Empathy: How Bonobos Beat Humans in This Area

Bonobos are friendly apes who resemble the chimpanzees and humans' closest cousins. A 2017 study from Duke University entitled "Bonobos respond prosocially toward members of other groups" reports that bonobos are willing to help strangers even if there is nothing in it for them.

This shows that humans are not alone in displaying kindness to strangers, a behavior that evolved among the bonobos depending on their social needs.

However, these empathic primates are now considered endangered species. Dozens of school children are getting a crash course about bonobos at the Lola ya Bonobo sanctuary to help in conservation efforts.

Educators said that as closest cousins to humans, bonobos are also Congolese, and eating them is also like eating one's own cousin and therefore commits cannibalism.

They are doing their best to save the few thousand remaining bonobos which are now only 20,000 left in the wild and are generally found in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They aim to engage Congolese students to help protect the bonobos from harm.

(Photo: Pixabay)
Empathy: How Bonobos Beat Humans In This Area

Bonobos: Treasure of Nature in Congo

Although bonobos are empathic primates, humans have not reciprocated the same amount of empathy they should receive.

People have hunted them for food, and sold their babies as pets, and destroyed their habitats. According to NPR, most of the 60 bonobos at Lola are orphans who lost their mothers due to hunters who killed them for meat.

The sanctuary aims to prepare the bonobos for life in the wild by giving them spacious, forested enclosures. The apes also serve as ambassadors to daily delegations of school children that come to the sanctuary.

ClaudineAndré, who founded Lola ya Bonobo in 1994, said that children would learn the bonobos are unique in Congo and that they are a treasure of nature in the country.

She added that more than 10,000 students have visited Lola Boobo to learn about the primates and why they matter. She said that everything on the planet is connected, and so kids learn that not only bonobos are at risk but all in the biodiversity is in danger.

Children would learn to take action if they see bonobo being kept as a pet, an act considered as a crime in Congo. André says that often children would call the sanctuary to report such incidents.

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Bonobos Help Even Without Being Asked

According to National Geographic, the 2017 study showed that apes from Lola ya Bonobo help even when they are not being asked to.

For instance, in one group of their experiment, bonobos immediately dropped the fruit to the empty room without waiting for an incentive or cue. Their experiment involved putting two bonobos in adjacent rooms that do not know each other wherein there is a piece of apple hoisted above one room.

If one of them decided to climb the fence separating the two rooms, only one would get the apple as it triggers the fruit to fall. But the bonobos were willing to help strangers even without being asked.

Meanwhile, the second experiment showed their Good Samaritan characteristic. They let the bonobos watch videos of other bonobos yawning, who are both familiar and unfamiliar with the test subjects. Then they tested whether the bonobos watching would also yawn, which is a sign of empathy.

They found that the effect is the same on the observers because stranger apes' yawns were just as contagious as those bonobos that they are familiar with, suggesting that bonobos are indeed empathic species.