I grew up in Foxboro, Massachusetts. Living on the shore of a
small lake and close to a state forest, I became interested in
animals at an early age. I earned a B.A. in Biology from Carleton
College, where I continued to develop a keen interest in biology
and animal behavior. During my college years, I worked in a developmental
biology laboratory, spent a summer radio-collaring and tracking
Black Bears in North Carolina, and completed an internship at
the New England Wildlife Center, a wildlife rehabilitation clinic
in Massachusetts. After graduating from Carleton in 1996, I worked
at the Wildlife Science Center, a wolf research and education
facility in Forest Lake, Minnesota. I also worked as an administrative
assistant for the Conservation Breeding Specialist Group (CBSG)
at the Minnesota Zoo.
In 1997, I started a Ph.D. program in the department of Ecology,
Evolution and Behavior at the University of Minnesota. I study
hunting and meat sharing among chimpanzees. Many people don't
know that in addition to fruit and leaves, chimpanzees also
eat small mammals, including colobus monkeys, bush piglets and
baby bushbuck. Jane Goodall first discovered this in 1960, yet
even today, chimpanzees' meat eating habits are not fully understood.
Using 40+ years of behavioral data, I am trying to determine
why the Gombe chimpanzees concentrate their hunting efforts
in the dry season. Is it because of a shortage of food, or because
they have a hard time tracking their prey in the lush wet season
foliage? When chimpanzees capture a monkey or piglet, they often
share portions of the prey with other chimpanzees. Why do they
share a carcass that they could eat by themselves? To research
this question, I have completed four separate 3-month field
seasons at Gombe. I use video to break down and analyze the
complicated behavior that occurs during a meat-eating bout.
I recently got married, and live with my wife, Adrienne, and
two dogs in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Ian received his Ph.D. in 2004 and is now working as a post-doctoral fellow in Anthropology at
Harvard University
and is still very involved in research involving the Gombe chimpanzees.
Watch a
video about a day in the life of
Ian Gilby at Gombe National Park |
