 The Kibale National Park in western Uganda is home to some of the largest and best-studied populations of chimpanzees in Africa. Kibale is the second largest forest in Uganda, and contains seven different primate species in addition to chimpanzees. Some of the most productive chimpanzee field research has been conducted in the northern sector of Kibale, where some populations have been studied continuously since the 1960s. But the southern chimpanzee populations have been virtually unstudied.
One large area in the south, known as Mainaro, had been extensively cut for farming and timber extraction, but human inhabitants were resettled in the 1990s and an extensive reforestation project was begun. Chimpanzees have returned to Mainaro, providing a wonderful opportunity to compare chimpanzee population densities, behavior and social systems in Mainaro, with its disturbed forest, and those of the northern sector, with mature forests. This information is extremely conservation-useful, since it allows wildlife managers to predict the suitability of disturbed and restored forests as chimpanzee habitat, and reveals novel behavioral patterns, such as food choices.
Again, note the thematic similarity with Dr. Serge Wich’s Ketambe project and Sanz and Morgan’s Goualougo project. Great Ape Trust provided $10,000 to Yale University scientists David Watts, Gary Aronsen and Simone Teelen to study the abundance, distribution and behavior of the Mainaro chimpanzees in 2007. The Trust’s grant will be used to hire and equip field assistants to cut trails and conduct regular censuses, and to pay transportation costs, and licensing fees for the scientists. |
Great Ape Trust is certified by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums
