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Comment by scwoodal | Hacker News Reader

> 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

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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.

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