glumshoe:

theflashisgone:

glumshoe:

Langur monkeys attempt to care for and then grieve over a robotic monkey baby.

okay, I get that it’s fascinating to observe how other species emote, but these researches allowed relatively intelligent animals to believe that they’d killed a child. They caused pain and grief to a group of creatures intelligent enough to understand those emotions. This is not something you hire David Tennant to sound excited about, this is something you vow never to repeat because it’s exceedingly cruel.

The death was not intended or foreseen. Disguising cameras as animals is a tried and true method of studying that species up close because it does not endanger the humans or animals involved and allows observation of behaviors that a more suspicious camera would not, without accompanying them to human presence. It’s not as though the researchers rubbed their hands together wickedly and plotted to cause some monkeys emotional distress. Using the footage and hiring David Attenborough to narrate has clearly impacted millions of people by inspiring unexpected empathetic and sympathetic feelings towards a non-human species that may not have otherwise earned their respect.