The Ngogo chimpanzee group in Uganda’s Kibale National Park, the largest known community of wild chimpanzees, has split into two hostile factions over the past decade. This division mirrors a similar event observed by Jane Goodall in the 1970s in Tanzania, where a group of chimps turned on each other in what seemed like a civil war. The recent study, published in Science, draws from over 30 years of observations and highlights the breakdown of relationships within the Ngogo group, which once consisted of nearly 200 individuals living cohesively. In 2015, researchers noticed a significant change, marking the beginning of the ongoing conflict. This study sheds light on the complex social dynamics of chimpanzees, revealing their capacity for both cooperation and conflict, much like humans.
QUESTION: Why do you think chimpanzees, like humans, can shift from peaceful coexistence to conflict, and what does this tell us about our own nature?
What a chimpanzee ‘civil war’ can teach us about how societies fall apart
