Monkey Kidnappings

Whether an animal or a human, mothers seem to be the most important member in a family unit. This seems to especially be true when it comes to raising their young. When it comes to animals, primates are one of the most protective animal species, but there is also a gruesome side to these caretakers as well. A side that sometimes leads to the kidnappings of young infants, rather its their own or humans.

In many monkey societies, mothers often share their motherly duties with other female relatives in order to lessen any burden they might experience while caring for their young. This action also gives other females the chance to experience motherhood first hand. Young orphans are also adopted by other female relatives to help ensure their survival. However, horrific incidents from these types of "day cares" do occur. Occasionally, females get the motive to keep another mother's infant as her own, especially after a female experiences a lost of her own child. This kind of nervous behavior often leads to kidnappings.The results of their actions can be fatal. When an infant is kidnapped, the female thief usually doesn't have the ability to lactate milk for the young primate. Due to this, many infants die from starvation as a consequence. Other infant kidnappings come about due to conflicting social statuses between other females or males. The need to breed, for example, often motivates many male baboons to kidnap and kill the young of females in order to ensure a particular male an offspring and the spread of his genetic material. This gruesome behavior has also lead to the deaths of human infants who have been unknowingly mistaken as a monkey clan's own baby. One such incident occurred in South Africa and is told in the National Geographic's documentary show "Hunter Hunted".

According to the story, a young human mother laid her child down to sleep while she attended to her other household duties. While away from her child, a male baboon crept inside her hut in which the child was sleeping and grasped the young boy in his hands. Once the mother came upon this horrific sight, she immediately became frantic. A rescue attempt soon ensued, but unfortunately, the young boy did not survive. Apparently, the male baboon felt threatened and fatally bit the boy in the head sometime during the chaos. An unkindly characteristic that has been observed in many baboon communities.

In both female humans and primates, the motherly instinct to care for our young is one trait we seem to share. Unfortunately, certain events in a primate's life, such as the death of one's young, can lead to erratic behavior. One heartbreaking choice many grief stricken mothers make is to carry around their dead young for hours and sometimes days. But is it really that bizarre? Human mothers grieve for the loss of their child in different ways just like primates. The unkind fact is that some pain is just to great to try to overcome and sometimes, mothers make unimaginable choices to help ease the pain of the loss of their beloved baby.