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Just days after a poacher's snare had killed one of their own, two young mountain gorillas worked together Tuesday to find and destroy traps in their Rwandan forest home, according to conservationists on the scene.
"This is absolutely the first time that we've seen juveniles doing that ... I don't know of any other reports in the world of juveniles destroying snares," said Veronica Vecellio, gorilla program coordinator at the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund's Karisoke Research Center, located in the reserve where the event took place.
This could be a brilliant new strategy to fight poachers. Train Gorilla's to foil poacher's traps and train dolphins to counter the nets and traps used by dolphin hunters. Now if only we could train elephants and rhinos to dodge bullets somehow.
Seriously though, this idea has potential.
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99kiplingst · 4519 days ago · link ·
I think it's even more impressive that this is happening of its own accord. This means they are 1. Intelligent enough to recognize the impending danger and reconcile it and 2. are likely evolving more mental capacity as a result of new dangers (i.e. man). Pretty amazing stuff.