The mortality risk to chimpanzees from vehicular traffic seems bound to increase with the massive expansion of road building and vehicles travelling at greater speeds. A recent report described the case of an adult female in Uganda killed by a fast-moving taxi as she tried to cross a road. Īnother anthropogenic cause of deaths in chimpanzees is motor vehicles. Snare-injured chimpanzees in Budongo (Uganda) carry higher helminth parasite loads than non-injured controls, indicating secondary and/or long-term effects on health. Many chimpanzees lose fingers, toes, hands or feet after getting caught in snares, and some survivors have wire embedded in their flesh for a long time death from infection must befall some injured victims. Snares and mantraps are sometimes set specifically for chimpanzees, although they are generally more often used to capture other animals. spears, bows and arrows) by guns has made it easier to kill chimpanzees and other wildlife. The replacement of traditional weapons (e.g. Chimpanzees are also killed in retaliation for crop raiding or aggression toward humans. Poaching poses a serious threat to many populations, especially in areas where armed conflicts result in food shortages and a breakdown of law and order, and when mining or timber-felling operations open up new roads that facilitate access to forests. It is estimated that 5–10 chimpanzees are killed for every infant captured alive. In many areas where they live chimpanzees are deliberately killed by humans for meat, for body parts in traditional medicine (or as charms), or to obtain infants as pets or to sell. The broader, overall aim is to stimulate primatologists to gather and present further information to help progress in the field of comparative evolutionary thanatology. The aims of this paper are to (1) review causes of death in chimpanzees, (2) consider how chimpanzees respond to death and death-related cues and (3) address the question how chimpanzees' ‘psychology of death’ compares with that of their nearest evolutionary neighbours, namely humans. Known and inferred mortality factors in wild chimpanzees include disease, hunting by humans, nonhuman predators, general senescence, accidents and intra- and inter-group aggression some factors reported in captivity are also likely to apply to wild populations. Even when dead chimpanzees are found it is not always possible to establish the precise cause of death. By contrast, if infants, juveniles or adult males disappear researchers often consider them to have died, although this often goes unverified. Because female chimpanzees tend to emigrate from their natal communities, unexplained disappearances are conservatively assumed to reflect possible transfer. ĭeaths have been witnessed or inferred by researchers at all long-term chimpanzee study sites. At Mahale (Tanzania), around half of all infant chimpanzees die before they are weaned. However, as a result of various challenges to their survival at different stages of life most chimpanzees do not live as long, and males generally die earlier than females. Given favourable social and environmental conditions-such as abundant food, few predators, absence of epidemics and little disturbance from humans-chimpanzees might live until at least 50 years of age. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Evolutionary thanatology: impacts of the dead on the living in humans and other animals’. As well as gathering more fundamental information about responses to dying and death, researchers should pay attention to possible cultural variations in how great apes deal with death. Whether they might understand that death is inevitable-including their own death, and biological causes of death is also discussed. It is argued that, given their cognitive abilities, their experiences of death in conspecifics and other species are likely to equip chimpanzees with an understanding of death as cessation of function and irreversible. Chimpanzees also kill and sometimes eat other species. Topics covered include disease, human activities, predation, accidents and intra-species aggression and cannibalism. This paper reviews the major causes of death in chimpanzees, and how these apes respond to cues related to dying and death. Information about responses to death in nonhuman primates is important for evolutionary thanatology.
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