I hope this is just bad writing, not bad science. Have they tried testing a mother with her own baby for a recipient?
Have they considered that the chimps might be smart enough to understand that none will starve, that the humans are going to feed the other chimps no matter what? Is it possible that dependency has caused a breakdown of the normal emotional connections among these chimps, so they think of themselves not as responsible members of a group, but just so many interchangeable dependents/slaves/pets/welfare recipients? Is it possible that a chimp's status, his place in his society, and thus his behaviors toward others is altered, distorted or even dissolved by the human's intervention and control?
Would we humans do any better if our lives were managed by a superior species that provided for our needs and exercised total control over us?
When you think about it, we might come to despise our brothers in such an environment; and therefore do much worse by our kind than these chimps do by theirs.
Maybe they are just animals.
"When you think about it, we might come to despise our brothers in such an environment; and therefore do much worse by our kind than these chimps do by theirs."
Such an environment as New Orleans, perhaps???