Quote:The Sakhalin Husky, also known as the Karafuto-Ken (樺太犬?), is a breed of dog used as a sled dog.



This breed was a spitz type, related to other Japanese dogs, and considered to be a precursor to the Akita Inu.

[...]

Antarctic expedition

This breed's claim to fame came from the ill-fated 1958 Japanese research expedition to Antarctica, which made an emergency evacuation and was forced to leave behind 15 sled dogs. The researchers believed that a relief team would arrive within a few days, so they left the dogs chained up outside with a small supply of food; however, the weather turned bad and the team never made it to the outpost.



Incredibly, nearly one year later, a new expedition arrived and discovered that two of the dogs, "Taro" and "Jiro", had survived and they became instant heroes.[2] Taro returned to Sapporo, Japan and lived at Hokkaido University until his death in 1970, after which he was stuffed and put on display at the university's museum.[3] Jiro died in Antarctica in 1960 of natural causes and the remains are located at the National Science Museum of Japan in Ueno Park.



The breed spiked in popularity upon the release of the 1983 film, Nankyoku Monogatari, about Taro and Jiro. A second 2006 film, Eight Below, provided a fictional version of the occurrence, but did not reference the breed. Instead, the film features only eight dogs: two Alaskan Malamutes and six Siberian Huskies. In 2011, TBS presents the much waited drama, Nankyoku Tairiku, featuring Kimura Takuya. It tells the story of the 1957 Antarctica Expedition led by Japan and their Sakhalin Huskies.



The breed and the expedition are memorialized in a monument near Wakkanai, Hokkaido,[4] a monument under Tokyo Tower,[5] and a monument near Nagoya Port.[6]

Quote:Morie Sawataishi: Saviour of Japan's akita Samurai dog

In the Second World War, the akita – the ancient breed whose courage inspired Japan’s noble warriors – faced extinction. Martha Sherrill went in search of the man who dedicated his life to its recovery .



[...]

In Japan, akitas are sometimes referred to as ikken isshu – one-person dogs, uninterested in anyone but their owner.

[...]



They competed in village dog rings and other more casual gambling venues. Feudal lords collected them as living trophies and for several hundred years, from the 16th to the 19th century, the warrior class, the samurai, were inspired by the dogs’ courage and rugged fighting spirit. For a type of samurai infantryman in training, an akita dog was his teacher.

It never really mattered what the dogs looked like. Their essence or spirit was the quality most sought after. A good akita was quiet and fearless, could approach a cornered bear and prompt it to chase, and was virtually weatherproof.

[...]

An akita can be difficult for the inexperienced owner. They are fiercely loyal dogs, but their devotion can seem almost pathological. They can be overly protective of their owners and aggressive to strangers. While they can appear deceptively laid-back and mellow at times – they are often described as catlike – the akita isn’t the kind of dog to be patient with an annoying child or smaller animal.

[...]

By 1970 Morie had raised enough akitas to believe that he knew, pretty much, what an akita could do – the limits of the breed’s strength and courage as well as its instincts. Then Samurai Tiger came along and raised the standard. The black-and-white akita was the finest hunter and a national champion in the ring. In 1979 Samurai Tiger died after fighting a bear. 'They say you only get one dog in your lifetime like Samurai Tiger,’ Morie says. 'He inspired me, and rewarded my efforts over the years. He was so natural, and raw, and unspoilt. For me, he was everything I could ask for in a dog. And he had all the traits I hoped to some day see in myself.’

Last autumn, when Shiro died at 15 – an unimaginably old age for an akita – Morie wondered if it wasn’t time for him to go, too. He planned a big funeral for his great white champion. A priest and dozens of mourners came. Morie still had two younger akitas left, but he lacked the energy to show them or take them hunting.

Quote:Earth faces sixth ‘great extinction’ with 41% of amphibians set to go the way of the dodo

Analysis for prestigious Nature magazine sounds alarm on the way that human activity, from overfishing to agriculture, is forcing a vast number of species to vanish from the wild

Northern white rhino’s death leaves just five left in the world

A Tasmanian tiger in captivity, circa 1930, shortly before the species became extinct. Photograph: Paul Popper/Popperfoto/Popperfoto/Getty Images Robin McKie, science editor



Sunday 14 December 2014 00.05 GMT





A stark depiction of the threat hanging over the world’s mammals, reptiles, amphibians and other life forms has been published by the prestigious scientific journal, Nature. A special analysis carried out by the journal indicates that a staggering 41% of all amphibians on the planet now face extinction while 26% of mammal species and 13% of birds are similarly threatened.



Many species are already critically endangered and close to extinction, including the Sumatran elephant, Amur leopard and mountain gorilla. But also in danger of vanishing from the wild, it now appears, are animals that are currently rated as merely being endangered: bonobos, bluefin tuna and loggerhead turtles, for example.



In each case, the finger of blame points directly at human activities. The continuing spread of agriculture is destroying millions of hectares of wild habitats every year, leaving animals without homes, while the introduction of invasive species, often helped by humans, is also devastating native populations. At the same time, pollution and overfishing are destroying marine ecosystems.



“Habitat destruction, pollution or overfishing either kills off wild creatures and plants or leaves them badly weakened,” said Derek Tittensor, a marine ecologist at the World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge. “The trouble is that in coming decades, the additional threat of worsening climate change will become more and more pronounced and could then kill off these survivors.”



The problem, according to Nature, is exacerbated because of the huge gaps in scientists’ knowledge about the planet’s biodiversity. Estimates of the total number of species of animals, plants and fungi alive vary from 2 million to 50 million. In addition, estimates of current rates of species disappearances vary from 500 to 36,000 a year. “That is the real problem we face,” added Tittensor. “The scale of uncertainty is huge.”

Quote:forget everything you thought you knew about this solitary, "mindless killing machine". Sharks have individual personalities. They socialise, choose best friends and create social networks of unusual complexity. They can be trained by humans to complete simple tasks, much more quickly than rabbits or cats, for instance, and retain the knowledge for much longer. Sharks also teach each other new tricks: how to find food, identify predators and charm mates. Like sea turtles, some travel huge distances to return to their own birthplace, again and again, to give birth themselves. Most don't need to swim continuously to survive. And rather than being near-blind and reliant on smell, which is the general perception, they in fact have advanced sight. They feel pain. And the boldest sharks face a greater risk of dying before adulthood.



Why does any of this matter? Well, we're killing about 100 million sharks every year, 11,000 an hour, either for the Chinese soup trade (where the de-finned shark is chucked back into the sea to sink and die on the bottom) or as bycatch.



The idea of shark-free waters may seem appealing, until you consider the havoc that would be unleashed on the rest of ocean life if that happened. Sharks, as apex predators, balance ecosystems, stopping animals in the middle of the marine food chain from proliferating and destroying life still further down. Sharks also pick off the weakest, sickest and slowest fish, helping to prevent the spread of disease and parasites, and strengthening the gene pool of prey species. That's why scientists consider sharks to be 'keystone' species in marine ecosystems. Take them away and the structures collapse.

Quote:Dogs Understand Human Language And Tone: UK Research



By Sounak Mukhopadhyay | November 28, 2014 11:02 PM EST



Dogs understand what people say. Science confirms what dog lovers have long been claiming about "man's best friend."



According to a study conducted by UK scientists, dogs are capable of understanding what people say, how people say it and who is saying it. The research revealed the brain of a dog can process different commands. The right hemisphere of a dog's brain focuses on tone, while the left one on the meaning of a common command. The report of the research provided some of the first proof of how the canines process and differentiate several components of human speech.



Frida, a female Chihuahua, is carried by her owner Dean Clark in City Hall before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors issues a special commendation naming Frida "Mayor of San Francisco for a Day" in San Francisco, California November 18, 2014. Frida, a previously unknown female Chihuahua, has won her first political office, being named Mayor of San Francisco for the day as part of a campaign to support the city's animal shelter.



Victoria Ratcliffe of the School of Psychology at the University of Sussex said dogs would react to both verbal- and speaker-related information. However, it is not possible to say how much dogs understand or the way it understands information in speech from the study, she said. She also said that different functions related to different information would work in different parts of a dog's brain. Business Insider reported that the researcher, on the other hand, did not claim that dogs understood everything humans spoke. Neither does the research claim that dogs have a human-like capability of language. Ratcliffe said that dogs would pay attention not only to who the speaker was and how people would say things, but also to what was said.



The age-old debate about a dog's ability to understand their master may well have been answered. Live Science reported that dogs would heel, shake paws, sit and snuggle as a response to what their human friends commanded. Skeptics have always doubted dog lovers' claim that their dog understood everything they said. The recent study may have revealed that the truth lies somewhere in between. While doubters argue that a dog can only follow the tone of a human and other non-verbal cues, this research shows that dogs are far more capable than how they may have been perceived.



However, the tricky part for a human is to find out which word their dog understands and the ones they don't. Dog lovers are often blamed for overestimating the emotional capabilities of their dogs. One research revealed that dogs felt no guilt when they showed "sad-puppy" look after doing something "bad."

(No different from little children not feeling guilt after doing something bad yet they make cutesy faces to invoke sympathy or appeal in some fashion - or else to forego punishment. Manipulation is a sign of intelligence. So dogs - like children - are relatively bright as they may also know that they're applying manipulation in this regard.)

Quote:youtube.com/watch?v=CmkF5iUR3SY

Lobo: The wolf that changed America - BBC Natural World documentary *

by AnimalPortal

1 month ago

1,061 views

Quote:youtube.com/watch?v=T7q5UK022Is

Lobo. Wolf That Changed America HD (US version)

by Voluspa / Asatru

1 year ago

1,363 views

HD

Quote:

After the passing out parade of police dogs, the best performer among them is being decorated with a gold medal at Thrissur Ramavarmapuram Police Academy Parade Ground. Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala felicitates the police dog. As many as 25 dogs joined the dog squad as their training that spanned about a year got completed recently.

Quote:Homeless Russian cat 'saves' abandoned baby boy

Agence France-Presse (AFP)



A cat in Russia save an abandoned baby. © Corbis A cat in Russia save an abandoned baby.



A homeless cat in Russia has won praise for keeping warm a baby boy abandoned in a chilly entrance-way.



The story took place in the town of Obninsk in the Kaluga region, where the baby was abandoned in the entrance-way to an apartment block and left lying on the floor on Saturday, a day when temperatures were several degrees centigrade below zero.



A local cat by the name of Masha that lived in a cardboard box in the hallway "warmed the baby for several hours with her body," TV Zvezda channel reported Thursday.



After hearing loud cries, one of the residents opened her front door and spotted the baby on the floor, with the cat sitting beside it, licking it and trying to warm it, TV Zvezda reported.



"The residents are certain, if the cat hadn't taken care of it, the baby wouldn't have had a chance," the channel's anchor said.



Nadezhda Makhovikova, who lives in a flat on the stairway, told REN TV she went out after hearing sounds as if the cat was miaowing in distress.



"When I went down, I saw it was the baby crying."



When paramedics arrived and took the baby into the ambulance, Masha ran after them, REN TV reported.



Vera Ivanina, a paramedic, told REN TV: "She was so worried about where we were taking the baby. She ran right behind us, miaowing. She was really a rational creature."



Russian television aired footage of the shaggy green-eyed tabby cat, fed by residents and allowed to live in the hall.



The baby, a boy aged between two to three months, turned out to be perfectly healthy. He was abandoned with clean clothes and a pack of nappies.



Police have launched a search for the parents while the baby is being cared for in a hospital.

Quote:rajeev srinivasan @RajeevSrinivasa



Not clear why it is the "Asiatic lion". when i grew up it was called the "Indian lion". Let us not lose our brand twitter.com/anandibenpatel/status/597410695701868544 …

Quote:2 April 2014 Last updated at 01:22



Modern lions' origin revealed by genetic analysis

By Matt Walker



Editor, BBC Nature



Another detail only revealed by the study of ancient DNA in specimens, is that modern lions began their exodus out of Africa just 21,000 years ago.



At the end of the Pleistocene, lions left North Africa, eventually reaching as far as India.



[Refresher from wackypedia: "The Pleistocene (symbol PS[1]) is the geological epoch which lasted from about 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the world's recent period of repeated glaciations."

whereas we're living in the subsequent, current, interglacial period:

"The Holocene /ˈhɒlɵsiːn/ is a geological epoch which began at the end of the Pleistocene[1] (at 11,700 calendar years BP) [2] and continues to the present. The Holocene is part of the Quaternary period. Its name comes from the Greek words ὅλος (holos, whole or entire) and καινός (kainos, new), meaning "entirely recent".[3] It has been identified with the current warm period, known as MIS 1 and based on that past evidence, can be considered an interglacial in the current ice age."]



Much later, just around 5,000 years ago, another group of lions left the continent, reaching what is today Iran, in the Middle East. These lions are now extinct.



(So having wandered all the way to India from Africa, some more wandered all the way to Iran from Africa again thousands of years later.)



These discoveries may have important implications for the conservation of modern lions.



Fewer than 400 Asian lions (P. leo persica) survive, living on the Kathiawar Peninsula of India, with the subspecies listed as Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.



"Lion populations in West Africa and Central Africa, which have drastically declined over the past few decades, are actually more closely related to the Indian lion than to lions in, say, Somalia or Botswana," Dr Barnett told BBC Nature.

Quote:The Asiatic lion (Panthera leo persica), also known as the Indian lion or Persian lion,[3] is a lion subspecies that exists as a single population in India's Gujarat state. It is listed as Endangered by IUCN due its small population size.[1] Since 2010, the lion population in the Gir Forest National Park has steadily increased.[4]



In May 2015, the 14th Asiatic Lion Census was conducted over an area of about 20,000 km2 (7,700 sq mi); the lion population was estimated at 523 individuals, comprising 109 males, 201 females and 213 cubs.[5][6]

(The Wildest India documentary already mentioned that a Hindoo community of Narasimha worshippers had brought back the Hindoo lions from extinction to 500+)



The Asiatic lion was first described by the Austrian zoologist Johann N. Meyer under the trinomen Felis leo persicus.[7]



The Asiatic lion is one of five big cat species found in India, apart from Bengal tiger, Indian leopard, snow leopard and clouded leopard.[8] It formerly occurred in Persia, Israel, Mesopotamia, Baluchistan, from Sindh in the west to Bengal in the east, and from Rampur and Rohilkund in the north to Nerbudda in the south. It differs from the African lion by less inflated auditory bullae, a larger tail tuft and a less developed mane.[9]

Quote:"International bodies currently recognize only two lion conservation units: African and Asian lions. The data clearly show that Asian lions are nested within the diversity present in Central, West and North Africa," the study says. "Of particular concern are the central African and western African populations, which may be close to extinction, with estimates of 800 lions in West Africa and 900 lions in Central Africa. The close phylogenetic relationships among Barbary, Iranian, and Indian lion populations are noteworthy given their considerable geographical separation. The restoration of the extinct North African Barbary lion has attracted the attention of conservationists both inside and outside North Africa."

Quote:Asiatic lions, rescued from near extinction, now need a new home



Associated Press



July 10, 2012

India



GUJARAT // A peacock shrieks. A monkey scrambles higher into the fire-coloured canopy of a kesudo tree. And an Asiatic lion - one of the last few hundred in the wild - pads across the dusty earth of a West Indian sanctuary that is its only refuge from the modern world.



Within the guarded confines of this dry forest in Gujarat state, the lions have been rescued from near-extinction. A century ago, fewer than 50 remained. Today more than 400 fill the park and sometimes wander into surrounding villages and farmland.



But the lions' precarious return is in jeopardy. Experts warn their growing numbers could be their undoing. Crowded together, they are more vulnerable to disease and natural disaster. There is little new territory for young males to claim, increasing chances for inbreeding, territorial conflict or males killing the young.



Conservationists agree these lions need a second home fast, and far from Gir government-backed experts in the 1990s settled on a rugged and hilly sanctuary called Kuno, where lions historically roamed with tigers in the neighbouring state of Madhya Pradesh. Millions were spent preparing the park. But Gujarat rejected the plan. And no lions were sent.



Now, the uncertain fate of the Asiatic lions - once dominant in forests from Morocco and Greece across the Middle East to eastern India - rests in the hands of bureaucrats, and vthe case has now reached the Supreme Court.



"We are the only ones who have lions. We have managed without interference until now," Gujarat's environment secretary, SK Nanda, said proudly from behind an enormous desk in an office complex decorated with lion posters reading: "Gujarat's pride; World's envy."



"Can we humans be arbiters of where these lions should live? Should we move the mountains and the rivers, too?" Mr Nanda said. "If the lions want to move, let them move on their own."[/color]



The subject of saving lions is an emotional one in India. The lion holds iconic status in religions and cultures. The multi-armed Hindu warrior goddess Durga is traditionally shown with a lion as her mount. Four lions make the national emblem, symbolising power, courage, pride and confidence. Even the common Sikh name "Singh," shared by the current prime minister, means "lion" in several languages.

(Singh/Simha/Sinha was a common Hindoo surname since before Sikhism, and remains so. It still does not imply Sikh.)



The Asiatic lions, a subspecies, are nearly as large as their African cousins, though the males' manes are less fluffy and their tails have larger tufts.



By the 20th century, they had nearly been wiped out by trophy hunters. (The Brits literally called themselves the "great white christian hunters".) The last Asiatic lion outside Gujarat was gunned down in Iran in 1942. Within India, hundreds of thousands of lions, tigers, leopards and wolves were killed over decades of frenzied hunting, encouraged by British colonials. Three years after independence, the country's Asiatic cheetahs were extinct.



But the lions in Gujarat got a reprieve. A princely ruler banned hunting of the few dozen lions left in 1901.

(Note again how it is christoislamics that extinct animals - even coming all the way to India to extinct our Hindoo animals. And how Hindoos alone protect animals and will even sacrifice their conventional way pf life - as the Narasimha bhaktas seen in Wildeset India did for the Hindoo lions - to bring them back from near-extinction.)



The state created Gir Sanctuary over more than 1,400 square kilometres, relocating all but a few hundred buffalo herdsmen who lived peaceably with the predators, mainly by giving them wide berth.



The sanctuary became a model in conservation, with constant patrols against poachers and cultivated grasslands for the lions' prey: spotted deer and blue-hued antelope. A veterinary hospital was built. The lions thrived.



Tourists from India's newly minted middle class now flock to the park. A few dozen trackers keep count of the animals and fill artificial water holes.



"Not everyone gets a job like this," said Raju Vajadiya, idly swinging a stick, the only defence he and his colleagues usually have or need. "It is a godly thing to give a lion water on a hot day."

Quote:Anandiben PatelVerified account

‏@anandibenpatel



Increase of 27% in number of Asiatic lions as compared to last census, is a matter of pride & satisfaction for us

(A matter of great gratitude. Especially to the specific HindOO heathen subcommunity in the affected region who consciously started the conservation of our lion brethren. And not a moment too soon.)











:utsukushi:



7:39 AM - 10 May 2015



ravichandranraju ‏@ravichandransun May 10



@anandibenpatel It is also "Make in India " effect.

1 retweet 4 favorites

Quote: Jishnu Radha Rajan • 11 days ago

[...]



2. That

any vegetarian does not appreciate

butchering to be a virtuous act goes without saying. But that is the nature of

one set of people that is all. There are beings whose primary nature is

predation and human animal since creation has been carnivorous in

majority. As I understand such a basic prAkRta aspect cannot be seen judgmentally. Corollary of this is that his profession is

one of the most commonly involved and permanent ones in the history of

mankind, how much ever seen with contempt both by herbivores and fellow carnivores.



[...]

Quote:Jishnu Radha Rajan 12 days ago



Animal has a wide spectrum of behaviors just as humans and human being more evolved and complex has even wider range of behaviors. There are evolved vertebrates that stay true to single mate, as there are polygamous ones in packs/prides. There are animals that part ways after mating and the female is left fending for the offspring. There are males that kill the offspring of other males so the female can be motivated into a relation. So it is not factually wrong to say female animal with her knowledge of male parent and her own commitment to offspring seeks to bind the male in the family.

Quote:"when Western women vociferously asserted their sexuality and demanded equal rights to have sex without marriage being a precondition"



but the very notion of marriage and commitment is the human evolution over animal life. It is the female that knows the male parent of offspring. It is for the male's commitment towards offspring that female seeks to bind the male in the family. So it is quite silly to say women demand right to sex without marriage/commitment when the stake lies with female and displays ignorance of nature and biology both.

Quote:Right of sexual access



In a 1997 article in Current Anthropology, Duran Bell describes marriage as "a relationship between one or more men (male or female) in severalty to one or more women that provides those men with a demand-right of sexual access within a domestic group and identifies women who bear the obligation of yielding to the demands of those specific men." In referring to "men in severalty", Bell is referring to corporate kin groups such as lineages which, in having paid brideprice, retain a right in a woman's offspring even if her husband (a lineage member) deceases (Levirate marriage). In referring to "men (male or female)", Bell is referring to women within the lineage who may stand in as the "social fathers" of the wife's children born of other lovers. (See Nuer "Ghost marriage")[7]

Quote:(Narrator is AR)



We (humans, i.e. the species) evolved as hunter gatherers, living on similar foods as the Hadza (African community). Finding food shapes their society, but it has affected all of us. It seems that the Hadza, and presumably our ancestors too, found a very efficient and effective way of surviving here. Men and women each have different and distinctive roles. So the women go digging for tubers and collecting berries, whilst the men go out hunting for meat and honey. They'll eat some of it while they're out in the bush, but they'll bring a lot of it back home to share, so it makes sense to pair up.



Having a partner to share food with is a massive advantage in this harsh environment. And many Hadza men and women marry for life.



Sharing food like this is thought to be the origin of pairing up and staying together.



[...]

(OOU-2)

Quote:From a new biological point of view, monogamy could result from mate guarding and is engaged as a result of sexual conflict.[7]

Quote: Jishnu Radha Rajan • 16 days ago



"And while some may think eating a fish or a cow or a dog or a pig cannot be equated with eating a human, my question is why not"



Because they are not equal. Dead matter is not used for ritual offering anyway - for instance pUja/yajana is not done with mud/sand. Offering has to be live and consecrated (so no mRt. jIva such as water, gandha etc can be offered). And offering of plant, animals like goat, then cow, horse, man are all different and consuming/eating them is different too. This is not abrahamic, this is very much a dhArmic view. That all beings are divine does not mean all beings are at the same level of consciousness/evolution or that their consumption is same.



One needs to qualify to teach, with his knowledge of dharma and through exemplary practice of his own dharma. He can very much teach others whose dharma in terms of code of conduct might be entirely different. Expertise in a specific subject is relevant for those who have not known the "one by knowing which everything else is known". In case of dharmavyAdha etc it is not relevant.

Quote:Do you perform blood sacrifices?

There are two types of sacrifices, those involving the letting of blood (i.e., the slaughter of an animal that is later eaten during the festive meal) and blood-less ones. Both are equally sacred. However today, the sacredness of the former is not easily appreciated, because humanity has distanced itself from nature and consumes meat slaughtered savagely with mechanical devices, bought in supermarkets and packaged in plastic. This is why we only persist with the practice of blood-less sacrifice.



The 'accusation' made by Christians regarding blood sacrifice is dishonest and hypocritical. It is simply made to defame us to those who don't know a lot about Ethnic religions. The Christians, who non-sacrificially slaughter millions of sheep and turkeys during their own celebrations, have few problems with their conscience.

Quote:The Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis), also called the greater one-horned rhinoceros and Indian one-horned rhinoceros, belongs to the family Rhinocerotidae. Listed as a vulnerable species, the large mammal is primarily found in India's Assam, West Bengal and in protected areas in the Terai of Nepal, where populations are confined to the riverine grasslands in the foothills of the Himalayas.[2]



[...]

The Indian rhinoceros once ranged throughout the entire stretch of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, but excessive hunting reduced their range drastically. Today, more than 3,000 rhinos live in the wild.[3] In 2014, 2,544 of which are found in India's Assam alone, an increase by 27 percent since 2006, although in early the 1900s, Assam had about 200 rhinos only.[4]



Sport hunting became common in the late 1800s and early 1900s.[2] Indian rhinos were hunted relentlessly and persistently. Reports from the middle of the 19th century claim that some British military officers (famous as the "Great White Christian Hunters", as the demonic plague proudly regarded themselves) in Assam individually shot more than 200 rhinos. By 1908, the population in Kaziranga had decreased to around 12 individuals.[5] In the early 1900s, the species had declined to near extinction.[2]



Image: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/RhinoHuntBabur.jpg/220px-RhinoHuntBabur.jpg

Img caption: Moghul emperor Babur on a rhino hunt, 16th century

Quote:Distribution and habitat



Pallas's cats are native to the steppe regions of Central Asia, where they inhabit elevations of up to 5,050 m (16,570 ft) in the Tibetan Plateau.[4] They inhabit Mongolia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kashmir, and occur across much of western China.

Quote:Dogs' Closest Wolf Ancestors Went Extinct, DNA Study Shows



(Isn't it actually still in dispute whether it was dogs that were "domesticated", and to what extent if any, or whether they manipulated [domesticated] man and willingly entered into a symbiotic (some docos say "parasitic" with tongue in cheek) relationship with humans, just as some wolves have developed symbiosis with other mammal species? Plus, it's admitted of cats that these were never domesticated. The question has always been Who's Using Who. After all, many modern non-working/pet dogs get free food and shelter from humans, in return for getting coddled whether they will or no, plus sadly losing natural selection and even reproduction rights. Personally, am not sure it's worth it, but in wolf packs most wolves besides alphas don't usually get to mate anyway...)



LiveScience | By Stephanie Pappas

Posted: 01/17/2014 9:37 am EST Updated: 01/25/2014 4:01 pm EST

DOGS WOLF ANCESTORS



A new genetic analysis of modern dogs and wolves suggests that man's best friend was domesticated before agriculture.



But the origin of this domestication remains stubbornly mysterious. Researchers analyzed the genomes of wolves from three likely sites of domestication (the Middle East, Asia and eastern Europe), and found that modern dogs were not more closely related to any of the three. In fact, it seems that the closest wolf ancestors of today's dogs may have gone extinct, leaving no wild descendants.



"The dogs all form one group, and the wolves all form one group, and there's no wolf that these dogs are more closely related to of the three that we sampled," said study researcher John Novembre, a professor of genetics at the University of Chicago. "That's the big surprise of the study." [10 Things You Didn't Know About Dogs]



Domestication mystery



The origin of the domestic dog is a persistent mystery. Fossil evidence for domestication dates back as far as 33,000 years, based on the shape of the skull and on ancient DNA analysis. But the presence of a dog-like canine doesn’t prove the origin of modern dogs; even if the fossil represents a domesticated dog, it could have been a failed lineage that left no descendants.

(Note how that last hypothesis itself implies multiple - at least temporal if not spatial - domestication events.)



Researchers know that dogs regularly lived with humans by about 10,000 years ago, and dogs and people are found buried together as early as 14,000 years ago. Various genetic studies have pointed to China, the Middle East and Europe as the origin for today's domesticated dogs.



Novembre and his colleagues wanted to refine the understanding of domestication using high-quality, full genomes. They gathered full gene sequences from a wolf in Israel, a wolf in China and a wolf in Croatia to encompass the possible sites of the original dog domestication. Next, they also sequenced the full genomes of an Australian dingo, a feral dog species thought to have originated in Southeast Asia, and an African basenji. Neither of these dogs have territories that overlap with wolves, so researchers hoped they would see little of the post-domestication interbreeding that so often confuses the story of how dogs and wolves split.



The researchers also had a previously done full genome sequence for a Boxer.



Complicated canines



The high-quality, full sequences allowed the researchers to look at genetic variations across the entire genome. That's important, Novembre told LiveScience, because previous work was limited to snippets of DNA, chosen because they were known to vary from dog breed to dog breed. [The Coolest Animal Genomes]



"When we apply these to looking at dogs and wolves, we don't get a complete picture, because we can't see the variations that existed in wolves but vanished in dogs," Novembre said.



The new results, published today (Jan. 16) in the journal PLOS Genetics, reveal that dogs do not hail from the same lineage as modern wolves — a big surprise, said Novembre, who was hoping to see evidence for either a single domestication or multiple domestication events, where, for example, the Australian dingo would be most related to the Asian wolf and the African basenji would be most related to the Middle Eastern wolf.

(See a few paras further below.)



Instead, the dogs are all most closely related to each other. The pattern suggests that dogs arose from a now-extinct line of wolves, Novembre said. Later, early in domesticated doggie history, they interbred with still-wild wolves, causing a genetic snarl that frustrates dog genetics researchers to this day.



The sequences also revealed that the first dogs arose from a very small number of the wolves that lived in their day, Novembre said. Around the time of domestication, both wolves and dogs experienced what's known as a population bottleneck — their numbers dropped. Genes can't explain why these drops occurred, Novembre said, but in the case of wolves, human encroachment and competition for large prey probably played a role.



Finally, the comparisons suggest that wolves and dogs split between 9,000 and 34,000 years ago, with a likely interval being between 11,000 and 16,000 years ago, before the rise of agriculture. Those findings are in line with the fossil record, Novembre said.



Previous research had suggested that perhaps dog domestication got a push from a genetic mutation that made it easier for modern dogs' ancestors to digest starch — meaning they could scavenge from human garbage piles. The new study looked at that gene mutation and found that it certainly occurred, but likely after dogs were already domesticated. Dingos, for example, are unquestionably dogs and not wolves, but they have few copies of the starch-friendly gene.



"You had domestication occurring in the context of dogs hanging around human hunter-gatherer groups, and only later, when these groups began to switch to farming, did they change their diets," Novembre said.



More answers coming?



However, there are still many questions left to answer. The reason for such a wide range of 25,000 years for the origin of domestication is that researchers had to base the estimate on rates of mutation in the genome. Mutations are rare, Novembre said, and estimating how often they happen is a tricky proposition. The best way is to compare the genomes of parents and offspring, but that work has not yet been done with dogs. Once it's done, Novembre said, the team will be able to refine its estimates.



However, the discovery that modern wolves and modern dogs seem to be more like sister groups than ancestors and descendants means that modern DNA sequences likely won't reveal the origin of domestication. To answer that question, Novembre said, ancient DNA analyses will be necessary.



So far, DNA sequences extracted from fossils are incomplete. But just as researchers have now sequenced a complete Neanderthal genome, they're on the cusp of sequencing full genomes from fossil dogs and wolves.



"Several groups are hammering away" at the problem, Novembre said, adding that a full ancient dog genome could be as few as nine months away.





Copyright 2014 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Quote:Wolves of the World



Wolves come in many shapes, sizes and colors... varying from the brawny black wolves of Canada’s Mackenzie River to the petite tawny wolves that once roamed the Falkland Islands. The wolves of the world have captured human fascination for as long as memory serves. We (speak for yourself) have persecuted them for daring to compete with us for resources and yet we have also invited them into our homes to live as domesticated dogs. For as long as we have maintained our fascination with them, we have also been trying to classify them. Today we recognize nine distinct species of wolf (one of which humans [read: christos from Europe infesting the Falklands] drove to extinction in 1879 and one with an odd name) spread over six continents.





Gray Wolf (Canis lupus)



Gray Wolf



The gray wolf is the largest wild canid, usually weighing between 70 and 120 lbs. They vary in coloration greatly - from black to gray to tawny to white. Gray wolves have slanted eyes, varying from yellow to deep amber in color. To allow for swift and efficient movement through snow, brush and other conditions, gray wolves have narrow chests, with elbows set close together. A gray wolf’s tail is straight and usually hangs to its hock (knee). Gray wolves have noticeably larger heads than other canids, which is often attributed to their high level of intelligence. Their large paws, which are webbed with fur, aid in movement across mud and snow.



Being very social animals, gray wolves live, travel, and hunt in packs of typically 2-15 animals, though there have been reports of up to 38 wolves in one pack. Gray wolves are opportunistic predators, which mean they hunt large and small game, but will also feed off of carrion. Because of the gray wolf’s large pack size and intricate social hierarchy, they can work together to bring down large game such as deer, elk, bison and moose. Nearly all the different names you hear for wolves - timber, arctic, Mexican gray, buffalo, plains, Canadian, tundra, ect. - are either nick-names or subspecies of the gray wolf.



The gray wolf’s progenitors probably first evolved in Eurasia 800,000 years ago, spreading to North America via the Bering land bridge 300,000 - 400,000 years ago. Once in North America, the gray wolf coexisted with the much larger and more powerful Dire wolf until its extinction 8,000 years ago. Since that time the gray wolf has come to be the dominate canine predator of the world, with 37 recognized subspecies ranging across six continents.

Quote:Himalayan Wolf (Canis himalayensis)



Photo: Himalayan wolf - by yukonmarty



The small, light-colored wolves native to Northern India, Kashmir (uh, Kashmir IS in northern India) and Eastern Nepal were long thought to be part of a subspecies of gray wolf called the Tibetan wolf (Canis lupus chanco). However, mtDNA analysis suggests that they should instead be classified as a distinct species – the Himalayan wolf (Canis himalayensis). Along with the Indian wolf, Himalayan wolves may represent an ancient line of wolves predating even Canis lupus. Himalayan and Indian wolves are probably the oldest living lineages of any wolf species in the world, having been isolated on the Indian subcontinent for over 800,000 years. They are so distinct, in fact, that they do not share any genetic markers with gray wolves or domestic dogs.

(hock



There are only about 350 Himalayan wolves left in the wild. (Let me guess: the great white christian hunter, and the islamic rulers with their bloodthirst for the kill I mean hunt of Indian animals?) Though critically endangered, these wolves are still widely hunted as pests throughout their range in the Himalayan Mountains. Thankfully India started a captive breeding program in 2001 with one lone female. With much work the captive population has grown to include 21 animals.

(Yet Hindus of the regions where our wolves live apparently have religious injunctions/taboos against killing wolves. This is also indicated in an excerpt further below.)





Indian Wolf (Canis indica)



Photo: Indian wolf



Originally thought to be the same gray wolf subspecies as the Iranian wolf (Canis lupus pallipes), the Indian wolf has recently been designated as a separate and distinct species (Canis indica). Recent mtDNA analysis shows that the Indian wolf’s ancestors were isolated on the Indian subcontinent over 800,000 years ago, and then split to form the modern Indian wolf and Himalayan wolf some 400,000 years ago. Though the Indian wolf’s range overlaps greatly with its closest relative, the Himalayan wolf, almost no interbreeding has occurred because of behavioral differences.



The Indian wolf is one of the world’s smallest wolves, measuring only 24-38 inches in height and weighing 40-60 pounds. They are almost always reddish or tawny in color with long legs and narrow muzzles, and have a shorter and thinner coat than northern wolves.



Canis indica is only found in the Indian states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh. With 2,000-3,000 remaining in the wild, Indians wolves are protected as an endangered species. However, they are still commonly hunted and poisoned by locals because of attacks on livestock and children. (Yet that documentary specifically said that Hindus generally try not to retaliate against the wolves. So one wonders whether there is a correlation to "locals" attacking wolves and the increase in christoislamania and other unheathenism like psecularism in India.) These attacks are far more common in Indian wolves than in other wolf species because nearly all of their large native prey was hunted to extinction by humans (Read: christobrits and islamic rulers).



[...]



Golden Jackal (Canis aureus)



Photo: Golden jackal - by D. Gordon E. Robertson



The golden jackal (Canis aureus) is a wolf in all but name. It is much more closely related to wolves than to other jackals and probably evolved in Asia rather than Africa. They resemble coyotes in general appearance but are smaller and lighter, and their vocalizations are very similar to domestic dogs. Though the largest of the jackals, they only weigh 15-33 pounds. Golden jackal coat length and color varies with their habitat but it is generally some shade of reddish-gray.



Canis aureus is the only jackal found outside of Africa. Their huge range spreads across Northern Africa, Southeastern Europe, Western and Southern Asia, and across the Middle East. Though no comprehensive population study has been conducted for the species, golden jackals are generally considered to be thriving and are hunted throughout their range as pests. In Russia they are commercially hunted and trapped for their fur, to be used in ladies’ hats and coats.



Golden jackals are highly adaptable animals – successfully living in the African savannahs, European mountains and Indian tropical forests. They usually feed on small mammals, but have been known to scavenge off larger carcasses. In India, they have been known to form symbiotic relationships with wild tigers. The golden jackal follows the tiger at a distance and waits to clean up the scraps after a kill. The jackals are also known for scouting out large prey and alerting tigers to the opportunity. Perhaps it was their malleability and resourcefulness that lead the ancient Egyptians to worship the golden jackal as Anubis, the god of embalming and the afterlife.

Quote:Thursday, August 1, 2013

Wolves of the World: When does a wolf not howl?

by Kymberli Morris



We know that wolves do not howl at the moon, but do all wolves howl? The answer is no.



There are two sub-species of Grey Wolf that are not known to howl: the Arabian wolf and the Iranian wolf. The Arabian wolf (Canis lupus arabs) can be found in Israel, Iraq, Oman, Yemen, Jordan, Saudia Arabia and the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. One of the smallest sub-species of grey wolf, it stands just over 2 feet tall at the shoulder and weighs less than 50 lbs. Also, they do not live in large packs, preferring to hunt in pairs or groups no larger than 3 or 4 animals.



The Iranian wolf (Canis lupus pallipes), found in Northern Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, ranges from 50-70 lbs and also stands a little more than 2 feet tall at the shoulder. The Arabian wolf is considered Critically Endangered and the Iranian wolf is considered Endangered according to the International Wolf Center’s classifications.

Quote:Wild Indian Wolf

Indian-Grey-Wolf (Not a grey wolf actually)



Indian wolves are distributed around the Himalayas range of India and prey on antelopes, rodents and hares. Hunting of wolves in India considered as as taboo and sign of bad harvest.

Quote:The Indian Wolf

Indian Wolves



For a long time, it was believed that the Indian Wolf was a gray wolf subspecies and was recognized as the Canis lupus pallipes, the same as the Iranian Wolf. However, recent genetic research suggests that the Indian Wolf has not cross-bred with any other subspecies in over 400,000 years which would make it a separate species of it's own, the Canis indica. The Canis lupus pallipes would then refer to the wolves from the Arabian peninsula, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, but not India.



HABITAT

The Indian Wolf is adapted to scrublands, grasslands, and semi-arid pastoral environments. It is found mainly in the Indian states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Its territories range from 100 to 150 square miles. Much of the Indian Wolf's habitat overlaps that of the Himalayan Wolf, and because of this, it is a wonder why the two do not interbreed.

Quote:Tibetan Wolf

[Photo of a simply beautiful Hindoo wolf. Not sure if it's of the Tibetan Wolf species or Himalayan Wolf, since the following text still confuses the two species.]



Extremely threatened due to hunting, killing. IWAP lists it as a Schedule I species. Very little known about the species, one of the three species of wolves found in India.



Indian subcontinent. Canis lupus chanco or the Tibetan (Himalayan) wolf is found in the trans-Himalayan region and its range extends into Tibet, China, Manchuria, and Mongolia. Wolves form a distinct species and are of utmost significance from the perspective of conservation. Their reduced numbers and loss of forest habitat, loss of habitat-that deprives wolves of sites for proper denning and rendezvous-and the resulting depletion of natural prey pose a major threat. Diseases, such as canine distemper-a viral disease affecting the nervous system-and rabies pose another threat. Moreover, little is known about the ecology, behavior and status of the Himalayan wolves.The Tibetan Wolf features on schedule 1 of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) act 1972as an endangered species.



The first breeding pair came from Shimla Zoo in 1994. First breeding started in 1994.Till now there have been 32 births, in the park of this species. Out of these 6 animals died in the zoo due to old age.!7 animals have been given to Shimla, Nainital and Gangtok Zoo.

Quote:Darjeeling Zoo: Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park



This is the only specialized Zoo in the country and is internationally recognized for its conservation breeding programmes of Red Panda, Snow Leopards, Tibetan Wolf and other highly endangered animal species of Eastern Himalaya.

(To repeat: it's true. Red Pandas don't just come in Taoist and Bon varieties, but there are Hindoo Red Pandas: they occur naturally in India and Nepal too! :So happy



It was formerly known as Himalayan Zoological Park and was established on 14th August, 1958 in Darjeeling (West Bengal) as a joint venture of Govt. of India (Department of Science and Technology) and Govt. of West Bengal (Department of Education). In January, 1972, the Park was converted into a registered Society under West Bengal Societies Registration Act, 1961 with an understanding that the maintenance cost of the zoo will be shared by the Center and State Governments. The Society in May, 1993 was transferred to Department of Forests, Govt. of West Bengal. At the Govt. of India level the Zoological Park is under the Ministry of Environment and Forests.



The Zoological Park is striving for the maintenance of ecological balance in the Eastern Himalayas with the following objectives :

[...]

Quote:The Tibetan wolf (Canis lupus chanco), also known as the woolly wolf, is a gray wolf subspecies native to Asia from Turkestan throughout Tibet to Mongolia, northern China and the Indian subcontinent. In Tibet and Ladakh it is known as chánkú or shanko.[2]



Canis lupus is relatively widespread with a stable population trend and has therefore been assessed as Least Concern by IUCN since 2004.[3]



Canis lupus chanco is regarded as a synonym of Canis lupus lupus, reflecting a recent tendency to lump older subspecies and to name fewer new ones.[4]



The Tibetan wolf is thought by some scientists to be the most likely ancestor of the domestic dog, on account of its small size and mandible morphology, noting that the uppermost part of the lower jaw is turned back on both the Tibetan wolf and the dog, though not so in other grey wolf subspecies.[5]



[5] Olsen, S.J., Olsen, J.W. (1977). The Chinese wolf, ancestor of new world dogs. Science 197: 533–535.



[...]

Distribution and habitat



Between 1847 and 1923, Tibetan wolves have been described under various scientific names from Chinese Tartary, Tibet, Kashmir, the Gobi Desert, and from near Seoul in Korea. Their distributional range extends from the Russian Pamir, Chinese Turkestan, Tien Shan, Mongolia and northern China.[10] Their range in China includes Shensi, Sichuan, and Yunnan. In the 20th century, wolves were not recorded on the southern slopes of the Himalayas in Nepal.[2]



In the western Himalayas they are known to occur in Kashmir and Lahul, Himachal Pradesh, and in Pakistan's Chitral District. (Oh Chitral: also where heathen humans have (barely) survived. Explains everything.) [11] Between 2005 and 2008, sightings and scat of Tibetan wolves were recorded in the alpine meadows above the tree line north-east of the Nanda Devi National Park in Uttarakhand.[12]



In November 2013, a Tibetan wolf was photographed by a camera trap installed at about 3,500 m (11,500 ft) altitude on the Sunderdhunga Glacier in Bageshwar district, Uttarakhand.[13]



[11] Aggarwal, R. K.; Ramadevi, J. and L. Singh (2003). "Ancient origin and evolution of the Indian wolf: evidence from mitochondrial DNA typing of wolves from Trans-Himalayan region and Pennisular India". Genome Biology 2003, 4: 6. doi:10.1186/gb-2003-4-6-p6. Retrieved 28 August 2013.



[...]

Historical sources indicate that wolves occasionally killed children in Ladakh and Lahoul.[2] In Japanese Korea in 1928, wolves claimed more human victims than tigers, leopards, bears and boars combined.[15]

Quote:Devils in the Darkness

The Korean Gray Wolf was a terror for miners

(Such a christian title. Of course the wolves must be the devils not the alien miners encroaching on the habitat and food supply of the wolves. Oh poor persecuted alien looting christian demons.)



[...]

Wolves continued to plague the Korean countryside long after the tigers became scarce, and for the most part extinct, moving to the top of the food chain. Farmers and rangers, both Korean and Japanese alike, hunted and trapped the wolves extensively not only for their pelts but also as protection for their families and livestock. Despite their best efforts, the wolves continued to flourish.



It would be interesting to know how the wolves fared during the Korean War when so much of the country was destroyed and food more plentiful (in the form of corpses and animal carcasses), and the people better armed. Evidently the wolves were so plentiful in North Korea that in 1959 the North Korean government designated the wolves as nuisances and granted permission for any citizen to hunt them at will. According to surveys performed in the 1980s there were an estimated to be no more than 20 wolves in the Mount Paekdu region, but with the great famines and disasters that plagued the North in the late 1990s and the early 2000s, the continued existence of these wolves is uncertain.



Wolves in South Korea fared even worse. With most of the country rapidly being developed and forested and uninhabited lands few, by the early 1960s the Gray Wolf was all but exterminated from South Korea -- with perhaps only a few left in the mountainous regions of Chiri-san and Taebaek-san. There have been reported sightings, the most recent in 1987, but no concrete proof of the wolf's continued existence in the wilds of South Korea.



Despite their great numbers in the past, the wolves have literally disappeared in the 60-plus years since the Western gold miners left Korea. They, like the tigers, are now stories from the past -- a treasure that has been lost.

(They're not "lost", they're extincted or appear to be.)

Quote:Himalayan wolf



The Himalayan wolf (provisional name: "Canis himalayensis") has been suggested by several Indian biologists for recognition as a critically endangered canid species, distinct from Canis lupus. Results of mitochondrial DNA analysis suggests that the Himalayan wolf is phylogenetically distinct from the Tibetan wolf Canis lupus chanco.[1] In April 2009, the Latin binom Canis himalayensis has been proposed as nomenclatural and taxonomic change by the Nomenclature Specialist on the CITES Animals Committee.[2]



However, the IUCN Wolf Specialist Group has not taken a position regarding this issue. The editors of the third edition and current of Mammal Species of the World consider the small population to be Tibetan wolves, a subspecies of the gray wolf, despite that the Himalayan population are much older than Tibetan wolves.[3]





Evolution

Lineages of the Indian subcontinent, with C. himalayensis being the oldest

Canis lupus himalayensis found in Himalayan zoological park, Darjeeling



Until recently, all wolves and dogs were believed to be part of the wolf-dog clade, meaning all domesticated dogs are derived from wolves. When the Himalayan lineage was studied, it became apparent these wolves shared no genetic markers with dogs. This indicates the Himalayan wolf played no role in the domestication of dogs.[6] The estimated time of the split of the Himalayan wolf from the other wolf lineages (0.8–1.5 millions of years ago) correlates with the period of rapid uplift of the Tibetan Plateau and associated habitat modification (0.9–1.1 millions of years ago).[7]



The Indian subcontinent includes three diverse, distinct wolf lineages — Indian wolf, Tibetan wolf and Eurasian wolf. This fact makes the Indian region the likely cradle of modern wolf evolution.[6]

(Final claim is interesting if it turned out true.

But India simply has massive biodiversity. Even noticeable in the more obvious: such as the number of larger mammals we have.

Humans actually fall in there too. The subcontinent is just an ideal area for life to multiply and diversify.



Still the 3 Indian subcontinental wolf lineages mentioned above are a bit confusing: there is the Indian wolf/Canis Indica, the Tibetan wolf - which is classed as a Gray Wolf and which hence must be the "Eurasian wolf" - since the 3rd species ought to be the Himalayan Wolf/Canis Himalayensis as this is now found to be distinct not only from the Tibetan Wolves and other Gray Wolves (not being a Gray wolf), but from all other extant wolf species, including the Indian Wolf/Canis Indica. Or did I miss something?)



According to Aggarwal et al., mitochondrial DNA analysis suggests the Himalayan wolf is distinct from the Tibetan wolf, and represents the most ancient wolf lineage ever recorded.[1] However, other researchers have questioned this conclusion, claiming that recent genetic studies have lacked in one or another aspect to provide a complete picture. The Himalayan wolf is present strictly in the Indian region of Ladakh and Spiti and differs from the wolf in Tibetan part. As these areas are part of the same landscape, the question of what ecological or behavioural barriers could be facilitating such strict divergence, particularly when no striking morphological differences occur between the wolves from Tibet and Indian Trans-Himalaya, remains unanswered. Another problem is related to limited data: none of the studies have collected samples from the Kashmir valley population, despite suggesting it as the area of potential contact of the closely related wolf clades. Instead, the samples have been collected from Indian zoos or museum specimens.[8]

Quote:What happens when two monkeys are paid unequally? Fairness, reciprocity, empathy, cooperation — caring about the well-being of others seems like a very human trait. But Frans de Waal shares some surprising videos of behavioral tests, on primates and other mammals, that show how many of these moral traits all of us share.

Quote:Frans de Waal: Primatologist

Frans de Waal studies primate social behavior — how they fight and reconcile, share and cooperate. Full bio

Quote:I was born in Den Bosch, where the painter Hieronymus Bosch named himself after. And so I've always been very fond of this painter who lived and worked in the 15th century. And what is interesting about him in relation to morality is that he lived at a time where religion's influence was waning, and he was sort of wondering, I think, what would happen with society if there was no religion or if there was less religion. And so he painted this famous painting, "The Garden of Earthly Delights," which some have interpreted as being humanity before the Fall, or being humanity without any Fall at all. And so it makes you wonder, what would happen if we hadn't tasted the fruit of knowledge, so to speak, and what kind of morality would we have?



0:51

Much later, as a student, I went to a very different garden, a zoological garden in Arnhem where we keep chimpanzees. This is me at an early age with a baby chimpanzee. (Laughter) And I discovered there that the chimpanzees are very power hungry and wrote a book about it. And at that time the focus in a lot of animal research was on aggression and competition. I painted a whole picture of the animal kingdom, and humanity included, was that deep down we are competitors, we are aggressive, we're all out for our own profit basically. This is the launch of my book. I'm not sure how well the chimpanzees read it, but they surely seemed interested in the book.



1:35

Now in the process of doing all this work on power and dominance and aggression and so on, I discovered that chimpanzees reconcile after fights. And so what you see here is two males who have had a fight. They ended up in a tree, and one of them holds out a hand to the other. And about a second after I took the picture, they came together in the fork of the tree and they kissed and embraced each other.



1:55

Now this is very interesting because at the time everything was about competition and aggression, and so it wouldn't make any sense. The only thing that matters is that you win or that you lose. But why would you reconcile after a fight? That doesn't make any sense. This is the way bonobos do it. Bonobos do everything with sex. And so they also reconcile with sex. But the principle is exactly the same. The principle is that you have a valuable relationship that is damaged by conflict, so you need to do something about it. So my whole picture of the animal kingdom, and including humans also, started to change at that time.



2:29

So we have this image in political science, economics, the humanities, philosophy for that matter, that man is a wolf to man. And so deep down our nature's actually nasty. I think it's a very unfair image for the wolf. The wolf is, after all, a very cooperative animal. And that's why many of you have a dog at home, which has all these characteristics also. And it's really unfair to humanity, because humanity is actually much more cooperative and empathic than given credit for. So I started getting interested in those issues and studying that in other animals.



3:03

So these are the pillars of morality. If you ask anyone, "What is morality based on?" these are the two factors that always come out. One is reciprocity, and associated with it is a sense of justice and a sense of fairness. And the other one is empathy and compassion. And human morality is more than this, but if you would remove these two pillars, there would be not much remaining I think. And so they're absolutely essential.



3:27

So let me give you a few examples here. This is a very old video from the Yerkes Primate Center where they train chimpanzees to cooperate. ["1937"] So this is already about a hundred years ago that we were doing experiments on cooperation. What you have here is two young chimpanzees who have a box, and the box is too heavy for one chimp to pull in. And of course, there's food on the box. Otherwise they wouldn't be pulling so hard. And so they're bringing in the box. And you can see that they're synchronized. You can see that they work together, they pull at the same moment. It's already a big advance over many other animals who wouldn't be able to do that. And now you're going to get a more interesting picture, because now one of the two chimps has been fed. So one of the two is not really interested in the task anymore. (Laughter) (Laughter) (Laughter) [" -- and sometimes appears to convey its wishes and meanings by gestures."] Now look at what happens at the very end of this. (Laughter) He takes basically everything.



5:05

(Laughter)



5:07

So there are two interesting parts about this. One is that the chimp on the right has a full understanding he needs the partner -- so a full understanding of the need for cooperation. The second one is that the partner is willing to work even though he's not interested in the food. Why would that be? Well that probably has to do with reciprocity. There's actually a lot of evidence in primates and other animals that they return favors. So he will get a return favor at some point in the future. And so that's how this all operates.



5:34

We do the same task with elephants. Now with elephants, it's very dangerous to work with elephants. Another problem with elephants is that you cannot make an apparatus that is too heavy for a single elephant. Now you can probably make it, but it's going to be a pretty flimsy apparatus I think. And so what we did in that case -- we do these studies in Thailand for Josh Plotnik -- is we have an apparatus around which there is a rope, a single rope. And if you pull on this side of the rope, the rope disappears on the other side. So two elephants need to pick it up at exactly the same time and pull. Otherwise nothing is going to happen and the rope disappears.



6:08

And the first tape you're going to see is two elephants who are released together arrive at the apparatus. The apparatus is on the left with food on it. And so they come together, they arrive together, they pick it up together and they pull together. So it's actually fairly simple for them. There they are. And so that's how they bring it in. But now we're going to make it more difficult. Because the whole purpose of this experiment is to see how well they understand cooperation. Do they understand that as well as the chimps, for example?



6:46

And so what we do in the next step is we release one elephant before the other, and that elephant needs to be smart enough to stay there and wait and not pull at the rope -- because if he pulls at the rope, it disappears and the whole test is over. Now this elephant does something illegal that we did not teach it. But it shows the understanding that he has, because he puts his big foot on the rope, stands on the rope and waits there for the other, and then the other is going to do all the work for him. So it's what we call freeloading. (Laughter) But it shows the intelligence that the elephants have. They develop several of these alternative techniques that we did not approve of necessarily. So the other elephant is now coming and is going to pull it in. Now look at the other. The other doesn't forget to eat, of course. (Laughter) This was the cooperation, reciprocity part.



7:58

Now something on empathy. Empathy is my main topic at the moment of research. And empathy has sort of two qualities. One is the understanding part of it. This is just a regular definition: the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. And the emotional part. And so empathy has basically two channels.



8:13

One is the body channel. If you talk with a sad person, you're going to adopt a sad expression and a sad posture, and before you know it you feel sad. And that's sort of the body channel of emotional empathy, which many animals have. Your average dog has that also. That's actually why people keep mammals in the home and not turtles or snakes or something like that who don't have that kind of empathy. And then there's a cognitive channel, which is more that you can take the perspective of somebody else. And that's more limited. There's few animals -- I think elephants and apes can do that kind of thing -- but there are very few animals who can do that.



8:46

So synchronization, which is part of that whole empathy mechanism is a very old one in the animal kingdom. And in humans, of course, we can study that with yawn contagion. Humans yawn when others yawn. And it's related to empathy. It activates the same areas in the brain. Also, we know that people who have a lot of yawn contagion are highly empathic. People who have problems with empathy, such as autistic children, they don't have yawn contagion. So it is connected.



9:12

And we study that in our chimpanzees by presenting them with an animated head. So that's what you see on the upper-left, an animated head that yawns. And there's a chimpanzee watching, an actual real chimpanzee watching a computer screen on which we play these animations. (Laughter) So yawn contagion that you're probably all familiar with -- and maybe you're going to start yawning soon now -- is something that we share with other animals. And that's related to that whole body channel of synchronization that underlies empathy and that is universal in the mammals basically.



9:51

Now we also study more complex expressions. This is consolation. This is a male chimpanzee who has lost a fight and he's screaming, and a juvenile comes over and puts an arm around him and calms him down. That's consolation. It's very similar to human consolation. And consolation behavior, it's empathy driven. Actually the way to study empathy in human children is to instruct a family member to act distressed, and then they see what young children do. And so it is related to empathy, and that's the kind of expressions we look at.



10:21

We also recently published an experiment you may have heard about. It's on altruism and chimpanzees where the question is, do chimpanzees care about the welfare of somebody else? And for decades it had been assumed that only humans can do that, that only humans worry about the welfare of somebody else. Now we did a very simple experiment. We do that on chimpanzees that live in Lawrenceville, in the field station of Yerkes. And so that's how they live. And we call them into a room and do experiments with them. In this case, we put two chimpanzees side-by-side. and one has a bucket full of tokens, and the tokens have different meanings. One kind of token feeds only the partner who chooses, the other one feeds both of them.



11:00

So this is a study we did with Vicky Horner. And here you have the two color tokens. So they have a whole bucket full of them. And they have to pick one of the two colors. You will see how that goes. So if this chimp makes the selfish choice, which is the red token in this case, he needs to give it to us. So we pick it up, we put it on a table where there's two food rewards, but in this case only the one on the right gets food. The one on the left walks away because she knows already. that this is not a good test for her. Then the next one is the pro-social token.



11:35

So the one who makes the choices -- that's the interesting part here -- for the one who makes the choices, it doesn't really matter. So she gives us now a pro-social token and both chimps get fed. So the one who makes the choices always gets a reward. So it doesn't matter whatsoever. And she should actually be choosing blindly. But what we find is that they prefer the pro-social token. So this is the 50 percent line that's the random expectation. And especially if the partner draws attention to itself, they choose more.



12:02

And if the partner puts pressure on them -- so if the partner starts spitting water and intimidating them -- then the choices go down. It's as if they're saying, "If you're not behaving, I'm not going to be pro-social today." And this is what happens without a partner, when there's no partner sitting there. And so we found that the chimpanzees do care about the well-being of somebody else -- especially, these are other members of their own group.



12:26

So the final experiment that I want to mention to you is our fairness study. And so this became a very famous study. And there's now many more, because after we did this about 10 years ago, it became very well known. And we did that originally with capuchin monkeys. And I'm going to show you the first experiment that we did. It has now been done with dogs and with birds and with chimpanzees. But with Sarah Brosnan we started out with capuchin monkeys.



12:54

So what we did is we put two capuchin monkeys side-by-side. Again, these animals, they live in a group, they know each other. We take them out of the group, put them in a test chamber. And there's a very simple task that they need to do. And if you give both of them cucumber for the task, the two monkeys side-by-side, they're perfectly willing to do this 25 times in a row. So cucumber, even though it's only really water in my opinion, but cucumber is perfectly fine for them. Now if you give the partner grapes -- the food preferences of my capuchin monkeys correspond exactly with the prices in the supermarket -- and so if you give them grapes -- it's a far better food -- then you create inequity between them. So that's the experiment we did.



13:37

Recently we videotaped it with new monkeys who'd never done the task, thinking that maybe they would have a stronger reaction, and that turned out to be right. The one on the left is the monkey who gets cucumber. The one on the right is the one who gets grapes. The one who gets cucumber, note that the first piece of cucumber is perfectly fine. The first piece she eats. Then she sees the other one getting grape, and you will see what happens. So she gives a rock to us. That's the task. And we give her a piece of cucumber and she eats it. The other one needs to give a rock to us. And that's what she does. And she gets a grape and she eats it. The other one sees that. She gives a rock to us now, gets, again, cucumber. (Laughter) She tests a rock now against the wall. She needs to give it to us. And she gets cucumber again. (Laughter) So this is basically the Wall Street protest that you see here.



14:58

(Laughter)



15:01

(Applause)



15:04

Let me tell you -- I still have two minutes left, let me tell you a funny story about this. This study became very famous and we got a lot of comments, especially anthropologists, economists, philosophers. They didn't like this at all. Because they had decided in their minds, I believe, that fairness is a very complex issue and that animals cannot have it. And so one philosopher even wrote us that it was impossible that monkeys had a sense of fairness because fairness was invented during the French Revolution. (Laughter)

:BAHAHAHAHAHAHAH: Oh the utter loon. There are people that draw such crazy conclusions you know.



15:35

Now another one wrote a whole chapter saying that he would believe it had something to do with fairness if the one who got grapes would refuse the grapes. Now the funny thing is that Sarah Brosnan, who's been doing this with chimpanzees, had a couple of combinations of chimpanzees where, indeed, the one who would get the grape would refuse the grape until the other guy also got a grape. So we're getting very close to the human sense of fairness. And I think philosophers need to rethink their philosophy for awhile.



16:02

So let me summarize. I believe there's an evolved morality. I think morality is much more than what I've been talking about, but it would be impossible without these ingredients that we find in other primates, which are empathy and consolation, pro-social tendencies and reciprocity and a sense of fairness. And so we work on these particular issues to see if we can create a morality from the bottom up, so to speak, without necessarily God and religion involved, and to see how we can get to an evolved morality.



16:29

And I thank you for your attention.



16:32

(Applause)