the fishing industry brings in each year, and that they’re doing it in part by stealing from fishing boats and traps.

Marine biologist Karl Lundström, a researcher with Sweden’s University of Gothenburg, recently published the results of a long-term study of the grey seals’ diet. Like their human counterparts in Sweden, the seals are mostly eating herring, but they’re also chomping on salmon and pretty much every other fish they can. They are, as Lundström put it, “fish-eating predators at the top of the marine ecosystem.” And by “top,” he means above humans. Though the Swedes have built fishing nets that are supposed to be humane and seal-proof, the seals turn out to be fairly ingenious at figuring out new ways to steal fish from them. As you can see in these videos, taken over the past several years, the seals do everything from jumping inside the nets and back out, to just ripping the crap out of them.

According to the University of Gothenburg:

Some seals have learned to hunt at the push-up trap that has been developed for the small-scale fishing of salmon and whitefish in the Baltic. The trap has a seal-safe chamber in which the caught fish are collected, supposedly safe from the seals. Despite this, damage caused by seals has not been fully eliminated. Some seals, quite simply, have managed to figure out the equipment, and overcome it. By filming seals who hunt close to the trap, the scientists could identify ten individuals who had become specialists in hunting in the trap. These seals returned to the site over a long period.

[University of Gothenburg marine ecologist Sara Königson says] “Since we now know that it is only certain seals who are responsible for the damage, we have the chance of limiting the damage in a certain region, simply by removing these individuals.”

So it’s humans vs. seals, and the seals are currently winning — unless the scientists and fishing industry get their way and “remove” the smartest of the seals.

For people who fear the extinction of cute seals, this is weirdly heartwarming tale of how these fierce but cute predators fight back with strength and smarts. It’s also a reminder that when humans don’t play dirty by murdering other animals with guns, we’re not the only apex predator in the ecosystem.

Read more via University of Gothenburg