Silverback Imfura took a chance, and ended up alone | Hacker News Reader

Silverback Imfura took a chance, and ended up alone

gorillafund.org

75 pointsalex000kim24 comments

Huh, I went looking into this after reading this story and gorilla culture is interesting. Apparently, gorillas don't have a teaching culture (in comparison to us, I suppose) so during their long growth into adults they have to pick up a lot of cues by observation. This group, in particular, is a famous group called Pablo's group because when it was initially followed the leader was a Pablo, who was soon deposed by a chap named Cantsbee with Pablo remaining on in a non-dominant position. This kind of multi-male system allowed the troop to grow large, and it progressed for two more generations when this chap decided to neither take the Leave And Start Anew nor the Stay And Gently Takeover approach.

Apparently, female gorillas have an effectively large amount of freedom in this scenario and they'll switch tribes if they don't feel they're being effectively led. Lots of interesting stuff in here.

I have this personal theory that Cooperation Ability is the superpower of all living beings and that's how we get bigger things done. You know mitochondria and other cells cooperated and formed modern cells. As things aggregated more we got bigger and bigger beings till the point where we have nation-sized beings. And I notice that many successful societies have strong cultures of internal cooperation, though they might schism, e.g. Abrahamic religions. Anyway, I'm some way through Darwin's Cathedral (recommended to me by an LLM when I asked about this idea) and that book plus the story of this tribe have served to shove me firmly into the land of absolute belief in this idea haha!

And did they mention what happens to the 80+% of males that dont make it to silverback status? Few like to talk about the darker sides of gorilla life.

As for teaching cultures, it isnt about IQ. Cats and dogs teach thier young, both wild and domesticated species.

and raptors teach their young to catch prey

Yes, we should highlight failures (if you can call it that) more, not just when talking about apes but with ourselves as well. Otherwise we're prone to survivorship bias.

These are not failures. Failure to reproduce does not mean they do not contribute to their society. If that were true, the male/female ratio would have evolved differently.

This doesn't follow. In animal societies where males are useless apart from their reproductive value, males are still produced at approximately 1:1. This is evolution optimizing for the reproductive success of the individual, not of the population, and is called Fisher's Principle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher%27s_principle

Well, sure. There's more resources than any individual, or even individual bloodline could ever exploit alone.

Annihilate your competition, and you won't eat in lean years.

Was not expecting the opportunity to imagine what a gorilla school would look like when I clicked on this thread. Thank you.

> Pablo's group because when it was initially followed the leader was a Pablo, who was soon deposed by a chap named Cantsbee

Heh, I assumed Pablo was the scientist studying it, looks like we're in Swahili names now. That chap Cantsbee and the others all have wiki bios![0] Anyway Cantsbee does have a ridiculous and whimsical name that cannot compare to the honor and majesty of something like Ubwuzu, but he did ok for himself and his people, he really did.

> a calm but powerful leader, rarely getting into altercations or fights with other gorillas. He led with grace, strength, and serenity. Cantsbee "resolved conflicts rather than starting them, protected his family with vigilance, and rarely resorted to aggression

Remember the Cant.

[0]: https://gorillabase.fandom.com/wiki/Cantsbee

Fascinating. How much of this is actually real and how much is people filling in a story that’s not necessarily reality but fits what we humans want to see? It feels very complex and I wonder how anyone can really know what’s happening with the social issues within these gorilla groups.

Also I wonder how much of Imfura’s aggression is due to his earlier trauma. From elsewhere on the same site, written in 2022:

> Imfura has a solid relationship with his father, dominant silverback Gicurasi, who himself had a close partnership with Imfura’s mother before her death. The bond between father and son has been strong since 2011, when then-2-year-old Imfura found himself trapped in a poacher’s snare. He was terrified, screaming in fear as the gorillas around him tried to free him. Our tracker Jean Bosco Ntrenganya was able to cut the rope loose, allowing Imfura to escape, but it took two days for Gicurasi to calm down enough a veterinary intervention to be done to remove the rope that was still attached to the young gorilla’s foot. Imfura survived the trauma and became closer to his father.

His father, who was the dominant male before the current dominant male, died last year. Perhaps it explains some of this?

It's hard to believe any of it as the true reality after reading how much this article differed from the new Netflix documentary A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough that I watched a couple of weeks ago. The story they told involving these specific gorillas was quite bit different than the one described here.

All this makes for an interesting read and viewing but I fear an awful lot of it is anthropomorphism and pseudo (social) science.

The aggression could be from trauma, but aggressionn is also just part of being a male gorilla. They need to drive off rival males and, if they dont have a troop, depose or at least survive an encounter with a full silverback. Aggression is a useful tool in such situations.

There is a Netflix documentary about Imfura, Gicurasi and the Pablo descendents narrated by David Attenborough. It just came out last month. Fantastic doc.

> Imfura had his little group moving constantly, an understandable method to avoid other groups and the possible transfer of his females.

> [emphasis added] But this apparently weakened their trust,

> which is essential for social cohesion.

How do the researchers know their trust was weakened by constant moving?

You emphasised the key word yourself, "apparently". And the proof is in the pudding, they left. Now the researchers didn't ask the females obviously, but they would have a lot of experience with the behaviour of the gorillas and know that the females don't like instability and unsureness of the leadership (hinted in the article), so the obvious conclusion is that the instability of moving around caused the females to loose trust.

Note I didn't ask the researchers either and am only deducing this from the text.

This was on Armchair Expert recently, Tara Stoinski. Great episode. Check it out!

Hour and 17 minute long episode. Wow!

Stop chasing, start attracting: Hold on, take a brake, focus on yourself. Grow!

There might never be the perfect moment, but there can be many wrong moments.

Maybe we should teach Gorillas about psychotherapy or mental coaching?

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