Orphaned bonobos can develop social skills and empathy
Bonobos (along with chimpanzees) are the closest surviving relatives to humans. They live solely in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Central Africa. Bonobos are listed as endangered due to habitat loss and poaching for meat and pets. Unfortunately, poaching has left many bonobos orphans. On December 18, 2024, Durham University in the U.K. said a new study showed orphaned bonobos in a sanctuary in Africa have overcome trauma to develop social skills and empathy.
The researchers published their results on December 18, 2024, in the peer-reviewed journal Royal Society Open Science.
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Bonobos surviving trauma
Bonobos have a matriarchal social structure. The Dutch-American primatologist Frans de Waal described bonobos as:
… capable of altruism, compassion, empathy, kindness, patience and sensitivity.
According to the study, bonobos that are separated from their mothers and end up isolated from their peers develop a trauma that can be immediate, but can also last into adulthood:
As with other mammals, early maternal loss in primates can have both immediate as well as lasting detrimental effects that persist into adulthood.
So, apes are social beings that live in groups with their peers and learn from them. In fact, the bond created between mother and infant is especially important.
What are the results of the study?
The researchers studied rescued bonobos living at the Lola ya Bonobo Sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa. It is the only sanctuary in the world just for bonobos.
The researchers observed bonobos:
… living in an accredited African ape sanctuary to examine how rearing background, sex and age predict social tendencies including affiliation, consolation and aggression risk.
In the study, the researchers looked at the behavior of orphaned bonobos and their relationships with other bonobos that did have mothers. And they did this over the course of 10 years. The purpose was to discover whether the orphans would adapt and learn from their peers. The researchers were particularly interested in the social and emotional development of the orphaned bonobos who had not had a role model.
In the sanctuary, the researchers looked at behaviors such as social skills, aggression and empathy. The study showed the orphaned bonobos did have reduced social skills, but they still demonstrated a degree of typical behaviors for their species, gender and age. The paper said:
Our study highlights the potential that ape sanctuaries like this can have by demonstrating that orphans exhibit decreased affiliative tendencies yet show social functioning ranging within patterns of their mother-reared peers.
What does the future hold for these animals?
Researchers have shown that bonobos are indeed able to overcome trauma and develop social skills typical of those who do have mothers. They also highlight the importance of these studies and rehabilitation centers when it comes to caring for the apes before returning them to the wild. Lead author Stephanie Kordon of Durham University said:
The Lola ya Bonobo sanctuary does vital work in protecting this vulnerable species. While the orphans’ social development is not equivalent to that of their mother-reared counterparts, they overlap in the development and behaviors they display.
Kordon added:
By better understanding the healthy social development of bonobos, we aim to help the important rehabilitation and conservation efforts of this unique species.
More about bonobos
Initially, bonobos were thought to be a subspecies of chimpanzee. In fact, they were known as pygmy chimpanzees, because they’re somewhat smaller than chimpanzees. However, scientists now recognize bonobos as a distinct species. According to a publication in the journal Nature:
It is known that whereas DNA sequences in humans diverged from those in bonobos and chimpanzees 5 to 7 million years ago, DNA sequences in bonobos diverged from those in chimpanzees around 2 million years ago. Bonobos are thus closely related to chimpanzees.
Bottom line: According to a new study, orphaned bonobos can overcome trauma and develop the social skills and empathy typical of the members of that species, gender and age.
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