AS-HOPE report

Number: AS-23-004

Attendance at the symposium and pre-research on wild bonobos

Report: Tokuyama Nahoko

Date: 2011/8/6 - 2011/9/27

I'm interested in post-conflict behavior of gregarious animals. In captive situation, bonobos often reconcile and console after conflict. But in wild, there is no study about post-conflict behavior of bonobos. To understand the meaning of post-conflict behavior, it's important to study both situations, inwild and in captive. In wild, the loser can leave away from the winner, so thepost-conflict behavior may differ from the captive situation. I will do long-term research at Wamba next year. So I needed to observe wild bonobos andconsider the method in this short visit. ĄĄI stayed at Wamba from 8/15 to 9/20, and observed wild bonobos for 25 days. Ifollowed bonobo's party with 2 field assistants, and observed their behavior, recognized individually, and collected fecal samples. I could observe variousbehaviors in this short visit, for example, food sharing, playing and sexual behavior in various combinations of sex and age, and sub-group encounter. The frequency of aggressive behavior was low, and I could record clearly observation only 6 times. I observed female attacked male 2 times, but I didn'tobserve male attacked female. The reconciliation didn't occur at all.

symposium


Grooming


Female and child

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