[00:00.00] Food,warmth,sleep?Their thoughts may be much deeper than that.

[00:05.59]WHAT ANIMALS REALLY THINK by Euqene Linden

[00:10.42]Over the years,I have writte extensiyely

[00:14.55]about animal-intelligence experiments and the controvers that surrounds them.

[00:21.00]Do animals rea11y have thoughts，what we call consciousness?

[00:27.12]Wondering whether there might be better ways

[00:30.43]to a explore animal intelligence than experments designed to teach human signs

[00:37.17]I realized what now seems obvious：if animals can think

[00:42.89]they will probably do their best thinking

[00:46.13]when it serves their own purposes，not when scientists ask them to.

[00:52.48]And so I started talking to vets，animal researchers，zoo keepers.

[00:59.40]Most do not study,animal intelligence，

[01:03.24]but they encounter it，and the lack of it，evey day

[01:07.79]The stories they tell us

[01:10.35]reveal what I'm convinced is a new window on animal intelligence,

[01:16.30]The kind of mental feats animals perform when dealing with captivity

[01:22.26]and the dominant species on the planet-humalls.

[01:27.12]Let's Make a Deal

[01:29.52]Consider the time Charlene Jenry,a conservationist at the Colurnbus Zoo,

[01:36.94]learned that a female gorilla named Colo was handling a suspicious object.

[01:43.24]Arriving on the scene

[01:46.87]Jendry ofered Colo some peanuts，only to be met with a blank stare

[01:52.88]Realizing they were negotiating，Jendry raised the stakes and offered a piece of pineapple

[02:00.42]At this point, while maintaining eye contact,

[02:04.58]Colo opened her hand and revealed a key chain.

[02:08.84]Relieved it was not anything dangerous or valuable,

[02:13.17]Jendry gave Colo the pineapplel

[02:16.33]Careful bargainer that she was,

[02:19.36]Colo then broke the key chain and gave Jendry a link, perhaps figufing

[02:26.13]Why give her the whole thing if I can get a bit of pineapple for each piece

[02:32.06]If an animal can show skill in trading one thing for another,

[02:37.31]why not in handling money.

[02:39.76]one orangutan named Chantek

[02:42.69]did just that in a sign-language study undertaken by anthropologist Ly Miles

[02:49.74]at the University of Tennessee.

[02:52.75]Chantek figured out that if he did tasks like cleaning his room

[02:59.77]he'd earn coins to spend on treats and rides in Miles's cat

[03:05.21]But the orangutan' s understanding of money

[03:08.58]seemed to extend far beyond simple Dealings

[03:12.94]Miles first used plastic chips as coins,

[03:17.17]but Chantek decided he could expand the money supply by breaking chips in two

[03:24.25]When Miles switched to metal chips,

[03:27.46]Chantek found pieces of tin foil and tried to make copies.

[03:32.92]Miles also tried to teach Chantek more virtuous habits such as saving and sharing

[03:39.74]Indeed,when I caught up with the orangutan at Zoo Atlanta,where he now lives

[03:45.36]I saw an example of sharing that anyone might envy

[03:50.27]When Miles gave Chantek some grapes and asked him to share them,

[03:55.36]Chantek promptly ate all the fruit.

[03:58.92]Then, as if he'd just remembered he'd been asked to share,

[04:03.64]he handed Miles the stem.

[04:06.88]Tale of a Whale Why would an animal want to cooperate with a human?

[04:14.22]Behaviorists would say that animals cooperate when they

[04:19.19]learn it is in their interest to do so.

[04:22.53]This is true, but I don't think it goes far enough.

[04:27.57]Gail Laule, a consultant on animal behavior,

[04:32.09]speaks of Orky, a killer whale, she knew

[04:35.93]of all the animals I've worked with, he was the most intelligent,"she says.

[04:41.34]He would assess a situation

[04:43.90]and then do something based on the judgments he made."

[04:48.16]Like the time he helped save a family member.

[04:51.81]When Orky's mate,Corky, gave birth

[04:56.54]the baby did not thrive at first,

[04:59.78]and keepers took the little whale out of the tank by stretcher for emergency care

[05:05.74]Things began to go wrong when they returned the baby whale to the tank

[05:11.28]As the workers halted the stretcher a few meters above the water,

[05:15.77]the baby suddenly began throwing up through its mouth

[05:20.52]The keepers feared it would choke,

[05:23.55]but they could not reach the baby to help it.

[05:26.92]Apparently sizing up the problem,

[05:29.98]Orky swam under the stretcher and allowed one of the men

[05:34.71]to and on his head, something he'd never been trained to do.

[05:39.85]Then,using his tail to keep steady, Orky let thekeeper reach up

[05:47.12]and release the 420-pound baby

[05:50.96]so that it could slide into the water within reach of help.

[05:56.52]Primate Shell Game

[05:59.76]Sometimes evidence of intelligence can be seen in attempts to deceive

[06:05.71]Zoo keeper Helen Shewman of Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo recalls that

[06:11.93]One day she dropped an orange throueh a feeding hole for Melati,an orangutan.

[06:19.35]Instead of moving away to get it

[06:22.98]Melati looked Shewman in the eye and held out her hand

[06:27.47]Thinking the orange must have rolled off somewhere inaccessible,

[06:32.02]Shewman gave her another one

[06:34.76]But when Melati moved off,

[06:37.71]Shewman noticed the original orange was hidden in her other hand.

[06:43.96]Towan, the colony's dominant male, watched this whole trick,

[06:49.63]and the next day he, too, looked Shewman in the eye

[06:53.99]and pretended that he had not yet received an orange.

[06:58.35]"Are you sure you don't have one? She woman asked.

[07:04.31]He continued to hold her gaze steadily and held out his hand.

[07:09.77]Giving in she gave him another one,

[07:14.52]then saw that he had been hiding his orange underneath his foot.

[07:20.08]What is intelligence anyway?

[07:23.14]If life is about survial of a species

[07:27.19]and intelligence is meant to serve that survival

[07:31.24]then we can't compare with pea-brained sea turtles,

[07:35.58]which were here long before us and survived the disaster

[07:41.14]that wiped out the dinosaurs.

[07:43.88]Still, it is comforting to realize

[07:48.04]that other species besides our own can stand back

[07:52.79]and assess the world around them,

[07:55.61]even if their horizons are more limited than ours.

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[08:36.00]captivity\ dominant\ species\ make a deal

[08:44.04]conservationist\ female\ gorilla\ suspicious

[08:53.16]peanut\ blan\ negotiate\ stake

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[09:10.19]orangutan\ undertake\ anthropologist\ figure out

[09:21.63]extend\ dealing\ plastic\ chip

[09:30.98]expand\ switch\ foil\ virtuous

[09:39.13]envy\ grape\ promptly\ stem

[09:49.45]whale \ cooperate\ behaviorist\ in sb's interest

[10:06.69]go far\ consultant\ behavior\ assess

[10:14.35]judgment\ mate\ thrive\ at first

[10:25.11]stretcher\ emergency\ go wrong\ halt

[10:35.66]throw up\ apparently\ size up\ release

[10:47.97]slide\ primate\ evidence\ deceive

[10:56.69]inaccessible\ original\ colony\ male

[11:04.35]gaze\ give up\ underneath\ pea-branined

[11:12.26]turtle survive disaster\ wipe out

[11:20.52]dinosaur horizon