ABSTRACT Infant kidnapping is an extreme social disruption reported in some primate species, yet its consequences on social group dynamics remain poorly understood. We document a rare case of repeated attempts of infant kidnapping after handling in a wild gelada one‐male unit and quantify its social impact using Social Network Analysis. The kidnapper, a subadult female frequently aided by another female supporter, repeatedly removed a newborn from its mother without caregiving attempts, inducing stress responses in both mother and infant. Following the kidnapping episodes, grooming networks became denser, more reciprocal and showed a higher tendency to form closed triads, with a marked increase in affiliative exchanges between the kidnapper and her supporter. Agonistic interactions also increased in frequency and involved more individuals, indicating a broad destabilizing effect on group‐level relationships. Our results indicate that, despite being an anecdotal case, this rare naturalistic observation provides a unique opportunity to understand the immediate factors leading to kidnapping and how such an extreme perturbation can trigger rapid, measurable reorganization in a wild primate society.
Galotti et al. (2026) studied this question.