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Monday, November 24, 2025

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Orangutans can’t master their complex diets without cultural knowledge

Researchers reveal just how much wild orangutans depend on social learning to build diets spanning hundreds of different foods.

Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior

Orangutans Can’t Master Their Complex Diets Without Cultural Knowledge — image:
A young orangutan (Cinnamon) peers at her mother (Cissy) whilst using a stick to fish termites from a nest.
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Credit: Guilhem Duvot

When a wild orangutan leaves its mother after spending many years by her side, it has a mental catalog of almost 250 edible plants and animals, and the knowledge of how to acquire and process them.

A new study in Nature Human Behaviour reveals that no lone orangutan could build this encyclopedic knowledge through trial and error. Instead, this knowledge forms a “culturally-dependent repertoire”— a diverse set of knowledge that is only attainable through years of watching and exploring alongside others.

As humans, we must learn broad repertoires of knowledge to survive and thrive—ranging from local customs, to the skills to engineer new innovations like fishing spears and iPhones. Much of this cultural knowledge is too broad or complex for any single human to innovate from scratch in their lifetime. Rather, culture accumulates from the innovations of many individuals. Until now, it has been unclear whether similar processes are at play for wild non-human species. An international team of researchers has now investigated whether the breadth of wild orangutans’ diets exceeds what any one individual could acquire on their own within a relevant time frame.

“We provide convincing evidence that culture enables wild orangutans to construct repertoires of knowledge that are much broader than they could otherwise learn independently,” says first author Dr Elliot Howard- Spink, postdoctoral researcher from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, now a researcher at the University of Zürich.

“These diets must be the product of experiences and innovations of many other individuals, which have accumulated over time,” adds coauthor Dr Claudio Tennie, University of Tübingen. “The roots of humans’ cultural accumulation may therefore reach back at least 13 million years to our last common ancestor with great apes.”

Simulating how orangutans learn what to eat

The team wanted to know if young orangutans can independently learn their full set of edible plant and animal species before they become self-sufficient adults at around 15 years old—or if they need to learn this information from others. The researchers used extensive data collected on wild Sumatran orangutans living in the swamp forests of Suaq Balimbing, Indonesia. This included 12 years of daily observations, where the behaviors of orangutans were recorded every few minutes.

But this data set alone was not enough. The team needed to create scenarios in which young orangutans were cut off from different types of social interactions as they grew. “We would never do this to wild orangutans,” says Howard-Spink. Also, it was impossible for the scientists to follow orangutans every single day over the many years it takes the animals to grow up, while also recording all their learning opportunities. So, the scientists devised another way.

Using daily snapshots of real-life data, Howard-Spink built a simulation model that reenacted orangutans’ lives from birth to maturity at fifteen years old. The model incorporated three key social behaviors predicted to influence how the diet of orangutans develop: close-range observation of others while they ate foods in the forest (a behavior called ‘peering’); being in very close proximity to other orangutans who were feeding (which made them more likely to explore similar foods); or, simply being guided to suitable feeding sites, without any further social contact.

“Every single parameter of this model is based on our long-term data from wild orangutans,” says Dr Caroline Schuppli, who lead the study and is a group leader at MPI-AB. “It allows us to pinpoint which types of social interactions help young orangutans learn what to eat, and even to rank their importance.”

When all three types of social learning were available (the condition most similar to wild individuals), simulated orangutans cultivated adult-like diets—about 224 food types—at around the same age as wild orangutans. These similarities between the model and the wild confirmed the simulation’s accuracy and real-world applicability, the authors say.

“The fact that our simulation matched wild individuals’ development so closely is due to the extensive and uniquely detailed data collected from the wild at Suaq, and the hard work of a large team involved,” says Howard-Spink.

Discovering orangutans’ “cultural cuisine”

Howard-Spink then began cutting the simulated orangutans off from different social interactions. Just cutting off close-range observations (peering), had an effect: simulated orangutans had slower diet development and reached only 85% of the full wild diet repertoire by adulthood. But removing both peering and close-proximity associations left simulated apes with drastically narrower diets. These diets never approached the breadths possessed by wild adults, and essentially stopped developing well before the end of immaturity.

“Socially-isolated, simulated orangutans still had hundreds of thousands of opportunities to encounter food items during development,” says Howard-Spink. “But even massive amounts of exposure to food could not replace what was lost when they couldn’t engage in these social interactions.”

Says coauthor Andrew Whiten, University of St Andrews: “We’re seeing the strongest evidence yet that orangutan diets are culturally accumulated over many generations.”

The next step is to understand how this culturally-accumulated knowledge influences orangutans’ energy intake, survival, and success. “Given how much diet development suffers without social inputs, the effect of culture on orangutans’ daily lives is potentially profound,” adds Whiten.

The team will address this question as part of a further study. “We will again use empirically-validated simulations to understand how reliant orangutans are on cultural knowledge to survive and thrive in wild habitats,” says Schuppli.

Conserving accumulated cultures

Adult orangutans are generally solitary, making their long childhoods a precious window for cultural transmission. “In the wild, the constant presence of a mother, and fleeting associations with other individuals, are critical for orangutan learning and development during the early years,” says Schuppli. “It offers a crucial apprenticeship that paves the path to independence.”

With orangutan populations dwindling, this study has practical urgency. Orphaned apes, reintroduced without the full breadth of a wild diet, or introduced in different environments, may face starvation or poisoning from unfamiliar plants. “Reintroduction programs already teach orangutans to feed themselves outside captivity,” adds Schuppli. “Our study emphasizes how important this is to pass on their full cultural menu, so that these animals have the greatest chance of success in the wild.”

Journal

Nature Human Behaviour

DOI

10.1038/s41562-025-02350-y

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Culture is critical in driving orangutan diet development past individual potentials

Article Publication Date

24-Nov-2025

Sunday, November 09, 2025

Sindh High Court decides to examine ‘whole concept of keeping zoos and caging animals’

Ishaq Tanoli

November 9, 2025

DAWN

Children look at a tiger in a cage at the Karachi Zoological Garden. — AFP/File

• After Rano’s relocation to Islamabad, bench broadens scope of petition to welfare of all zoo animals
• In written order released on Saturday, court orders formation of new committee comprising govt officials and civil society members to inspect zoos across Sindh

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has ordered formation of a new committee to visit zoos across the province and suggest steps for improvement as well as sending the exotic animals to their natural habitats.

Inviting suggestions to phase out zoos in the entire province, a two-judge SHC bench comprising Justice Mohammad Iqbal Kalhoro and Justice Syed Fiaz-ul-Hassan Shah declared that the court had decided to examine the whole concept of keeping zoos and caging animals.

The remarks were part of a written order issued on Saturday regarding the Nov 6 hearing of a petition seeking shifting of lone female bear Rano from Karachi Zoological Gardens to Bear Sanctuary, Islamabad Wildlife Management Board.

The order stated that the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) and other respondents filed statements and reports and submitted that Rano had been successfully transported to the federal capital on Nov 5 in compliance with the orders issued by the bench earlier.

However, the bench enhanced the scope of the petition from Rano to the welfare of all animals kept in zoos and invited suggestions as to how to phase out zoos in the entire province.

Sindh Wildlife Conservator Javed Ahmed Mahar proposed that a committee may be constituted with the municipal commissioner, forest & wildlife secretary, wildlife conservator and KMC’s senior director-zoo as its members.

Representing the petitioner, Mohammad Jibran Nasir also suggested that philanthropist Ava Ardeshir Cowasjee, Dr Uzma Khan from Asia lead for WWF Pakistan, Advocate Nazia Hanjrah, Zhalay Sarhadi and petitioner/animal rights activist Jude Allen Preira may also be made part of the committee.

The bench ordered constitution of the committee and inclusion of all the names suggested by the wildlife conservator and the petitioner’s counsel.

The bench in its order stated: “In addition, the committee shall be given mandate to co-opt experts of the subject fields, who shall visit the zoos in the province and suggests steps for improvement in the zoos and identify issues being confronted by them at the moment to resolve them as a short term measure. As a long term measures, they shall recommend steps to be taken which may include but not limited to sending the exotic animals to their natural habitat.”

It further stated that as per the petitioner’s counsel the committee, constituted by the chief minister for shifting of Rano, had visited Karachi Zoo and found all the medical equipment out of order.

The bench stated that Zoo Director Aklaq Ahmed Yousufzai had undertaken to replace all out-of-order machines immediately and to outsource vets for treatment of the animals.

The hearing was adjourned till Nov 21.

At a previous hearing, the bench had directed the committee formed by the CM to visit the Karachi zoo and prepare a detailed report about the number of animals kept there as well as their physical and mental health.

It also asked the committee to examine the circumstances under which animals are being kept as well as to identify the animals as natives or exotic and must also make recommendations for improving the situation if it found the animals were kept in improper conditions.

The bench further ruled that since the issue was not of one bear but hundreds of animals being kept in captivity apparently just for entertainment of people and court has decided to examine the whole concept of keeping zoos and caging animals.

Published in Dawn, November 9th, 2025

India mega-zoo in spotlight again over animal acquisitions

By AFP
November 8, 2025

Vantara holds tens of thousands of animals, including some of the world's most endangered species - Copyright AFP/File Idrees MOHAMMED

Sara HUSSEIN

Leading wildlife protection experts have urged India to suspend all imports of the world’s most endangered species, endorsing long-running concerns by conservationists about mass acquisitions by mega-zoo Vantara.

The facility in western Gujarat state, officially known as the Green Zoological Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre, is run by the son of Asia’s richest man.

It has scooped up tens of thousands of animals in recent years, and was subject to an Indian Supreme Court review that cleared it of any wrongdoing.

But experts from the world’s top wildlife watchdog — the secretariat overseeing the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) — have warned Vantara may have imported highly endangered species in violation of international rules.

In a report published ahead of CITES talks this month, they found a “large number of imports… appear to be inconsistent” with rules protecting so-called Appendix I species, the world’s most threatened animals.

They recommended serious reforms to ensure Vantara does “not inadvertently become a driver of illegal harvest of wild animals”.

Vantara and India’s environment ministry did not respond to AFP requests for comment.

Experts have repeatedly sounded the alarm on Vantara’s massive animal intake. The facility claims to have 150,000 animals, though CITES officials said closer to 47,000 were reported during a September visit.

“This report raises more questions than it answers,” said Mark Jones, head of policy at wildlife group Born Free.

“Why the discrepancies in numbers? Why import so many animals from so many species across the world… Who is supplying these animals, and how can we be sure they’re not being traded for profit?”

– ‘Really, really shocking’ –

CITES examined a laundry list of allegations involving endangered animals including the world’s most endangered great ape — the Tapanuli orangutan.

AFP earlier this year reported that Vantara had acquired a Tapanuli orangutan from the United Arab Emirates that originated in Indonesia.

CITES prohibits trade in the world’s most endangered species, but there are exceptions, including for “captive-bred” animals.

The Tapanuli orangutan, like many of Vantara’s rarest acquisitions, was given this designation.

But multiple experts told AFP there are no captive breeding programmes for the species in Indonesia — home to all the estimated 800 Tapanuli orangutans left in the world.

Similar cases involving cheetahs from Syria, a gorilla from Haiti, and bonobos from Iraq are among those questioned by CITES.

The report “is evidence of Vantara’s problematic acquisitions,” said Panut Hadisiswoyo, founder and chairman of the Orangutan Information Centre in Indonesia.

He has been lobbying, so far unsuccessfully, for the return of several orangutans in Vantara, including a smuggled animal intercepted in India and handed to the facility.

The CITES report says Vantara has acquired more than 2,000 Appendix I animals and nearly 9,000 from less endangered species.

“It’s really, really shocking, the number is huge,” Panut said.

“Vantara is exploiting legal loopholes and undermining Appendix I.”

– ‘Exemplary action’ –

The CITES report acknowledges Vantara’s world-class facilities, but urges India to review its import procedures, bolster capacity and more closely scrutinise permits.

Independent wildlife trade expert Daniel Stiles said the report was “a true examination” of Vantara.

“We’ll see if anything changes for the better.”

CITES has asked India to report back on its progress, and it could face measures, including trade suspension, if it does not fully address the concerns.

The findings are “deeply concerning and damaging to India’s conservation credibility”, warned K. Yoganand, a longtime conservation expert in India and Southeast Asia.

“Restoring India’s global standing, damaged by the irregularities surrounding these imports, will require exemplary action.”

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Beasts of burden - Antagonism and Practical History | libcom.org
Beasts of burden - Antagonism and Practical History. An attempt to rethink the separation between animal liberationist and communist politics. (Published ...

Saturday, October 18, 2025

Palm oil isn’t necessarily less sustainable than other oils, say conservationists

“Crops don’t destroy forests and other biodiverse habitats; people do,”

Cell Press

Palm forest — image:
A palm forest with a dirt road.
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Credit: Erik Meijaard

Palm oil isn’t inherently bad, and olive oil isn’t inherently good, conservation scientists say in an opinion paper publishing October 16 in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports Sustainability. They argue that the vegetable oil industry is haunted by narratives and myths about different types of oil crops, but the reality is much more nuanced. Almost all oils—including soybean, olive, coconut, and sesame oil—are associated with biodiversity and human rights issues in some contexts, depending on crop management and supply chains. The researchers call for greater transparency and regulation to enable consumers to make informed decisions about their oil choices.

“Crops don’t destroy forests and other biodiverse habitats; people do,” says author and conservation scientist Erik Meijaard of Borneo Futures and the University of Kent. “We want to bring more nuance to the discussion around vegetable oils, to make consumers aware that there’s nothing simple about it. I challenge everyone to look a little deeper, if you care about social and environmental issues.”

Palm oil has been vilified in the Global North due to concerns about tropical rainforest deforestation and the destruction of orangutan habitats. The researchers say that this concern is justified but that other oil crops can cause just as much ecological damage. For example, soybean production has driven massive deforestation in South America and is associated with large-scale pesticide use and related human health issues in South America, olive harvesting kills millions of roosting birds every year, and sesame production has been linked to human rights abuses in South Sudan and Ethiopia.

Palm oil production also isn’t always bad, the researchers say. Subsistence farmers (i.e., farmers who grow crops for their own needs) in Central and Western Africa account for around 18% of the land used globally for oil palm cultivation, but this traditional cultivation is usually overlooked in global statistics. Additionally, the increased scrutiny that palm oil has received over the past two decades has driven tighter regulations and certification within the industry.

“There’s been so much pressure on the palm oil industry to improve sustainability practices, it’s pushed part of, but certainly not the entire industry, into a much better direction,” says Meijaard.

The researchers acknowledge that making informed shopping choices is currently very difficult due to a lack of transparency and traceability within the vegetable oil industry.

“Opaque supply chains within the industry mean that even if you do want to know what the impact of your consumption really is, you can’t,” says Meijaard. “You should be able to walk up to a product with your mobile phone and point at a QR code, and it should be able to tell you whether that product’s production aligns with your values. The technologies already exist; it’s just a matter of how to scale it in a cost-effective way.”

Improving transparency within the oil industry will require international policy changes and regulations, the researchers say. They also emphasize the importance of providing incentives to reward businesses that meet high sustainability and traceability standards.

“I think governments can provide regulatory reform that requires more transparency, more openness about where products came from, how they were produced,” says Meijaard. “We also call for a greater role of media and influencers to start helping give people the nuance that they deserve. We need to be much better informed about the trade-offs in any of these polarized debates that are happening around vegetable oils.”

###

This research was supported by funding from the Ferrero Group (Soremartec SA and Soremartec Italia).

Cell Reports Sustainability, Meijaard et al., “No oil crop is inherently bad—But our thinking might be” https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-sustainability/fulltext/S2949-7906(25)00220-4

Cell Reports Sustainability (@CellRepSustain), published by Cell Press, is a monthly gold open access journal that publishes high-quality research and discussion that contribute to understanding and responding to environmental, social-ecological, technological, and energy- and health-related challenges. Visit https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-sustainability/home. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com

Palm oil site.

Credit

Erik Meijaard