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By Lazaro George – Guide, Greystoke Mahale
Last week, while walking in the forest heading south along a path known as R1, I came accross a small troop of chimpanzees. Among the troop were Fatuma, and her daughters Flavia (8 years old) and Fimbi (4 years old). We followed the troop for about 10 minutes until they stopped for a break.
Fimbi was playing with her mother Fatuma while Flavia played around them. When the troop started to move Fimbi jumped on her mother’s back while she was walking. After a short while Flavia caught up with the pair and walked along by their side and Fimbi jumped down from her mother’s back to the ground and then jumped up to her sister’s back. I walked with them for 15 minutes with Flavia still on her sister’s back, after which time the troop stopped and started to do grooming. The scene I witnessed reminded me of watching a young child taking care of her sibling.
By Suleman Juma, Tracker - Greystoke Mahale
Quite recently I watched a male chimpanzee, Carter, picking leaves from a fig tree, the ficus exasperata. He picked the leaves one at a time while sitting on a thick, forked branch of the tree. I watched him rolling the leaves strategically with the rough surface facing outward. He then put them straight into his mouth and swallowed with no apparent sign of chewing. He kept on doing that for about 8 minutes, before he climbed down out of the tree to join others who were busy grooming.
Chimpanzees normally eat these fig leaves in this way when feeling a stomach ache, related to an infestation of worms. The following day when I went tracking, I came along a fresh chimpanzees’ dung. Looking thoroughly into it, I could see a few worms attached t
o the unchewed rolled leaves. The dung had a wet urine mark beside it showing that it was fresh, but it could have been any chimpanzees within the community .
Roots of the ficus exasperata can cure stomach ache in humans. For years now local people around Mahale Mountains National Park have copied chimpanzees’ use of this plant, and have made decoctions from the ficus exasperata’s roots to cure stomach ache and worms.
From the Trackers of Greystoke Mahale
A Nomad tracker has the responsibility of tracking the habituated chimpanzees in Mahale for Greystoke’s visitors. The home range of these chimpanzees covers an area of just over 30 square miles, rising up from the lakeshore through tropical forest to 2,400 metres (around 7,800 feet).
On 13th of June we woke up early in the morning, ready to leave at first light at 7:00am to track the chimps. Normally in May and June it’s very tricky to find the chimps because food is scarce hence they are spread out through the forest. During these months they prefer higher parts of their home range so we normally go to the peak of the hills or mountains to try to listen to their calls as the sound can travel for up to 1 kilometer, making it easier for us to hear and follow them.
On this particular date we set up to the forest to track them, and went to Ihako valley where they prefer to visit at this time to feed on Canthium fruits, but we did not find them, not even the sign of their presence. So we went up to Kiboko Mountain which is in the south east of their home range. At this part of the forest the trails are gentle and not steep and the walk took us one hour. We heard the calls coming from Mkurume Mountain which is very steep and very hard to climb. We followed the calls for 45 minutes and found 6 chimps feeding on fruits; they moved to Nsansa valley which is north east of Mkurume and climbed Kambele Mountain which is south east of river Nsansa, going down the valley and climbing Kambele Mountain was very steep and we could hardly keep up with their speed.
In total it took us 2 and a half hours to find them. They found enough Canthium fruits in this area and started feeding again. On this mountain there are many fruit trees and we were certain that they were going to stay long without moving so we radioed back to the camp for the guide to bring our guests up the mountain to see them. They walked for almost two hours before they reached us, and spent close to one hour watching the group of chimpanzees.
By Vianney Jacob, Guide - Greystoke Mahale
Tracking chimpanzees in the forest is a unique experience - waiting to hear their calls so that you know the direction to take to.follow them. Sometimes they will tend to be quiet, but that does not mean that they don’t want to disturb the forest….. but that they are busy doing something.
On 15th of March 2009 around 8:00 am, I talked to our trackers in Greystoke and they told me that they have found the chimpanzees and we should start our hike up the mountain. The forest was calm; we could only hear the songs of birds and not the strong voices of chimpanzees. We walked for sometime without hearing their voices, and then saw a group of red colobus moving from branch to branch and from one tree to another. We took our time with them for about 10 minutes watching their abilities of jumping. Then from nowhere a group of chimpanzees came past us and started a hunting technique that was amazing to watch.
We watched a group of big males together - Pimu, Darwin, Alofu and Kalunde with other females who were on the ground trying to make some noise so that they could scare the red colobus while another group of males - Primus, Cadmus, Carter and Fanana and others were hiding on the branches where the red colobus were jumping to. This group ambushed the red colobus and started jumping with them from tree to tree for almost 5 minutes. At this point Pimu thought that they didn’t get any colobus and he started to charge towards other chimps and slapping them.
A few trees from where Pimu was is where Cadmus was hiding, holding a young red colobus in his hand. Quietly he started eating the colobus. Bonobo joined him and he shared a piece of meat with him. Bonobo ate the portion that Cadmus gave him and he started begging for another one. After sometime Cadmus started fighting with Bonobo and he used the tail of the red colobus as a stick to hit Bonobo. Unfortunately then our one hour with them was over and we started our way back down the mountain.
by Gabriel l Mushi, Guide - Greystoke Mahale
It was not until the early sixties when it was discovered in Gombe National Park by Jane Goodall that chimpanzees hunt and feed on the meat of other monkeys.
For the past nine months that I have been here in Mahale, I have observed several hunting scenes of chimpanzees hunting red colobus, most of which were not successful.
On 28th of Dec 2008 I was in the forest with five visitors viewing the chimpanzees. After about 15 minutes viewing them, the chimpanzees moved away through thick bush where we could not see them. In the process trying to follow and relocate them again, we saw tree branches shaking vigorously, with several chimpanzees running and leaping up an Anna tree [Faedherbia albida] with a lot of vocalization. Given the nature of the habitat, --’ thick bush with dense canopies’--we couldn’t tell what was going on at the time.
We went closer to where the branches were shaking and we encountered an awe-inspiring experience. The chimpanzees were hunting Yellow baboon. We saw two chimpanzees on one of the trees. They seemed to be seated on a day nest, picking leaves and eating them. Suddenly two other chimpanzees appeared, both adult males: the current alpha male Pimu in front, holding the carcass of a young Yellow baboon in his mouth, followed by another male---Fanana. He sat on a branch and ripped the carcass’s abdomen open, throwing the intestines away and feeding on other internal parts of the carcass.
From time to time he was seen picking Landopia vine’s leaves and eating them at the same time with the meat, probably to add flavor or aid in digesting. Fanana tried to beg meat from Pimu but he did not share it with him. Totsy, a female in estrous, with her son Teddy, followed Pimu at a close range while stretching their arms out, begging for meat, but neither did they succeed. Pimu finally climbed down from a tree and went away into a thick bush and the other chimpanzees followed him. At that point we were done with our one hour of viewing time and had to move on
Photographs taken by Y. de Jong & T.Butynski
By Lazaro George – Guide, Greystoke Mahale
