THE FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, AKURE MONKEYS AND APES: MAN IN ITS REMINISCENCE INAUGURAL LECTURE SERIES 92 Delivered by Professor Babafemi George Ogunjemite B.Sc. (Port-Harcourt), M. Tech., Ph.D. (Akure) Professor of Primate Community Ecology On Tuesday 21st November, 2017 Prologue: The eyes of all wait upon thee; thou give their meat in due season. Thou openest thine hand, and satisfied the desire of every living thing. Psalms 145:15 and 16 Professor Babafemi George Ogunjemite B.Sc. (Port-Harcourt), M. Tech., Ph.D. (Akure) Professor of Primate Community Ecology The Vice Chancellor The Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) The Registrar Principal Officers of the University Deans and Directors Heads of Departments / Units Distinguished Members of Senate Other academic and Professional Colleagues Obas and Chiefs Distinguished Guests and Friends of the University Members of my Family Gentlemen of the Press Ladies and Gentlemen Great FUTARIANS It is a great privilege to present the 92nd Inaugural Lecture of this great University, the third from the Department of Ecotourism and Wildlife Management, and the fourth on the subject matter of Wildlife Management in the University. Previous issues by my worthy predecessors have emphasised the importance of wildlife resources to mankind, yet the problem confronting nature has not abated. Late Prof T. A. Afolayan spoke on the topic ''Man's inhumanity to nature; the over exploitation of wildlife resources''. Our attitude to wildlife did not change. Prof E. A. Agbelusi's topic was ''Wildlife resources; a national heritage''. We are yet to manage these resources on a sustainable basis to realise their importance for our national growth and development. The third lecture by Professor A. I. Adeyemo titled ''Earth without biodiversity: what would have been the fate of man'' also stresses on the level of destruction of wildlife resources, still we are without any definite plan to reverse the order, particularly as the whole essence of man depend on them. 3 Mr. Vice-Chancellor sir, being a 'Wildlifer' is not by accident to me. It is a work of destiny, it is innate. Put simply, it is my calling. It is a mission and I am grateful I found fulfillment in it, even though it took me some time to discover it. When I eventually saw the green light, it has been all the way rejoicing. I started my career as a Botanist not because I had no other option, but that seems the best way for me to explore the jungle at that time when Wildlife Management was rarely known in Nigeria. I was admitted to University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt in 1980 and I opted for botany because I love jungle life, and I love nature, probably because of my early contacts with literature, both African and European, in the area of nature exploration and discoveries. In our days, we started school by reading the Yoruba series of Taiwo ati Kehinde, series one to six. There were the interesting stories of Abebi ati obo Oba, Alao ati Inaki, Olaoilo dehin and so on and so forth. Then were the D. O. Fagunwa series of Ogboju Ode ninu Igbo Irunmole, (translated as A Forest of a Thousand Daemon); Igbo Olodumare, (translated as A Hunter's Saga in the Forest of Olodumare); Adiitu Olodumare (translated as The Mysteries of God); and Irinkerindo ninu Igbo Elegbeje. From the European series, I read about people involved in the voyages of discovery; Michael Angelo, Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Marco Pollo, Prince Henry the Navigator etc. Then came other Africana titles of H. Ridder Haggard such as King Solomon's Mine, Allan Quatermaine of Durban, to the modern African Writer Series like the Seasons of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih, An African Night Entertainment by Cyprian Ekwensi, Exodus to a Hidden Valley by Eugene Morse and several others. These were the impetus that stimulated my innate tendencies to jungle life, nature loving and exploration. Mr. Vice-Chancellor Sir, my predecessors have discussed wildlife issues from general perspectives, but my lecture “Monkeys and Apes: man in its reminiscence” will be discussing a specific 4 specialised case, and it is the first attempt to place man in his proper perspective among the other animals. It is the first in Primatology in this nation. Arguably, it is therefore not an over statement that the inaugural lecturer is the first Professor of Primatology in Nigeria. How could a single species from among several millions trouble the earth so much as to put all other livings in jeopardy? There is the need to place man in his rightful position among the livings; probably we shall learn to respect the rights of other livings. There are many things man share with other livings to produce mutual and harmonious relationship that has kept the ecological systems going from ages. The modern man has altered all these for their selfish desire, and it is now backfiring on us. Our fore-fathers had respect for nature, they kept and observed strict rules that protected them and these were the reasons for innovations, inventions and several discoveries that had characterised man's history. The Vice-Chancellor Sir, Primates are our kin, they are self-aware, they have culture, tools, politics and medicine. We are part of them. We have many things in common. That is why we refer to those still in the wild as Non-human primates. These are the animals that has been my object of attention in my research efforts in Wildlife Ecology and Management within the last two decades. My early life as a son of a practicing farmer and an accomplished hunter exposed me to some of the antics of these groups of animals. I also learnt so much about them from the folklore. Non-human Primates are very intelligent. The groups that I was familiar with when I was young were the guenon; with the species Cercopithecus mona and Chlorocebus aethiops tantalus as the commonest in our locality. I also heard much about the chimpanzee, they were still common about this time in the hinterland of Ekiti. In those days, early in the morning when we get to the farm, these animal will only move to other sides of our farm and will not run away until the elderly who had the capacity to inflict harm on them comes into the farm. I was wondering how the animal could vividly differentiate small boys who could not harm them from adults who had the capacity to inflict 5 harm on them at that very tender age. Now, I know better. Primates are very intelligent, even though we underrate them and call them obo lagido that is to say they are fools, but we now know they are not fools. They too could make mistakes and that is why we capture some of them. Of course, we equally capture many of our kinds when we lay in wait for them. How do we explain several people that have fallen victims of swindlers and harmful people who daily wreak havoc on innocent people in and around our communities today? The same explain why many of these animals fall victims in the hand of humans. Given their own right, they will organise themselves and control their affairs with all care. 2. WHAT ARE PRIMATES? Primates are mammalian order to which humans belong (Latin “prime, first rank”) and one of the dominant species of animals in West Africa sub-region (Oates 2011; Grooves, 2014). Primates are mostly forest dwelling animals that are very important tropical biodiversity essential for various ecological processes, functions and services. They are our closest living biological relatives, offering critical insights into human evolution, biology, and behaviour. They play important roles in the livelihoods, cultures, and religions of many societies. However, unsustainable human activities are now the major force driving primate species to extinction (Alenjandro et. al., 2017). The order Primates is one of the most species-rich groups of mammals in the world, surpassed only by the orders Chiroptera (bats, 1151 species) and Rodentia (rodents, 2256 species) (Wilson and Reeder, 2005; IUCN, 2016). The most recent taxonomic compilation (April 2016) lists 701 extant taxa belonging to 504 species from 79 genera and 16 families (IUCN, 2016). The African continent had been identified as the origin of the higher primates in evolutionary history, and is the home of a large proportion of extant species (IUCN, 2005; John, 2011. It is pertinent to note that Nigeria is one of fifteen countries worldwide 6 scoring highest for primate species richness, nine of which are in Africa (Colishaw and Dunbar, 2000; Chapman et al., 2006). In West Africa, Nigeria is the second in primate species richness. In Southwest Nigeria, there are about 16 species with the population size and distribution sharply decreasing. The remaining populations are coping in difficult terrains in the region (Ogunjemite, 2010; Morgan et al., 2011). Primates are large-bodied species, in comparison to insects or birds, and environmental changes has been reported to have great impact on their potential survival as long-lived, large-bodied and slowly reproducing animals. The primates always tend to live in or near the area of their birth, and thus find it difficult to migrate or escape the effects of deleterious habitat changes. These old world monkeys living in structured social groups are complex in their behaviours often recognising kins over several generations, forming long- lasting relationships with other individuals, and many require the swap over of individuals between groups before reproducing (Myers, 2000). The continued existence of primate taxa is thus markedly affected by individual reproductive potential, which in turn is influenced by an individual's ability to maintain long-term relationships within the context of its social group as well as that of the surrounding groups.