Chimpanzee ‘civil war’ in Uganda baffles scientists

What happened

Two once-harmonious groups of chimpanzees in Uganda’s Kibale National Park suddenly became estranged and have spent the past eight years engaged in a bloody conflict, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science. This first-ever observation of animal “civil war” indicates that “group identities can shift and escalate into lethal hostility in one of our closest living relatives” without the “cultural markers often thought necessary for human warfare,” the researchers wrote.

Who said what

Researchers are “still trying to figure out what set off the conflict” in 2015 between the rival chimpanzee factions in the park’s Ngogo area, The New York Times said. But by 2018, “the hostilities began in earnest,” The Wall Street Journal said. The smaller Western cluster “launched coordinated lethal attacks” against their Central cluster rivals, killing at least 28 males, including infants.

One theory is that the schism came after “several male chimps who had bridged cliques within the larger group died from disease, weakening social ties,” said the Journal. It’s also possible “the apes were victims of their own success,” seeing “increased competition for food and mates” even though “resources were abundant.”

What next?

Further study of the Ngogo chimpanzees “may shed light on the roots of warfare in our own species,” the Times said, though the Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts have “cast doubt on whether the research will continue.”