Any advice?

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rhian_bagley

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Hey,

This is my first post here and you all seem very knowledgeable so I thought I would ask some cheeky bits of advice.

I am thinking about doing my final year degree dissertation on Gorillas and I would like to look at tool use in captivity and if it varies with age.

Does anyone know of any good ways to test tool use and if there are any good studies already completes on this?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated :)
 
rhian_bagley said:
Hey,

This is my first post here and you all seem very knowledgeable so I thought I would ask some cheeky bits of advice.

I am thinking about doing my final year degree dissertation on Gorillas and I would like to look at tool use in captivity and if it varies with age.

Does anyone know of any good ways to test tool use and if there are any good studies already completes on this?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated :)
Click to expand...

Hello Rhian,
Welcome to the forum! :)

I expect there will be plenty of papers on tool use in captive great apes, but I expect the majority of these will be performed on Chimpanzees.

I found a paper by Hopkins ans Rabinowitz (1997) that tests tool use in chimpanzees, looking for right/left hand preferences. The tool using experiment they used "...was a dipping task de signed to require subjects to extract food from containers using some type of stick or metal rod.This task was designed to simulate termite fishing in wild chimpanzees (seeGoodall, 1986)." This is pretty common in chimps, lots of zoos use similar methods of enrichment.

Apparently, whilst similar behaviour has not been observed in wild gorillas, in captivity gorillas will learn to 'dip' for food rewards, using a tool like a stick or rod to retrieve peanut butter or some other treat. I read this in an extract from the book 'The Mentalities of Gorillas and Orangutans' by Parker et al, a book I'm sure you're already aware of if you've done any research. The book can be partly viewed on google, the most relevant pages are omitted though, so maybe look for this one on Amazon or in your library. The chapter 'Tool Use in Captive Gorillas' (pg 179) has the material mentioned. There are also some interesting suggestions as to why this sort of behaviour is exclusive to captive gorillas.

The paper this book references is by Fontaine et al (1995) and is here:
PsycNET
AND
Observations of Spontaneous Tool Making and Tool Use in a Captive Group of Western Lowland Gorillas <i>(Gorilla gorilla gorilla</i><i>)</i>

I apologise if I am finding things you already have, but with only a quick search this is the best I have found. Unfortunately I can't view the paper on either site, it requires you to login, and won't accept an institutional login (so far as I can see). Again, maybe it's in your library or you could order a copy?

Another paper (which I can view) is by Nakamichi which mentions gorillas at San Diego Wild Animal Park throwing sticks into trees. The trees were protected by 'hotwires' to prevent the gorillas climbing them, so the gorillas threw sticks to knock down fruit. It's not such a great study really in my opinion.

I don't know of any studies of tool use in captive gorillas in the UK, it could be done I suppose using the dipstick method common with chimpanzees. I am trying to think if I have ever seen this used as enrichment for gorillas, I can't recall an example. Perhaps someone will be able to tell us about gorilla enrichment at Port Lympne on Howletts, I understand their facilities offer lots of enrichment oppurtunities.

Good luck with your study. Please keep us posted on how it is going, I would be interested to hear what you find.
 
The most knowledgable member on here on Primates especially Gorillas is Pertinax he would definately be someone to speak to on the issue.
Hope this helps abit and Welcome to the Forum.
Regards
 
Sorry about the delay in getting back to you.
Thanks for all of that Chris, I have only really started researching and all that has proved to be really helpful! I will keep you updated with how it all goes!
 
Riziki said:
The most knowledgable member on here on Primates especially Gorillas is Pertinax he would definately be someone to speak to on the issue.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the vote of confidence...;) Unfortunately I think I'm going to be a bit of a letdown here as its not really my sphere of expertise, nor am I very well up on the literature in this area. Except to say most information on tool use has been done with Chimps rather than Gorillas, as you are no doubt aware.

I am sure it would prove an interesting and worthwhile study though. For potential study groups in the UK, the best social Gorilla groups with most of the age classes represented are at either Howletts/Port Lympne in Kent or Chessington Zoo in Surrey, and then there is the small group at Bristol Zoo also (though it has a less diverse age range). I imagine one or more of them might be agreeable to such a study if they were approached formally for permission beforehand.

I'll p.m. you if I can think of anything else which might help.
 
Ok thanks for you reply though :) I will have to have a good hunt around and see what I can find. At least it will be a study which hasnt been done much before.
I am hopefully going to be doing it on the group at chessington, they have half agreed I just need to show them my plan.

Thanks for everyone's help :) I knew this would be a good place to come!
 
rhian_bagley said:
I am hopefully going to be doing it on the group at chessington, they have half agreed I just need to show them my plan.
Click to expand...

Chessington's group(s) would be ideal for this- they have virtually all ages in the two groups, which would fit your requirements very well.
 
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