Why Help: The Story of Babblers 2015
Distributed by Green Planet Films, PO Box 247, Corte Madera, CA 94976-0247; 415-377-5471
Produced by Arnon Dattner
Directed by Arnon Dattner
DVD, color, 27 min., Hebrew Language dubbed in English/English subtitles
Middle School - General Adult
Animal Behavior, Biology, Birds, Environmental Studies, Natural History, Ornithology, Wildlife
Date Entered: 04/14/2016
Reviewed by Christopher Hollister, University at Buffalo LibrariesThis charming documentary opens with a scene in which researcher Oded Keynan—the film’s host—is playing the role of a panhandler in a bustling urban center. As occasional passers-by drop coins into a cup in his outstretched hand, he poses a research question about human altruism for viewers: “Why help?” To answer this question, Keynan studies colonies of Arabian babblers (Turdoides squamiceps): a bird species renowned for exhibiting numerous forms of altruistic behavior.
Why Help is filmed in Israel’s arid Shezaf Reserve. In that setting, Keynan shows how Arabian babblers—the only cooperative, group-living bird species in Israel—regularly perform altruistic behaviors, ostensibly for the betterment of their colonies. Hungry babblers volunteer to keep watch for predators while others forage; some willingly give their foraged food to others in the colony; and siblings help to raise the colony’s young. Keynan describes these behaviors as evolutionary traits that ultimately benefit the accommodating individuals; this aligns with the Handicap Principle theory originally proposed by Amotz Zahavi to explain cooperation between animals that have obvious survival-related motivations to deceive one other.
The reviewer highly recommends this title for academic, public, and school library collections.