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  • From: Andrew Hund <axh69 AT po.cwru.edu>
  • To: monkeywire AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [monkeywire] A bad omen for Koizumi from monkey park?
  • Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2003 15:21:50 -0400

http://www.asahi.com/english/tenjin/K2003090400250.html

A leadership change took place this summer at the Hagachizaki-en wild monkey park in Shizuoka Prefecture. The No. 2 and No. 4 monkeys reportedly toppled the old boss.

Over the years, it is said, leadership changes at this park have often been accompanied by similar political shifts in Tokyo. Does this mean an ominous fate is in store for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who is seeking re-election as president of the Liberal Democratic Party this month. Or even the long reign of the LDP itself?

The world of monkeys has several formulas for succession to the leadership. Kojima island in Miyazaki Prefecture is known for ``boss'' monkeys serving a lifetime tenure. In the latest succession, a second-ranking monkey named Kemushi moved up to the top in 1999 after Noso, the boss who was older than 90 in human years, dropped out of sight, presumably dead from general prostration. There have been revolts, but they all ended in failure. And so, power is said to have been changing hands peacefully on the island.

Things are not that simple at Takasaki-yama natural zoo in Oita Prefecture where about 2,000 monkeys live. There are three factions named A, B and C, each with its own leader. Monkeys eat according to an order based on the relative power of the faction to which they belong.

About 10 years ago, the A faction, whose members were always the first to show up at the feeding places as the prerogative of belonging to the largest group, was brought down from the top by the C faction, which was the smallest bloc at that time. Apparently, the A group had it coming. Its boss and the second-ranking monkey were not getting along, resulting in an internal dispute over the succession issue.

Members of the A faction stopped showing up at the feeding areas last year, perhaps still reeling from the setback they had suffered.
The latest theories seem to agree that wild monkeys do not have bosses. They reason that the fact that monkeys find something to eat here and there makes it unnecessary to establish a strict hierarchy.

On the other hand, monkeys fed by people need a hierarchy because they have limited amounts of food to eat and only at certain places.

Certainly, there is a close resemblance between human society in which people engage in power struggles over the limited access to vested interests and the limited posts and the groups of monkeys living on food provided by human beings.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Sept. 3(IHT/Asahi: September 4,2003)




  • [monkeywire] A bad omen for Koizumi from monkey park?, Andrew Hund, 09/09/2003

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