Jordi Sabater Pi

Who was Jordi Sabater Pi?

Jordi Sabater Pi was a Catalan primatologist and worldwide specialist in ethology and the discoverer of cultural behaviors of several species, including the use of tools by chimpanzees. During the 1960s he discovered Snowflake, a very rare albino gorilla that used to live in the zoo of Barcelona.

Sabater Pi was born in Barcelona. He was professor of Ethology at the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Barcelona and pioneered the study of animal behaviour and primatology in Spain. His line of work has been continued inside and outside the University of Barcelona by several of his disciples, such as Joaquim J. Veà Baró, Matthew Escobar Aliaga, and Montserrat Colell Mimó.

As a sign of his commitment to chimpanzees, and prompted by the finding of their proximity with humans, and the threats hanging over their habitats, Sabater Pi once said that the decline in population and, in the case of some subspecies, their near extinction, was comparable to genocide among human beings.