Instinct?

Madagascar. That’s the name of the movie I watched yesterday. It’s an animated film, about 4 animals raised in captivity, which are then left in the wild. The story is about how they cope with their new lives, and the discoveries some of them make. It brought home to me the fact that most behavior is taught, not instinctive. How creatures react to situations is also largely learnt behavior. This is especially true for species like human beings, who rely so much more on learnt skills than on instinct. Take for example how we react when we are hungry. Instinct urges us to grab the food we see and eat it. But we will still reach for the knife and fork.
What the movie made me think about was how instinct can be suppressed when the outside conditions are not purely natural. Our lion (Alex) in the movie didn’t even know he was a predatory animal while he was in captivity. He was as shocked as anyone else when the realization dawned upon him. It made me wonder: Are there things about us that are instinctive, yet suppressed to a point where we are oblivious of their existence? Could it really be possible that we might be unaware of our very natures? The question definitely calls for a thought, if not an answer!