FirstScience, UK
08-27-07
Iowa State University, Great Ape Trust create world's pre-eminent collaboration
for primate studies
By Iowa State University
AMES, Iowa -- Last February, Iowa State University anthropologist Jill Pruetz
made news around the world with her study reporting that savannah
chimpanzees at her Senegal research site are using spear-shaped tools to hunt.
Today, Pruetz and her colleagues were beneficiaries as officials from Great Ape
Trust of Iowa and Iowa State University signed a memorandum of agreement to
establish the world's pre-eminent collaboration for primate studies.
ISU President Gregory Geoffroy and Great Ape Trust founder Ted Townsend
signed the agreement during a formal ceremony in The Trust's bonobo scientific
research center in southeast Des Moines. The agreement, based on the shared
scientific and ethical values of primate research, recognizes multiple benefits to
both institutions.
"Iowa State University is delighted to expand our partnership with the Great Ape
Trust to create a truly world-class research and educational center for primate
studies," said Geoffroy. "Iowa State faculty and students have worked closely
with the staff of the Great Ape Trust since it opened in 2004, and we look forward
to significantly increasing our efforts with the Trust to better understand primates
and doing more to protect the fragile environment that supports them. We are
very grateful to Ted Townsend for creating this fantastic educational resource
here in Iowa and the opportunity it affords our faculty and students to pursue
research and prepare for careers."
"Iowa State University is one of the finest research institutions in the world, and
our agreement to create the pre-eminent collaboration for primate studies
solidifies Great Ape Trust for the long-term," Townsend said. "This partnership
for profound science adds a unique and powerful distinction to our state."
ISU Executive Vice President and Provost Elizabeth Hoffman, Pruetz and
several Iowa State students who are currently working at the Great Ape Trust
also attended the event.
The agreement sets the stage for Great Ape Trust to take a more active role in
the development of future scientists by providing them valuable laboratory and
field experiences, and through the development of an interdisciplinary graduate
program in primatology at the masters and doctorate levels. It increases
opportunities for Iowa State students to collaborate with Great Ape Trust on the
origins and future of culture, language, tools and intelligence, The Trust's primary
area of scientific inquiry, and to apply that knowledge to humanity and all
animals.
Currently there are seven ISU graduate students -- Lindsay Carrothers of
Leawood, Kan.; Katie Klag of Coal Valley, Ill.; Susannah Maisel of Des
Moines; Janni Pedersen of Ames (originally from Denmark); Caisie Pitman
of New Orleans, La.; Itai Roffman of Herzliya, Israel; and Kristina Walkup of
Northfield, Minn. -- who are either working full-time, part-time, or in a voluntary
capacity at Great Ape Trust.
Two Great Ape Trust scientists -- Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, a scientist with
Great Ape Trust's bonobo research program; and Robert Shumaker,
scientist/director Orangutan Research -- serve as affiliate professors in
ISU's Department of Anthropology, as well as on the graduate committees of
several Iowa State master's and doctorate degree candidates working at Great
Ape Trust. The Trust additionally funded scholarships for two international
students working part-time at the facility while they pursue graduate studies at
Iowa State.
This summer, Great Ape Trust contributed $71,000 to research conducted by
Pruetz -- an associate professor of anthropology -- at her Fongoli field site in
Senegal. In addition to reporting tool use by chimpanzees in hunting, Pruetz
became the first to report chimps are seeking shelter in caves to get out of the
extreme African heat. Hunting tools used in her discovery are expected to be
included in a Smithsonian Institution exhibit in 2009, according to Richard Potts,
director, Human Origins Program, National Museum of Natural History at the
Smithsonian.
Pruetz just returned from Senegal this summer and says that she witnessed
more spearing by chimpanzees at the site -- including a bout on her last day by
an alpha male. Her previous research had indicated that females primarily used
the hunting tools.
"If I continue to see males engage in the behavior -- they still do it at a much
lower frequency than other age-sex classes -- then I would suspect that it is a
behavior that is fairly recently developed," she said. "Adult males are normally
the last individuals to pick up new behaviors introduced to primate social groups."
The bigger news, according to Pruetz, was witnessing female chimps in
possession of a bushbuck -- the biggest prey that chimps eat anywhere.
Pruetz was accompanied this summer by a video crew that will include her
research in a future Public Broadcasting System "Nova" documentary on primate
intelligence, as well as a reporter and photographer from National Geographic
magazine for a future feature story on her work.
Great Ape Trust of Iowa is a scientific research facility dedicated to providing
sanctuary and an honorable life for great apes, studying their intelligence,
advancing their conservation, and providing unique educational experiences
about great apes. When completed, Great Ape Trust will be the largest great ape
facility in North America and one of the first worldwide to include all four types of
great ape -- bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans -- for noninvasive
interdisciplinary studies of their cognitive and communicative capabilities. More
information about Great Ape Trust of Iowa is available at
www.GreatApeTrust.org.