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| Photo courtesy Dr. Serge Wich |
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The Kyambura (pronounced “Chambura”) Gorge in Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park is home to a remnant population of 16 chimpanzees. The Gorge is a heavily forested, steep-sided, mist-enshrouded river valley, and is also home to black and white colobus monkeys, olive baboons, vervet monkeys, redtail monkeys, and blue monkeys, as well as elephants and lions. But deforestation by farmers at both ends of the gorge has left the chimpanzees isolated from other chimpanzee populations, and thus subject inevitably to inbreeding and ultimate extinction.
Nicole Simmons, a Ph.D. candidate from Makerere University and the University of Minnesota would like to begin planting corridors of fruit trees to expand the habitat of the chimpanzees, and allow contact with other chimpanzee populations. She collects seeds from the feces of the chimpanzees (thus ensuring selection of preferred food species), starts the seedlings in a nursery, and finally plants them. The Trust provided $3,000 in 2007 for salaries and supplies for two local field assistants to maintain the nursery, plant the trees, water them, and build fire breaks to protect them. |
Great Ape Trust is certified by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums
