Male-male competition

A brief update from Kelly in Senegal...where the chimps are coming back towards the village.  Recently, Kelly and the crew have been hiking out to the farther reaches of the home ranges, walking at least an hour to get to the closest point... Farafa is an adult female that has 3 offspring that we know of.  Her youngest, Fanta, is about 3 1/2 years of age right now...  Seems Farafa has been causing a lot of tension among the 10 adult males in the community.  Yopogon is currently Alpha, with Lupin at rank #4 and Bilbo (adult male in the photo below, crossing a recently cleared field) weighing in at #6... Here is what Kelly has to say:

"As for the chimps, things have been just great this week! And crazy!  Farafa is swelling, and the boys are just crazy about it.  Yopogon has already lost his left pinky toe and acquired a nasty gash on his right bicep.  Bilbo, Lupin and others also have various different cuts on their bodies due to the confrontations.  Needless to say, it has been much easier to find and follow them now because of the large group they are in, as well as the fact that they have come back to Fongoli!  I was just so tired of Tukantaba and Wakalare!"

I'm going to be participating in a National Geographic Live! Emerging Explorers Salon next week in Washington, D.C., if you happen to be in the area.  This is more of a discussion between the audience and Explorers, mediated by Boyd Matson of National Geographic:

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/nglive/washingtondc/f2008/single/explorers.html

Hunting update

My current project manager, Kelly Boyer (formerly of the Houston Zoo and now a graduate student at Iowa State) has sent me a few updates lately. I'll just paste one here.  Another observation (of Tumbo hunting bushbabies with a tool) brings our sample size up to 56 records of tool-assisted hunting!  Most hunts are still by females and young males, with only a few adult males ever exhibiting the behavior.  The picture at right is one taken by Kelly.  It is of adult female Nickel (one of the most prolific hunters) with her 1.5 year-old infant Teva and Nellie (Nickel's juvenile sister and Teva's aunt).

The observation described below of David hunting (and not sharing the meat of!) a vervet monkey will be added to a manuscript Stacy Lindshield (Ph.D. student in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at ISU) and I are currently preparing.  Here is Kelly's news (I've noted the age-sex classes of individuals in parentheses):

...I did see them this week! AND (subadult male) David had a vervet!  I didn't see the hunt, but I believe it was the hunt that helped me find them because I had just heard one loud WRAA bark and then nothing... David kept nearly the whole monkey for himself, despite Mamadou (adult male), Tia (adult female) and Bo (adolescent male) begging and begging... Yopogon (alpha male) acted as if he didn't care for most of the morning, until one moment when he stood up, piloerect and swaying, charged David and gave him a good beating! Twice! But still, David kept the monkey! In the end, he gave the skin and what little was left to Mamadou. What a pal.  

National Geographic Weekend radio

If you want to hear me talk about the Fongoli chimps on the radio, you can go to these podcasts on National Geographic Weekend's new website.  The dates are April 26 and July 7.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/radio/national-geographic-weekend.html

Also, if you happen to be in the Washington, D.C. area, I'll be participating in a National Geographic Live! "Salon".  Here is the link:

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/nglive/washingtondc/f2008/single/explorers.html

Neighbor Ape is incorporated!

Just got word that our non-profit organization 'Neighbor Ape' is now incorporated in the U.S. I will be posting more information at http://www.savannachimp.com/ soon. In chimp news, on my last day out in the field at Fongoli, I was able to observe adolescent male David use a "spear" in an effort to get a bushbaby from a cavity in a Wolo (Malinke name) tree. He wasn't successful - couldn't tell if cavity was empty or not either - but it was great to see nonetheless. It was also ISU student and project manager Kelly Boyer's first glance at the behavior. Check out the bundles of "spears" in the photo here - the longest is a little over a meter in length. Otherwise, the chimps are in small parties these days, as fruit is scarce and none of the females are currently in estrus. Soon, thought, the Minkon (Spondias) fruit will ripen, and most of the community will gather together again.

Add patas monkey to the diet...

Last week, we (me and Wash-U Ph.D. student Joshua Marshak) witnessed an interesting hunt. Siberut and Bandit, two older adult male chimps - that were apparently too shy to do so while National Geographic cinematographers were on hand to capture it on film (cinematographers Bryan Harvey and Nathan Williamson JUST left the day before!) - pursued and captured a young patas monkey! At least Siberut managed to... While Josh and I were following these two males who had split off (fissioned) from the larger chimp party, I saw both of them stop and stand staring in the same direction. I couldn't get as good a look at Siberut as I did at Bandit, but Bandit's hair was on end (piloerect). A moment later, both took off at the same time, running quickly to the same spot next the open plateau/short grass grassland where there was a thicket of trees. The behavior seemed to me to be indicative of a monkey hunt - and it was - but I assumed it was vervets they were after. We hung back a little, then came upon Siberut with a monkey in hand. Bandit was still looking up into the trees where we could hear another monkey. We backed off so as not to spoil the hunt in any way but heard the monkey leap from the tree after Bandit began to climb, and did not hear Bandit pursue it. Bandit returned to where Siberut was, and Siberut shared pieces of the monkey with him - the head, an arm and the intestines (only part of which Bandit ate). To my surprise, this monkey was NOT a vervet but an immature patas monkey! It appeared to be a one-year old patas; actually about 14 months given the birth season of patas monkeys here. Having had studied patas monkeys for 2 years (as well as vervets), I was torn as to how to feel. Since I missed the actual capture and killing of the monkey - as well as seeing it basically headless - it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Mainly, I was excited to see that these guys COULD capture a patas - the fastest primate - even though it was a young one, only a third of its way to adulthood at the most - and to see that Siberut, the lowest ranking male and one of the oldest, still appears to be one of the best monkey hunters in the Fongoli community. Interestingly, there were no alarm calls given by patas - before or after this hunt. This is similar to the behavior I've seen by vervets towards chimps here too...something I plan to write up for a short publication soon.

Chimpanzee Conservation in Senegal

Having just arrived back in Senegal from a 2-week trip to the U.S., I attended a meeting of various persons interested in chimp conservation in Senegal.  In addition to USAID representatives (they organized the meeting), there were folks from IFAW, Peace Corps and the Jane Goodall Institute (Spain).  Some of the issues we discussed were those dealing with chimp-human competition over natural resources (such as Saba fruit), chimp-human conflict (as when chimps steal young goats at the edges of villages), and the increasing human population in southeastern Senegal.  Large-scale projects such as gold and other mineral mining in the region as well as a plan to fence off thousands of hectares for a hunting concession could also affect the chimpanzee population.  Another meeting is being planned for August and, in the meantime, I am heading off to Fongoli to follow the chimps for several weeks.  Updates will follow!