Chimp field experiences
-
by
Snorticus
Can you tell us an unexpected or memorable encounter with chimps or other animals in the field?
Posted
-
by
northernlimitptv
scientist, moderator
Having worked with chimps now since 2009 I have so many memorable moments with the chimps, although perhaps I'll share one of my first memories:
I work with chimps in Senegal, including the habituated chimpanzee research site Fongoli, where the chimps are known to hunt small primates named bushbabies with spear-like tools (http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(07)00801-9). My first year I was following a male called Bilbo who had just successfully hunted a bushbaby and was proceeding to eat it. A young male Frito was also around and was desperately begging for a scrap, to no avail. Bilbo happily ignored him, until he had eaten most of the top of the bushbaby and had reached the bushbaby butt. I believe bushbabies have scent glands at the butt and the smell was strong enough to essentially startle Bilbo so much that he dropped the bushbaby in surprise and disgust! Unfortunately before he could react and retrieve it, Frito had already scrambled down to grab the remains and took off with Bilbo's meal! I could hardly contain my laughter as Biblo watched Frito scramble away with a disappointed look on his face. 😄
Posted
-
by
akalan
scientist
Some of my most memorable experiences from working with wild primates come from the Lac Tele Community Reserve in the Republic of Congo where I also had my first encounters with western lowland gorillas and chimpanzees. Nothing can prepare you for this first encounter and my heart was definitely beating very fast! I first saw chimps, we watched as a large group woke up out of their nests and began foraging. I was most amazed when one male calmly watched me and my assistant while eating his myrianthus fruit. Then as everyone was almost gone he also followed suit, seemed somewhat reluctantly because he was clearly quite curious as he had been watching us just as much as we had been watching him. We were about 50m away and these animals were completely wild and a bit naive to researchers or even humans generally speaking, due to the abundant swamp forests. With respect to the gorillas, well I was surprised to encounter my first silverback in a tree, where upon seeing me and my assistant he roared very loudly and stomped hard on a tree branch that fell right next to me. It all gave me quite a fright! Luckily he descended and then only continued to roar and chestbeat from afar at us. Of course we didn't stay there too long because we did not want to upset him too much, we was only protecting the rest of his group who were still in the tree.
Posted
-
by
LirSam
scientist
I think some of my memorable memories involve encounters between the chimpanzees and other wildlife. and one of my favorite involved an encounter between 30 chimpanzees and one giant pangolin. Being extremely neophobic at times (yes they are even afraid of chameleons), the chimps started barking and screaming, hugging each other and shaking branches at the poor pangolin who couldn't understand what was all this fuss about. After about 40min, the pangolin decided he had enough and choose the only free route he had to leave the area, my direction. and so I found myself pretending to be a tree while a the pangolin stepped on my foot while getting away, I was amazed! 😃
Posted
-
by
Snorticus
in response to northernlimitptv's comment.
That made me chuckle! I follow Jill Pruetz on twitter and that spearing the cute bushbabies is so interesting in relation to the nut smashing and termite fishing we have seen the chimps at c&s sites doing. The varieties of preference in regional skills is not something I realized existed in chimps but it makes perfect sense now.
How do you see Fongoli chimps socializing differs from C&S chimp groups?
Posted
-
by
northernlimitptv
scientist, moderator
Ah if you follow Jill then you probably know quite a lot about Fongoli already!
To answer your question, Fongoli chimps seem to hang out in bigger parties than chimpanzees at other sites, especially during the dry season (I think Jill talks about that here if I'm not mistaken: http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/3865181/Pruetz_and_Bertolani_2009.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1493143708&Signature=A0nMnYrtF1C5oQlVYFOAQh4l5Go%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B filename%3DChimpanzee_Pan_troglodytes_verus_Behavio.pdf)
And the bushbabies are not always so cute! They certainly stick up for themselves! I've seen them bite the chimps quite hard 😉
Posted
-
by
Lesterj1972
scientist
I was working with Maureen as she was collecting data for her PhD thesis. She was collecting non-invasive genetic samples from unhabituated chimpanzee communities in Uganda. We always avoided coming close to the chimps and tried to only go where they had been after a sufficient amount of time had passed and we were reasonably confident they had left. One day, we were following a trail of chimp signs and samples from early that morning. We collected a few samples and found some night nests. Around noon, we took our lunch break. Maureen's field assistant, Nick, had finished his lunch and as we were gather up our things he had started moving ahead in the direction we were planning to go. Then, suddenly, a wild chorus of hoots and barks broke out a few meters away, followed by the immediate appearance of Nick back into our clearing moving briskly with a look of surprise and alarm. We all moved in single file following the most direct route out of the forest. As we moved ahead with purpose, while battling our impulse to run, we kept hearing vocalizations from a single chimp about ten meters behind us. The chimp always seemed to maintain a consistent distance behind us. Finally as we approached the forest edge, we heard a single panthoot, presumably from the individual who was following us. Then we heard a chorus of panthoots originating near where Nick had first encountered the party. To us it seemed as if this brave chimp escorted us out of the forest then announced his success to the others and they responded with "cheers". We decided that we had collected enough data from these chimps for the day and thought they deserved to enjoy the rest of their day free of our presence. We decided to drive over to another area where a different community of chimps lived to see if we could collect some more samples. We entered the forest where some local women told us the chimps had passed early that day. Well, we walked into the forest about 20 meters from the edge and walked right into another party of chimps. We were again greeted with hoots and barks. We turned around and marched right back in the direction from which we came. We decided that we should just call it a day. We rarely ever saw chimps during this project, and even less frequently had these accidental close encounters with them. Yet that day it happened twice with two different communities.
Posted
-
by
Snorticus
in response to Lesterj1972's comment.
What a great story!
Posted
-
by
Lesterj1972
scientist
in response to Snorticus's comment.
Thank you! If you are interested in reading about some of our other experiences I encourage you to check out http://www.chimpsaver.org/africa-alert/gumboot-memoirs/
Posted
-
by
Snorticus
in response to northernlimitptv's comment.
I think I know more about her sweet Bella dog from twitter, lol! Glad to hear those bushbabies are not meek. Thanks for the link.
Posted