The animal war that you have never heard about, 1974

 

The animal war that you have never heard about, 1974

The Gombe Chimp War was a violent conflict between 2 groups of Chimpanzees in Tanzania, which lasted for 4 years between 1974 - 1978. The war was observed by primatologist Jane Goodall. She observed a group of chimps splitting due to a power struggle. After an alpha male died, two beta males emerged, and both began to try to seize control over the whole group of chimps. However, this caused a split in the group, which resulted in the Kasakela group and the Kahama group. Before the war began, it was believed that chimps were peaceful animals compared to humans. However, chimps can be extremely aggressive and can be highly territorial animals. Chimps also share 99% of their DNA with humans, and show many different human traits, which became apparent during the violence. Both groups of chimps displayed war tactics used by humans, such as walking in a single file, border patrols, and pattern recognition. The Kasakela group had 8 males and the Kahama group had 6 males. Despite being social animals, chimps will sometimes leave the group to eat alone. The Kasakela group understood this and would attack the Kahama males when they were alone. This resulted in the Kahama group losing all their males, with the Kasakela not suffering a single casualty. The war brought about many questions between chimps and humans, such as the fact that both humans and chimps tend to engage in armed conflict in similar fashions to control territories and dominate other rivals. The war also showed how societies can splinter. Male humans and male chimps will engage in very similar behavior when physically fighting one another, such as engaging in eye contact, posture (men will emphasize their shoulders and chest to appear bigger) flexing of muscles, and post-fight relationships, in which one person will emerge as the alpha if they physically dominate the other into submission through pain. The alpha will usually get respect and social power over those around him. The chimp war showed a more violent and aggressive side to chimps not seen before. The Gombe chimp war is now an iconic study into the behavior of chimpanzees.