When I talk about my time in the field, and how wonderful and fascinating chimpanzees are, one thing that often surprises people is that chimps eat meat. Listeners are truly shocked—"Wait what?" they say, "Chimps eat other animals?" They do, I say. They eat piglets, and small deer, but mostly monkeys. The chimps of Ngogo, Uganda, spend a good amount of time hunting monkeys—often opportunistically, when they encounter some while traveling—and eat their prey raw.
The chimps of Ngogo have hunted them almost to extinction. The chimpanzees in the next territory over seem to do this less: Red colobus monkeys thrive over there... Like us, much of chimpanzees' behavior depends on group size, other animals present, and nearby plant food play a role.
I think many people imagine chimpanzees living peaceful lives in harmony with the natural world, causing no harm, free from the pressures and stresses of modern life-our simpler and better selves. And chimps do indeed spend many hours per day in peaceful harmony. They have very strong social bonds within their community and families, and form long-term individual bonds with specific others—what we humans would call friends.
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