To learn more about the upcoming Special Edition of Satya and Call for Submissions, click here.

September 1999 Editorial: They're Not One of "Us"...Or Are They? By Catherine Clyne

 

Apes can ‘talk’, but Africa’s farmers want us to eat them, ran the headline of a recent London Daily Telegraph article (8/1/99). The report opened with, “Opposition to a scheme for canning and selling baboon meat for human consumption has been heightened by new research suggesting that apes can learn and use language.” Come again? A group of entrepreneurs in northeastern South Africa have in the works a plan to build a “primate slaughterhouse.” The idea is that canned baboon meat will be marketed in west and central Africa as an effort to prevent “the killing and eating of endangered gorillas, chimpanzees and other primates.” But baboons are primates. Did I mention that baboon flesh may also be “cured for sale as a delicacy in western Europe”? And don’t worry, nothing will go to waste, there are plans to sell their nails, hands, teeth and, apparently, genitalia to Asian markets as aphrodisiacs.

Baboons are considered by some to be a nuisance, so this business venture could solve several problems: rid farmers of clever “pests”, stop people from killing and eating Great Apes, and, let’s not forget, make people money. Conservationists protest that the baboon population could also be endangered, except that conclusive studies have not yet been conducted. Something tells me that this venture is not genuinely concerned for the welfare of gorillas and chimps. Offering cans of baboon meat as a replacement for bush meat hardly sounds like a viable solution. Bush meat is generally the flesh of wild animals, ranging from gazelles to elephants to chimpanzees, and is quite common in parts of Africa. Chimp and gorilla meat, even though illegal, is expensive and considered to be a delicacy by some. More realistic are efforts by groups to work with communities to see the value in conserving the surrounding wildlife—particularly the primates—which would encourage tourism and balance the ecosystem.

The canning project has been put on hold because authorities are fuzzy about whether they approve of baboons being killed for human consumption. The issue of intelligence and capacity for language seems to be the stumper. The article explains that research by scientists who “have taught chimpanzees to use human language via computerized symbols have led to arguments over whether primates—the closest species genetically to homo sapiens—should be killed for food.”

A front-page article in the New York Times (8/18/99) recently highlighted the growing legal cases that are challenging the current system, which recognizes animals only as “property” (gorilla/VCR, same thing). Another Times article (8/22/99) articulated the possible legal ramifications of the use of language. Being like “us” seems to be a primary wedge issue. If our closest relatives, the “Great Apes”—chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans—can learn to express themselves in a human language, what would happen if Washoe (a prolific signing chimpanzee), Kanzi (a clever bonobo who uses computer symbols to communicate), or Koko (a female gorilla who signs and understands simple spoken English), were to stand up in court and confront a judge? These apes have roughly the vocabulary equivalency of a four year-old human child, so they will probably not sound off on the injustice, absurdity and sheer cruelty of humans enjoying “rights” while the rest of the animals have none. But even if either lady or Kanzi were to say something as simple as “LOVE” or “PLEASE PERSON HUG” in court, it could potentially open up a legal Pandora’s box that would challenge the entire system, and challenge the way we understand ourselves and what we understand “non-humans” to be.

If the baboon meat venture ever gets off the ground advocates will surely inform the public of how the baboons are trapped, transported to the abattoir, electrocuted to death, and their flesh stripped and then canned. Pretty normal scenario for any “harvested” animal, except that the source of meat would be our genetic cousins and one day they just might open their mouths and say “ouch!” or “please stop!” But we are animals and we are primates. Insight into non-human primate intelligence and their communication skills demonstrates the arbitrariness of what we consider to be valuable. Baboons don’t have to learn sign language to tell us that they don’t want to be hurt or killed. Neither do cows, chickens or fish.

“Discovering” intelligence in other primates points us toward questioning everything that we do not know about animals other than those most like us. Some lawyers, scientists and philosophers propose the conferral of basic “human” rights to our closest ancestors, such as the right not to be killed or tortured, and the right not to be incarcerated without due process (see The Great Ape Project website: http://arrs.envirolink.org/gap/gaphome.html). This approach is very reasonable and has the potential to alleviate the desperate situation that our fellow primates are in. It could also open up the door to extending such “rights” to all other animals. The argument, however, has the danger of upholding a millennia-old value system that allows in those who are “like us” and excludes all others. The “flap” over baboon meat and the fact that chimps are used in medical research, shows that even for primates it’s still an uphill battle. An old Peter Gabriel song runs like a tapeloop through my mind, “He may look like we do, talk like we do, but you know how it is…He’s not one of us.”

Catherine Clyne