Why non-human culture should change how we see nature

More than 50 years ago, Jane Goodall stunned the scientific community by reporting that chimpanzees in Tanzania were using tools, inserting twigs into termite mounds to extract the insects. This observation was earth-shattering, as scientists believed tool-making was a uniquely human trait. Louis Leakey, Goodall’s mentor, famously responded: “Now we must redefine ‘tool’, redefine ‘man’, or accept chimpanzees as humans.”

Today, the evidence that many other species learn from each other and have cultural ways of behaving is overwhelming. A recent special issue of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, co-led by Philippa Brakes, highlights evidence from whales to wallabies, showing learning from others is widespread across the animal kingdom.

For many species, culturally transmitted behaviour can be mission-critical: an important way to share survival skills or to adapt to changing environments. In conservation, these insights are starting to reshape practice, from reintroductions to managing conflicts between humans and wildlife over habitat use.

In parallel, the idea of “longevity conservation” is gaining traction as researchers show that some of the longest-living animals have not only developed extraordinary genetic adaptations to cope with an extended lifetime, but some are also the keepers of ecological knowledge shared culturally between generations. The emerging view is that some of these older individuals can hold knowledge critical to adapting to fluctuating environments. Beyond cultural knowledge, longevity conservation also examines how species like Greenland sharks and giant tortoises maintain stability over centuries, revealing biochemical strategies for resisting cancer and repairing cells.

Our evolving understanding also requires us to rethink what we mean by “world heritage”. If whales and birds can have cultural traditions too, should we treat the loss of their song or foraging techniques as seriously as we treat the loss of a human monument? This will be a stretch for many, but not for all of us.

Many Indigenous communities have long understood that other species share knowledge. Killer whales that worked alongside Indigenous hunters in Australia and bottlenose dolphins that still help fishers in Brazil are examples of relationships that could only occur when humans are listening deeply to nature.

Understanding shared knowledge in other animals must also make us pause for thought about new technologies such as “de-extinction“. This is a conservation non-starter. Without elders to teach these hybrid individuals migration paths or social norms, resurrected individuals would be ill-equipped to survive modern habitats.

Perhaps the most important challenge that looking beyond human cultures presents is to the premise of human exceptionalism. The more we learn about other species’ cultures, the harder it is to deny that we are surrounded by a planet full of “others”, who have values and emotions.

It took more than 50 years from Goodall’s report for conservation bodies to debate the importance of non-human cultures. In the intervening decades, we have begun to chip away at the folly of human exceptionalism. We don’t need interstellar exploration to find intelligent, cultural beings; we already live among a multiplicity of other cultural life forms. Truly absorbing this knowledge might just encourage the profound shift we need if we are to meet our responsibilities as guardians of this rich bio-cultural diversity.

Philippa Brakes is a behavioural ecologist at Massey University, New Zealand. Marc Bekoff is professor emeritus at the University of Colorado Boulder