Hunting for Red Colobus

By Hassani Rashidi- Tracker, Greystoke Mahale.

 

On the 12th December 2010, I was in the forest trekking Chimpanzees for the Tanzania Broadcasting Institution’s employees who came out to Mahale to film wild Chimpanzee’s. The Tanzanian National Park Authorities had asked Greystoke Mahale if they could lend them some of their staff to help the Broadcasting Institution find the Chimps. So Hamza and I set off into the forest for the second time that day.

 We located the Chimpanzees in an area where there were Red Colobus. The Chimpanzees went quiet for a short period of time before they started vocalizing and ran towards the Red Colobus in the tree canopy. They ultimately hunted two Red Colobus; a juvenile and an adult. They ate the juvenile instantly when it was caught but played with the adult for quite sometime by dragging the still screaming monkey backwards and forwards. Finally they tired of the game and killed it by biting.

It was quite a drama watching chimpanzees hunting and treating two of their catches differently.

Pimu asks for forgiveness

By Mwiga Mambo, Tracker - Greystoke Mahale

It was my first morning in the forest since I got back to Mahale from my off-days. We set off trekking for the chimpanzee’s heading south of Greystoke Camp and we saw the chimpanzee’s just about coming to drink water from the lake. A large part of the community was sitting down and playing.

It is known that chimpanzee’s, if they have had enough to eat, enjoy resting and playing as man does. Chimpanzees some times look like they are dancing with one another, babies and mothers, sisters or brothers.

Among the group of chimp’s we saw this time was Pimu and Kalunde and they looked happy, smiling at one another as if they had a very funny storey. This is something new for Pimu who is normally worried about looking tough in order to keep his Alpha male status. And not only was Kalunde looking happy even the other chimpanzee’s looked happy to be with Pimu.

Pimu is generally disliked by the other members of the M community since he became the King or Alpha male. He is always misbehaving when in the group and showing the aggressive characteristics of a chimpanzee. His attack on his mother was a good example of this misbehavior, and he likes fighting all the time. Ever since Pimu became the boss, all the community has not been happy in his company, they don’t even want to sit close to him at all. Maybe Pimu has finally matured and this day was asking forgiveness from Kalunde who is the wise old Chimp and king maker of the community. Will Kalunde and the M community forgive Pimu?