> Kirt:
>
> > This reminds me of an instincto retort I heard about the polio outbreak
> > amoungst the Gombe chimps: well, what do you expect--they were provided
> > commercial bananas. Yikes! If some third world bananas are enough to
> > "cause" polio...
>

Karl:

> I can't laugh about that one because I know what denaturated bananas
> can do to me. I can imagine that some of the behaviour of these chimps
> was caused by denaturated food, especially as these wild animals were
> in no way tolerant against it -- they never had it before. BTW: This
> is also an objection that I have against most scientific chimp behaviour
> research in zoos -- the animals get denaturated food and so will show
> all kinds of unnatural behaviour.
>

Did you read Jane Goodall's book? She says that during the first
weeks, chimps came back every day to eat bananas, became more
aggressive because of the competition to get more bananas. There were
also fights against baboons, etc... The obvious conclusion is that
cultivated bananas lead to overeating (I have heard that wild bananas
are much smaller and probably taste different), and abnormal nutrition
(i.e. having the same food available in high quantities) can lead to
an abnormal behavior.

But Jane Goodall says that afterwards, they found a trick, so that the
same individual could not have access to bananas more than once a week
or so (I forgot): thus, the way of life of chimps was barely affected.
So, I don't think that 1 meal/week with "artificial" bananas can
"cause" polio or weaken the immune system so much...

BTW, Flo, an elderly female chimp in Gombe, had almost completely worn
out teeth... and that was before the guilty bananas, with 100%
instinctive nutrition.

Best wishes,

Jean-Louis