SAGA: An attempt to promote the welfare of chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates in Japan

Join us on Thursday 16th March for a Faculty of Natural Sciences guest lecture, 'SAGA: An attempt to promote the welfare of chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates in Japan', delivered by Professor Testuro Matsuzawa, Distinguished Professor at Kyoto University's Institute for Advanced Study.‌

Professor Matsuzawa has been studying chimpanzee both in the laboratory and in the wild. The laboratory work is known as 'Ai-project' in the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University since 1976: a female chimpanzee named Ai learned to use Arabic numerals to represent the number (Matsuzawa, 1985, NATURE). The field work has been carried out in Bossou-Nimba, Guinea, since 1986, focusing on the tool use in the wild. Matsuzawa tries to synthesize the field and the lab work to understand the mind of chimpanzees to know the evolutionary origins of human mind. He published the books such as 'Primate origins of human cognition and behavior', 'Cognitive development in chimpanzees', 'The chimpanzees of Bossou and Nimba'. He got several prizes including Jane Goodall Award in 2001, and The Medal with Purple Ribbon in 2004, The Person of Cultural Merit in 2013. 

The University of Stirling thanks the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare and the Japan Foundation for their support of this event which is part of a series to promote intellectual exchange between Japan and Scotland.