>>The NFL web page claims that all chimps are vegetarian,
> except for one particular "tribe", which eats meat. Apparently chimps
>from this "tribe"are much weaker and live only half as long as other
>>chimps.

>>I was under the impression that Jane Goodall reported that
> all chimps ate meat.

>You were under the wrong impression.  Re-read your Jane
> Goodall, or read below.

Read Scientific American, Jan. 1973: "The Omnivorous Chimpanzee"
Geza Teleki- (reporting on his work with Goodall):

"Many other primates are omnivorous...the chimp. ...engages in a
remarkably socialized distribution of the prey after the kill [DS:
to insure the proper nutrition of the whole community?]....Their
diet included insects, lizards, birds' eggs & fledgling birds, young
bushbacks & bushpigs, [& various primates] [young baboons were by
far the primary prey]....Many [hunting] episodes began while the
male chimpanzees were relaxed, for example dozing or grooming or
resting after they had eaten large quantities of fruit. [Fruit
kills?]....[the brain was the most] prized portion of the prey.
Other portions are often shared but the brain is not....Before a
sharing cluster disperses, all the prey animal's carcass will have
been consumed: skin & hair, bones, bone marrow, eyeballs & even
teeth [these boys don't waste anything]....A chimp. sometimes
removes the brain tissue by pushing a finger into the natural
opening where the skull joins the backbone.  More often it opens a
hole in the prey's forehead with its fingers & teeth & then scoops &
sucks the cranial cavity clean.  When the Gombe chimps. are eating
soft foods, they often put leaves into their mouth to form a kind of
chewing wad.  The procedure prolongs mastication & may also extend
the savor of the food.  The apes often use a leaf wad when they are
eating meat, & they invariably do so when they are eating brains.
After several minutes of chewing the eater usually discards the leaf
wad, often giving it to one of the other chimps. in the cluster, so
that brain tissue actually is shared to some extent, if only
directly.  3 or 4 chimps. in succession may chew on a wad before it
is finally swallowed or shredded....the dismantling sequence usually
begins with the removal & consumption of the viscera.  Next the rib
cage is cleaned & sectioned....The prey's limbs are consumed
last....To what extent do the Gombe findings & similar observations
elsewhere suggest a modification of present views concerning human
evolution?....it is suggested that the evolution of erect posture
left the evolving hominids' hands free to hold weapons...& cleared
the way for the pursuit of game on the open savanna.  This
development is often pictured as the crucial point in primate
evolution: the time when 'ape-men'...expanded their range from the
forests of Africa to the grasslands [kind of shoots down the forest
chimps are hunters while grasslands chimps are vegetarians line of
argument].  As this environmental expansion took place, the
hypotheses suggest, the evolving hominids acquired both the
technology & the cooperative social organization, including the
sharing of labor & food within some kind of nuclear family, that
enabled them to survive as nomadic, omnivorous hunter-gatherers [DS:
precisely what all humans were until the development of agriculture,
many peoples remaining in this mode into this century].  [He goes on
to speculate that 'predation developed among primates long (i.e.,
millions of years in the past) before the advent of ape-men, & that
it was not a development confined to the savanah, but to the forests
as well.]  The Gombe chimps can be described in summary as
onmivorous foragers-predators that supplement a basically vegetarian
diet in various ways including the optional practice of hunting
other mammals, with fellow primates being their most favored prey.
[by 'optional' he means that they don't just grab an occasional easy
prey, but choose to actively seek out mammalian prey.]  The more we
learn about primate behavior, the smaller the differences between
human & nonhuman primates appear to be."

Not exactly Adam & Eve & a bunch of macoun trees.

>Always in denial, cooked-foodists <and instinctos> are quick
> to point out that: humans are carnivorous because "chimpanzees
>hunt and eat animals."  A span of six million years separates humans
> (Homo sapien) from chimpanzees (Pan troglodyte).  Since
>chimpanzees are humanityıs closest  genetic
>relatives then "humans must be meat eaters too."  This logic
> begs a closer analysis.	

Avoiding the temptation, I'll not make the obvious points here
regarding the statement above.

>First of all, only forest-dwelling chimps engage in hunting
> behavior, unlike their savannah relatives.

Is this in fact true, & is it simply that the game of the savannas
is much more difficult to capture?

  >They typically hunt once a  week,
>sometimes more, and one kill is spread throughout the adults
> of the tribe. So, raw meat comprises a very small percentage of their
> overall diet. Secondly, massive physiological evidence exists that
> indicates humans and chimpanzees are frugivorous animals
>(see Appendix B).  Chimpanzees eat leaves with bactericidal properties
> immediately after` consuming raw flesh`to aid in the unnatural
>digestion of flesh.

Bactericidal properties & digestion have no connection, indeed they
are at cross-purposes if anything.

> Eating small animals is contrary to the frugivorous biological design of the
> chimpanzee.  Thus they fall victim to parasitic diseases.

Would not such a negative factor have insured that hunting chimps
were quickly evolutionarily selected against?  If meat eating is so
bad, how is that the chimps developed such intricate hunting/sharing
social behaviors to accomodate it?  I happen to believe that raw-veg
is best for humans, but you are simply not making a valid case for
it with this.

 Chimps mature in seven  years and thus
>should live between 42 and 56 years.  Meat-eating chimpanzees
> never make it past the age of 35.	

Half of 42 is 21, half of 56 is 28, so 35 is a lot higher than half,
more like between 83-62.5% as long as the lives of the vegetarian
chimps if the above assumptions are correct.

>Thirdly, chimpanzees are strong enough to hunt without any
> natural redation weapons (sharp teeth, claws, venom, etc.).
> Humans  would not be able to catch and kill anything without tools.

Without tools, humans are not human, these are pre-human species.
This line of argument implies that humans were too stupid in a
Garden of Eden scenario to have figured out how to hunt or how to
make & use tools.  This means that modern humans must have vastly
greater mental abilities than these "original humans," something
which is by definition false.  The snip below makes the case that
chimps were smart enough to hunt, & if chimps can successfully hunt
(whether by strength or intelligence) how is that humans can not?
The strength argument is specious, as humans can kill lots of small
animals without tools, & kill mastadons with them.  Alex's
2-year-old killing & eating a snail anecdote makes the case quite
well.  [And the Sci. Amer. article points out that chimps (vastly
stronger than us) never hunt prey over 20 lbs.]

	
>In essence, chimpanzees are intelligent enough to engage in
> social hunting behavior they were not instinctively designed for,
>just like humans.

And to say that chimps hunt but were not instinctively designed to
hunt, makes no sense.  How did they learn how to hunt then?
Instinct is a species' databank of knowledge of how to survive,
passed on to each successive generation not by teaching from the
elders of the species but bred into the genes.  A cat can be
separated from its mother at birth & still go on to hunt via its
instinctive behaviors (although kittens are also taught by example
from mama how to hunt).  I would fully support anybody who contends
that male humans are instinctive hunters.  Don't get me wrong, I'm
not an instincto & think you guys are on the right track, but you've
got to clean up your science/logic & writing if you want to avoid
even harsher criticisms from those opposed to raw.  Be aware that
much of the criticism you guys have been getting here comes from
people who are either partially or completely in agreement with your
raw-veg goals.  The book needs some work, i.e., there should have
been an editor to catch all this stuff long before it went to the
printer.  What we are seeing here is simply editing via a mailing
list.  Ring Lardner: "A good many young writers make the mistake of
enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the
manuscript to come back in.  This is too much of a temptation to the
editor."  If you guys want to really do something useful & that you
can be proud of, start all over & slow down.

Instinctos:

The Sci. Amer. article had an interesting table comparing the diets
of 4 primates: Langur, Macaque, Baboon & Chimp.  He notes that:
"only one class of animals is eaten by all: insects.  Of the 4
species only baboons & chimps hunt & eat mammals, including other
primates."

[letters below mean which species eats these foods]

Leaves, fruits, berries, bark, grasses, rhizomes, blossoms, etc.-all
Nuts, seeds, pods, grains- M,B,C
Roots & bulbs- M,B
Mushrooms- B,C
Honey- C
Insects- all
Scorpions- B (don't try this at home kids)
Mollusks- M,B
Fishes, crabs- M,B
Reptiles- B,C
Birds, eggs- B,C
Primates- B,C
Antelopes- B,C
Rodents- B
Bush pigs- C

--Doug Schwartz
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