By Mwiga Mambo, Tracker - Greystoke Mahale.In November last year, I witnessed an extraordinary event in the Mahale Mountains. My fellow tracker and I witnessed four male adult chimpanzees - Primus, Orion, Fanana and Carter - forming an alliance together against Alofu and Cadmus (then the second and fourth ranking males respectively in the M-community). It became apparent that their plan was to move Primus up in rank from number three to number two, thus deposing Alofu from his position.
At first Cadmus was wary of the situation, as the four males were getting closer to him and Alofu. They were stamping and pounding the ground, shaking and dragging logs, accompanying this with loud wuhwuuh calls and at times screaming. However, Cadmus appeared encouraged by Alofu who leapt up and used Cadmus’ back as support as he displayed and showed aggression to the 4 advancing males. Soon Cadmus found his courage and both he and Alofu stood up and walked bipedal for about 7 metres towards their rivals. Primus, the leader of the other group, retreated with his allies, and a short moment later three of them, including Primus hastened into the forest thicket.
Alofu
But Fanana didn’t run. Instead he started to pant-grunt and squatted before calmly approaching Alofu and Cadmus. When he got close he reached out and touched Alofu’s chin, which seemed to stop Alofu dead in his tracks. But Cadmus kept on charging as if he wanted to attack Fanana. Alofu, who for years was reputed as a peaceful chimp, had to intervene. Cadmus then reluctantly appeared to pay his respect to Alofu and moved away. But 15 minutes later, he came back, this time with Orion who he had earlier been forming an alliance against.
The two of them looked as if they would attack Fanana who, when he saw what was happening, quickly ran and jumped onto a smaller tree nearby where Alofu was standing. Fanana got highly anxious and urine dripped down to his feet, and soft dung was released for a moment. The charging had persisted for about 10 minutes before Alofu had to behave brutally to stop them. He kicked Cadmus on the rump and vigorously charged Orion. The two ran way into the forest and left Fanana in peace and with Alofu maintaining his rank within the community.
