IN DEFENSE OF‘ DARWIN’ S MONKEY’
A fresh look at baboons from five decades in the field.
BY INGA KIDERRA | ILLUSTRATION: DEBORAH ROSS
BABOONS GET A BUM RAP. Commonly seen as ugly, vicious and stupid, they’ re often the butt of a joke. But Shirley Strum, the UC San Diego biological anthropologist who’ s been studying wild olive baboons in Kenya for the past 50 years, knows they’ re the opposite of their stereotype. She knows this firsthand from a lifetime of fieldwork, like Jane Goodall with chimpanzees or Diane Fossey with gorillas.“ Baboons are smart,” she says.“ They’ re adaptable, flexible, collaborative and incredibly complex.”
While Strum’ s discoveries about baboon society( yes, society) challenge previous scientific notions, the popular perception still has a ways to go. Look up“ baboon” in the dictionary, and after the definition of a genus that includes several species, you’ ll find an epithet— a person that’ s dimwitted, brutish and crude.
As unfair as the insult is, it is true that baboons are big and strong, among the world’ s largest monkeys. They also have close-set eyes and doglike muzzles with menacingly sharp canine teeth. Unlike many simian cousins we find“ cute,” baboons grow out of their adorable baby faces. And their characteristic four-legged stride? That can look intimidating, like a bully’ s saunter, especially on a full-grown male with a large mane.
None of these features help their image, nor do the bright pink swellings on their bottoms, which even Strum says“ aren’ t very appealing— except to other baboons.” While Strum won’ t argue with anyone’ s aesthetic preferences in primates, she can and has been arguing for years with what people think they know about baboon behavior.
First and foremost, baboons are anything but stupid. In fact, in Kenya and other parts of Africa and Arabia where they roam wild, local people who live off the land tend to come into conflict with baboons precisely because they’ re as smart as they are. In places where baboons have learned to raid food crops or even carry off small livestock, they’ re seen as pests, a threat to human livelihood.
Because of this, Strum’ s work in Kenya has evolved through the decades to include not only observation of baboon behavior but also a good deal of conflict resolution between people and baboons. With human encroachment and a changing climate, it has additionally grown to include conservation.
But“ Darwin’ s monkey,” as Strum has come to call baboons— due to Darwin’ s frequent references to them and how they’ ve also affected her views on natural selection— can provide us with valuable insights on our own existential dilemma. Yet before Strum could draw any conclusions, she first had to meet a few baboons.
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