Planning of the apes
Safari guide James Nguya was intrigued to observe teamwork tactics among a troop of hungry baboons.
One morning, I was leading a game drive at Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya, when we came across a small herd of Thomson’s gazelles grazing and nearby a troop of 50-60 olive baboons foraging, some on the ground and others in the trees. We watched as a group of the baboons left their troop, ran towards a patch of grass where a young gazelle fawn had been hiding and quickly set about preying on it.
Swiftly, the mother gazelle moved in to defend her offspring, driving the baboons off – some up a yellow fever tree, the remainder up a monkey thorn – before returning to the now lifeless fawn. She then patrolled the area to ensure none came to feed on her young.
Initially, the two groups of baboons stayed up in their respective trees. However, they soon seemed to devise a strategy of accessing their prey by taking advantage of having been split into two groups and also the distance between the trees (about 10 metres).
One group would start climbing down, thus drawing the attention of the mother gazelle who would come chasing them back up. This would act as a distraction, during which time the other group would quickly climb down and head for the prey. The routine happened repeatedly and each time the baboons would make sure they bit off a part of their prey before quickly jumping back up the trees.
Finally, the baboons succeeded in taking the remains of their fawn prey safely up into the trees. The mother gazelle stood there for some time before dejectedly walking away to rejoin the herd. A while later, the baboons clambered down and ran off to rejoin their troop.
Through apparent group intelligence, the baboons succeeded in planning and executing a collaborative strategy that allowed them to access the prey without risking injury. By contrast, the lack of cooperation among the Thomson’s gazelles suggests that being in a herd does not benefit a fawn. Predators that attack fawns, such as baboons, are not a threat to adult gazelles and so their approach does not trigger antipredator behaviour among the adults that could forewarn a mother in good time. In this case, the lone mother bore the sole responsibility for protecting her young and fighting off predators.
The group ran towards the young gazelle and quickly set about preying on it.