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Episode details

Radio 3,10 Oct 2013,45 mins

SeriesNight Waves at ZSL London Zoo

Matthew Sweet discusses the ways we can think about our close association with primates

Night Waves

Available for over a year

In the last of Matthew Sweet's visits to ZSL London Zoo we consider our relations with our closest animal relatives - apes. Daniel Simmonds, Keeper at ZSL London Zoo's Gorilla Kingdom, discusses the problems that come with looking after creatures so similar to but different from us. Unlike most other animals gorillas will integrate their keepers into their social structures. But how do you manage such a relationship with a social creature that can't understand what you say? Is any kind of mutual understanding possible at all? Matthew picks up the theme with anatomist and anthropologist Alice Roberts, physician and philosopher Raymond Tallis and novelist James Lever. All three have dealt with the questions thrown up by human/primate relations in different ways. So what happens when you stare into the eyes of an ape? Producer: Luke Mulhall.

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