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Great research
Anthropology graduate students research orangutan behavior at Great
Ape Trust of Iowa.
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A visitor to the orangutan complex at Great Ape Trust of Iowa doesn't
go unnoticed by Azy, the 260-pound, 28-year-old adult male orangutan.
Azy will come over to the window and check out the visitors. Before long
he leaves and goes about his business. One of the two females at the complex,
Knobi, is more of a ham. After Azy leaves the viewing area, Knobi will
sit and even pose for photos.
All this activity is fascinating to any visitors to Great Ape Trust. For
two Iowa State anthropology graduate students, this is old hat.
That doesn't mean that the pair doesn't still get a thrill each and every
time they see the orangutans.
"I've known Azy for eight years. The relationships that the scientific
and animal care staff have developed with all three of the orangutans
at Great Ape Trust are enduring and based on gentleness and mutual respect,"
said Caisie Pitman, a master's student in anthropology and a research
assistant at Great Ape Trust. "Each individual is distinct and has
a unique personality."
Pitman and doctoral student Kristina Walkup not only work at Great Ape
Trust but they are conducting research at the facility for their graduate
study. Walkup, who graduated recently with a master's in anthropology,
is a Ph.D. student in ecology and evolutionary biology.
Both work with Jill Pruetz, assistant professor of anthropology, the department's
primatologist who studies chimpanzee behavior and ecology in Senegal.
Great Ape Trust of Iowa is a world-class research center "dedicated to
providing sanctuary and an honorable life for great apes."
Researchers at the Des Moines area facility study the intelligence of
great apes while advancing conservation of great apes and providing unique
educational experiences as well.
Azy came to Iowa from the Smithsonian's National Zoological Park in Washington,
D.C., where he was part of that facility's Think Tank Exhibit. A designer
of that exhibit, Robert Shumaker, is now a lead scientist at Great Ape
Trust and an affiliate professor in the Department of Anthropology. Pitman
worked with him at the National Zoo and came with the project to Des Moines.
She is also conducting research for her thesis, investigating the effects
of early experience on the social competence and mental abilities of nonhuman
great apes.
Walkup's connection with the orangutans and Great Ape Trust began two
years ago when she volunteered to participate in a locomotion project
at the facility.
This past summer she has worked with the organization's educational program
and will continue on as a research assistant this fall.
The on-going locomotion project, which Pitman is also involved with, examines
how the three Great Ape Trust orangutans move throughout their physical
surroundings in both indoor and outdoor areas.
"The orangutan building was designed to elicit species typical behavior.
Orangutans spend most of their time navigating through the trees in their
native island habitats of Sumatra and Borneo," she said.
The orangutan building focuses on vertical space and includes a number
of affordances, such as firehoses, sway poles, shelves and ladders. The
locomotion study is a complement to the theoretical research conducted
at Great Ape Trust according to Pitman.
"We hope that the results will assist other institutions in planning
orangutan facilities in the future," she said.
For her dissertation, Walkup is investigating the cognitive abilities
of orangutans in the content of tool use.
"This area of research is not really understood, specifically in
terms of orangutans' mental representation of cause and effect relations,"
she said. "We know that orangutans can make and use tools in complex
ways, but it is not understood how they mentally represent tools to solve
problems."
Graduate students Kristina Walkup and Caisie Pitman at
Great Ape Trust of Iowa
Around LAS
September 4-17, 2006
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