Yellow baboon hunting an antelope

By Hamza Mmole, Guide - Greystoke Mahale

Yellow Baboons are one of the primate species found at Mahale Mountain Nation Park. They live in troops ranging in size between thirty to sixty individuals. They relish on diets ranging from leaves, fruits, vertebrates and invertebrates. 

A few days ago, after have gone through my morning daily schedule, I decided to go for a walk in the forest at around 11:20am. The walk wasn’t aimed at a specific thing, it was just to enjoy the scenes and see whatever comes along. Since I was alone, the walk was very quiet, except for calls made by cicadas amid the trees. Then after a few kilometers from camp, I encountered two Yellow Baboons standing on the trail looking into the bush. A few seconds thereafter I heard big, loud calls from the bush, and some Baboons were running and leaping on and from branch to branch.

Then I decided to get closer to see what was going on. As I got closer I saw a big male baboon squatting on a big branch with a duiker by his hands. Other baboons, both juveniles and adults, were running, some walking around him screaming and stretching their hand to beg meat from the dominant male baboon. It took him a few minutes before he could start eating the duiker and share with some of his fellows, particularly other adult males. He might have decided to offer some meat to a few of the other adult males  to avoid the risk of them ganging up against him and taking  the meat away from him.

I left the scene and came back to camp and shared this story with some of the other guys, it was fascinating to find out how many staff did not  know that Baboons are omnivores, and can hunt for their own prey.

The big storm and a boat ride in Lake Tanganyika

By Lazaro George, Guide - Greystoke Mahale

It is such as a nice season with enough rains which is raining all over in Mahale Mountains including lake Tanganyika from south to north. It was last week on 19-01-2011 the two guest who were Paul, Alexander, one of the Greystoke manager Kiri and I, we were out chimping at northern side of M community territory.

The heavy rain started when we were almost done with our time of observing chimps, it was real fascinating behavior to see a group of females with young’s run up on the tree with a good cover and make a temporarily day nest. Every one prepared rain coat to put on before fist drop. We took about five minutes viewing them in the rain. Three of them were just sitting bellow of the canopy waiting rain to stop while Gwekulo and Xantip were shaking the trees branches to worm up them self.

At the time we arrived at the lake shore the rain was steel on and they are lot of hens all over which ended us to not see even 100 meters away. That situation raise up the question, which direction are we heading?

Hippos walk under the boat

By Paul Soilolo - Guide, Greystoke Mahale

Lake Tanganyika provides an idyllic location for park visitors to enjoy sunbathing, swimming, snorkeling, and picnicking, still known to form one of the most biologically rich fresh water habitats in the world supporting more than 400 fish species of which the vast majority is comprised of endemic cichlids. 

The most economically important fish is a Sardine, a tiny plankton eater that lives in large shoals and is caught by local fishermen at night using a fine net strung between two boats. On some nights we can see the kerosene lanterns used by the fishermen to attract the Sardine to the boats. Of coarse they are well outside the 1600m Marine Park boundary.

It was an unforgettable day when I went out for evening activities with six guests in Lake Tanganyika. We encountered a school of clean Hippos, and we watched them as they walked underneath the boat we were on. On this crystal clear water is a fascinating watching them swimming under and by the boat, and you could see their spoor right on the shallow parts of the lake.

Yellow baboons reach differently on how they are treated.

By Kakae Saiteu-Guide, Greystoke Mahale.

Yellow baboons are a primate with a complex social structure. They live and walk together in large troop sizes; normally several adult males accompanied with harems of females, juveniles and infants.

There are several troops of yellow baboons within the western side of the Mahale Mountains and one of them has its home range where Greystoke camp is located. Like most other monkeys this troop sometimes comes through camp and climbs on the bandas/rooms to play and look for insects. They disrupt the thatching grass that make up the roof, and also destroy the walls of the bandas/rooms, in a scale small enough to be tolerated. However, this disruptive behaviour forces room-attendants, and camp staff, all dark skinned—to pester them any time they see those baboons getting close to the bandas/rooms. That harassment makes the yellow baboon scared of any dark skin coloured person getting close to them. 

This also applies for when guides take guests walking through where that troop of yellow baboons stay, the yellow baboon tends to walk away and make it hard for photographs.

Just recently it crosses my mind, what will the yellow baboons’ reaction be if guests approached the baboons with the guide lagging behind. The result was fascinating, the baboons were not petrified with the guest getting closer by themselves and they stayed a distance possible to be photographed.

It is amazing how skilled baboons are, to treat situations principally similar in different ways. 

A good meal is what a creature needs to reproduce

By Suleiman Juma, Tracker - Greystoke Mahale

I was out in the forest trekking for chimpanzees when I came across an assemblage of Matebele ants hunting for termites. The Matebele soldiers were attacking and killing the termites; they then brought them up above the litters’ surface on the forest floor. After the Matebele ants collected a large number of termites, they walked away in a single file with each Matebele ant carrying a termite in their open mouth. They carried the termites to their nest which was underneath the root of an Albizia tree. 

About a week later I passed by the same site, and at the ingress of the Matebele ant’s nest; I saw white things scattered around near the entrance of the hole. I got closer and I found out they were the larvae of the Matebele ants. When they sensed my approach they quickly started to pick up the larvae and put them back into their nest.

A nutritive food source is very essential for reproducing of both big and small animals.