Brutal baboon battle erupts for throne at Toronto Zoo after matriarch dies | Hacker News Reader

Brutal baboon battle erupts for throne at Toronto Zoo after matriarch dies

thestar.com

152 pointscurtis54 comments

> So Dutton and his staff anesthetized her to figure out what was going on. An exploratory surgery revealed a tumour in her uterus that had spread to the abdominal wall. It was terminal, Dutton said, so they euthanized her on the operating room table on Dec. 5, 2014.

> “You have to let their natural behaviour happen,” Franke said. “They have to sort it out. In the wild, a lot of times it’s to the death.”

Which makes me wonder how things would have played out had they not euthanized the current matriarch. Would she have lived long enough to allow her oldest daughter to mature? Would have there been other behaviors/rituals the baboons would have gone through because they would have seen the matriarch pass naturally?

Edit: grammar

It seems the caretaker confuses himself here. Allowing animals to sort things out by themselves, but removing leader unnaturally? Sounds like there was a lack of deeper thought in here and human emotions (saving animal from pain) took over logic.

Killing the animal earlier is not really unnatural - animals die suddenly all the time.

There's a difference between "natural" and "what would have happened otherwise".

That's right, unless animals felt safe since they are in Zoo and their behavior is different than out in dangerous nature...

> removing leader unnaturally

Not sure what that means. The matriarch was essentially kidnapped and killed by a large predator, for all practical purposes. That's quite natural, actually.

Not only that, but by taking out the Alpha, they not only created a power vacuum, they also put her family members on the chopping block. In lot of animal troupes, if an alpha is displaced (male or female), the new alpha and its heirs will attempt to kill the other alpha's family to extinguish the bloodline and allow their own bloodlines to be dominant - which is exactly what happened.

I'm puzzled they were so surprised this is what happened.

Patriarch, not alpha; there is no such thing as an alpha.

If you say the word "alpha" in the context of social group dominance, and EVERYONE knows what you mean...

Then the word means something, despite your political correctness.

It's not political correctness, it's actual correctness. Nor did I say the word didn't mean anything, I said there's no such thing as an Alpha. If they use the word alpha when discussing social dominance, they're wrong, just as they'd be wrong if they used the word aether when talking about the higgs field. The alpha theory implies the dominant one is the strongest one, that's simply not how these social hierarchies work, it's usually the eldest one or the father/mother of a group; to use the term alpha is simply wrong in any context.

I don't know what alpha theory you are talking about, but as far as the accepted definition of alpha goes[1], it's "Denoting the dominant[2] animal or human in a particular group".

So as far as I can see, the word was being used in the correct context, implying the correct accepted definition. So it seems a bit strange that you first claim that not only is the wrong term being used, but that the term does not actually exist (or is accepted). I'm curious what you think, so would you like to expand on why you disagree?

[1] "Denoting the dominant animal or human in a particular group", http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/alpha#a...

[2] "Having power and influence over others", http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/dominan....

Quoting me definitions that arose to begin with from bunk science does not negate my point that they're incorrect and based on bunk science. Just because words have entered the popular lexicon doesn't make them correct when applied in the very area the bad science was done. The term alpha is non-sense, end of story.

> I don't know what alpha theory you are talking about,

Clearly, so why don't you look into the origins of the word and its current usage; what you'll find is bad science. Packs don't have alphas and betas, dogs and wolves don't have alphas and betas; the leader of a pack is usually the father of the pack, not the strongest or most dominant in a pack, and everything implied about dominance by the term alpha is simply wrong. It's not how packs work, it's not how baboons work, it's not how social groups work. There are no betas and no alphas. It's just bad science that got popular enough to enter the popular lexicon.

Olive baboon structure in a matriarch, not patriarch. Patriarch is the wrong term in this context.

Oh, you're correct, my mistake on that, my alpha point stands.

But a zoo isn't a natural environment anyway all the animals are in a fairly confined area it's not like they could run a kilometer away to escape.

Primates have quite different behaviors in captivity even if Baboons would fight like this in the wild captivity can seriously aggravate this as without natural selection there might not be a clear hierarchy within the tribe so the order of succession could be very different and without a clear heir due to the fact that they tribe does not have to worry about food or predators. In any case there is nothing wrong of removing an animal from the group if it's life is at risk it's already does not follow the natural order. Removing specimens due to violence or otherwise adverse group interactions is very common in many cases they will relocate them to another pack in another zoo and try it again there.

She had stopped eating by the time they euthanized her; she wouldn't have lived longer than a few more days.

> Which makes me wonder how things would have played out had they not euthanized the current matriarch. Would she have lived long enough to allow her oldest daughter to mature?

Good point. Maybe the throne would've passed peacefully to the daughter. But the zookeepers decided to play God and now baboon blood is on their hands.

There's a lot of grumpy sarcasm in this thread! I wonder, might a violent primate story stir some innate tendency towards violence in humans?

Or maybe it's just monday during holiday season and that has people rumpled. Or maybe too much of the internet is leaking into HN these days ... :(

Ridiculous for them to close the exhibit. Lest we can't have people learn and understand how different animals behave within their groupings.

I remember watching a troupe of baboons at the zoo in Paris when I was young. Some kind of fight broke out among a few of the animals. It ended with one of the adults grabbing an infant baboon and running back and forth over the scenery, dragging the screaming infant over the molded concrete rocks. I'm not sure if this killed the baby or not. The zookeepers either weren't aware of this or adopted a laissez faire attitude as you suggest.

I was about twelve or thirteen at the time, so for me it was definitely educational, if disturbing. A lot of smaller children were watching the ordeal too, and many of them were crying by the end.

Sounds like either baboons should not be subject of captive display or kids should not be allowed to zoos.

Ah, baboons are bad for children. Alcohol and baboons are fit only for adults. State-issued ID is required to visit the liquor store and the baboon exhibit. Soon to come: trigger warnings on the baboon enclosure. And on Jane Austen and the complete Bronte oeuvre.

From what I understood from the article, they closed the exhibit because they didn't want the visitors to see the (potentially unsettling/traumatizing) injuries on the baboons. Which actually sounds reasonable to me.

At something like 4 or 5 years old I lived in Pittsburgh. The zoo had an elephant with a red eye that terrified me. These were the days of bars and chains and up close displays so you could see right into its horrible red eye and after it tore aside the bars and snapped its chains it could easily destroy you. (Note: 4 or 5 years old). The elephants were one of my brothers favorites so we spent a lot of time there. I can still see that eye after more than half a lifetime, I expect I'll still see it at the end. (LOTR could have had a much more ominous eye.) I spent a lot of time looking at the animal opposite the aisle pretending there was no elephant, it was in a low cage, I have no recollection of what it was, maybe a marsupial? Now I can hear the elephant shifting its weight back and forth behind me.

Point being, eventually… A zoo probably does not want 4 year old children looking at a baboon with the side of its face torn away to expose the bone. In this case, "think of the children".

Children all over the world participate in animal slaughter ever day. That's just a normal part of being a human (historically). Only recently has our society hidden that from view. Now as a result, we're becoming increasingly crueless about the realities of survial.

I agree, but personally it has been somewhat emotionally taxing that this deer season I've had to cut two throats. Too much bow hunting seems to have left me a poorer shot with a gun.

At some level, however, if I'm not comfortable cutting the throat of an animal that is staring at me in fear, how comfortable should I be eating meat?

Totally agree wrt 4-year olds - but perhaps it should be up to the parents to decide what age is appropriate to show their kids the more gory aspects of wild life (if they choose to do it at all), rather than closing the whole exhibit? For older teenagers and adults, there is a bit of science to be learned there.

When I was 5 or so, a baby elephant in the children's section of the Pittsburgh zoo reached through the bars and put its trunk around my waist - pulling me against the bars. I wasn't hurt but it was pretty terrifying.

That sounds really cute. But dangerous...

"they closed the exhibit because they didn't want the visitors to see the (potentially unsettling/traumatizing) injuries on the baboons"

Have they tried closing the Zoo and releasing the animals back into the wild. Zoos are a nineteenth century anachronism, designed for when that was the only way people could get a look at such exotic animals. Last time I was in one, the animals looked tired, stressed and listless.

"Have they tried closing the Zoo and releasing the animals back into the wild." YES. This. Literally laughing out loud at the obviousness of this.. Rediculious that we still keep wild animals as pets and call it educational. It's an amazing lesson in speciesism.

Given how freaked out a lot of people are by the baboons at the Singapore Zoo that are apparently completely healthy (according to all the signs that attempt to reassure visitors, but I remain dubious), but have what look like pretty scary tumors on their buttocks, I can imagine how poorly they would react to actual injuries.

Then issue a warning. I actually think it's unethical to hide the animals. The public can't make informed decisions about visiting the zoo if the zoo is hiding the reality the animals live in.

One word: Edutainment.

It's a Zoo, not a school.

Zoos are for entertaining families. And while they desire to fill that entertainment with factually correct bits that's only secondary. Schools are for educating the interested. Any entertainment you find at school is wholly secondary to the purpose of school.

This is a silly argument. Good schools have fun, zoos are informative, and schools don't have surprise baboon battles.

You haven't been in one of our department faculty meetings.

The purpose of school is to lock up kids and adolescents in order to free up the adult population. Any education happening is incidental.

the purpose of school is to train kids to get up on time, to endure an unpleasant commute to an unpleasant place where they engage in unpleasant activities all day for the better of society.

I found the edgy 14 year old!

I'm happy to response that I'm neither 14, nor old enough to have realized the idea on my own before I came across it.

>And as for the schools, they were just holding pens within this fake world. Officially the purpose of schools is to teach kids. In fact their primary purpose is to keep kids locked up in one place for a big chunk of the day so adults can get things done. And I have no problem with this: in a specialized industrial society, it would be a disaster to have kids running around loose.

http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html

Please don't do this here.

A zoo is not a good place to learn and understand animals and especially not animal behavior (at least not animal behavior in the wild). Its a very artificial environment.

Exactly. And I also wonder how "safe and fed" zoo animals feel, as opposed to feeling endangered by being trapped and/or at the mercy of a different animal (humans).

If you have a hamster as a pet and you don't separate the young ones you have a good chance of them being eaten alive and that's because your hamster is under quite a bit of stress even if they seem chill, is it natural? yes, do you want your 5 year old seeing your hamster eating her babies alive with blood splattering all over? I guess not.

I've actually seen a group of monkeys killing one of their own. It was a bloodbath and deeply disturbing.

I think that it's even more interesting what you can learn about humans observing our cousins.

It's like observing children: the core of the issue without the varnish.

Yeah except these animals are not exactly cheap.

I was thinking the same thing. Maybe a warning or something, but closing it seems like a bit much.

At a wolf preserve, we were told that one of the packs was currently leaderless, with several betas vying to be the alpha. This was apparently an unusual situation as it had gone unresolved for quite some time.

This was precipitated by the previous alpha being tranquilized and brought to the vet, where the alpha died. The thinking was that since the other wolves did not see the alpha actually dead, it created a lot of confusion for the pack. They've since changed policy.

Bit like Iraq/Syria after they took out Hussein. At least the baboons didn't kill thousands.

What's with the anthropomorphizing cutsy naming, they're baboons not kids.

Not sure if it happens at Toronto, but some places sell "adoptions" which help pay for keeping the animals.

And some people respond more strongly to the cutesy names, which may increase the amount of education they get from the zoo.

http://www.monkeyworld.org/primate-adoptions

Take a look at 'David Attenborough .. Life on Earth' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czgc56Vfz4w

http://i.imgur.com/glHzNoe.jpg

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