Oh! a Mango Tree

By Suleiman Juma -Tracker, Greystoke Mahale

Mango is an exotic semi-deciduous tree found in the Mahale Mountains National Park. It was introduced by the Ba Tongwe tribe to this site before this area became a protected land.

Mango tree has big, sweet fruits loved and cherished by both apes and other monkeys. Chimpanzees and humans, the only great apes found here in Mahale, have no chance to eat mango fruits though! As others primates, yellow baboon and vervet monkey start eating mango fruits before they get mature and ripen, a stage which only then would chimpanzees and humans eat them.

Mango trees with roundish dense canopies suppress other vegetations which grow nearby them. They then create bare nice areas underneath them with a lovely shade which are fancied as nice resting spots on sunny days.

Up on Kiboko Hill

By Mwiga Mambo - Guide, Greystoke Mahale

Chimpanzee trekking is a challenging activity. It needs passion and fortitude to do it. As trackers we do use different means to find the chimpanzees. We look for signs of their presences in an area; for instance looking for fresh eaten fruits, fresh dung, spoors along sandy or muddy soil, listening for movements in trees canopies and going up onto elevated landscape and listen for their calls.

The last is apparently the easier one and there are several hills that offer great listening spots. Mlima kiboko, which stands for hippos’ hill in Swahili, is one of the best places to go and listen for the chimpanzees’ calls. When up on this hill—chimpanzees calls could be heard from a far distance and once the calls are heard, we start trekking until we locate the chimpanzees. Besides being a good spot to listen for chimpanzees’ vocalization. It is also a beautiful spot, with peaks of several mountain series being seen at a closer range.

The name kiboko hill is derived from the fact that, when up there, hippos roaring and grunting from the river mouth to Lake Tanganyika is clearly heard. The roaring becomes more overt during the time when hippos are in breeding season.

Look for a chance to go to Kiboko Hill next time or when you are here in Mahale.

Shamwale, a tree with interesting uses.

By Hasani Rashidi - Tracker, Greystoke Mahale

Shamkwale, a shrubby tree with broad leaves, is a very interesting tree in terms of what the tree has been used for in numbers of years. People along Lake Tanganyika and the Democratic Republic of Congo have for years used this plant when they want to become inebriated. They took a fresh leaf of the Shamkwale tree, put on a person’s head and wear a hat or put under the sole of ones foot with shoe on but without sock. Within couple of minutes after the Shamkwale plant’s leaf has been put on either head or foot sole; a person becomes inebriated. Shamkwale leaf use has served people not to spend their money on buying local brew when they wanted to become drunk.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, there was a song composed titled, “Shamkwale Pesa bongo”. The song was composed purposely to alert people of some guys who were using the Shamkwale plant by tricking them to put on the above mentioned body parts and robber them after they become intoxicated.

This shrub might have more valuable uses in pharmacy when chemical analysis studies are conducted on it. This is not a legend, it happens for real in the towns along shores of the Lake Tanganyika.

The effects of nutritive food on the yellow baboon community

By Lazaro George, Guide - Greystoke Mahale

Yellow baboon is one of the primates species found here in Mahale Mountain National Park. This primate lives on edges of forest, basically at the lower altitude of the Mahale Mountains, which were the areas the local people lived and cultivated Palm Oil Trees before they were relocated to areas adjacent to this protected land. The Palm Oil has a lot of uses to local people. They are used as a commercial plant; whereby the oil extracted from palm oil nuts was sold to neighboring communities in the mainland.

When this part of the Mahale Mountains was developed into a National Park, Palm Oil trees were not cut down and neither were they protected against wild animals as it was when they were under human custody. The palm oil trees then, turned to be one of the exclusive main food sources for a few primates. Palm oil nuts are a favorite of the Yellow baboons, and the free access to palm oil nuts by yellow baboon following gazette of this area has led to dramatic increase in their population density. The increase has been correlated to free access to nutritive palm oil nuts and for not been killed by local people as vermin animals as it was the case before the area was gazetted.

In 1970s to early 1980s there were about two troops of yellow baboon within the M-community chimpanzees’ territory. Now the troop sizes and numbers have increase. For instance now, there are about five troops of yellow baboon within M-communities chimpanzees’ territory compared with the 1970s.