January 15th, 2008
Published by Ben Beck

Our group that toured the Gishwati Reserve, including five boys from a local village.

Editor’s note: Today, Great Ape Trust of Iowa Director of Conservation Dr. Benjamin Beck continues his 10-part blog on his recent trip to Rwanda. Beck, along with Great Ape Trust Founder and Chairman Ted Townsend, Communications Director Al Setka and Peter Clay, a senior orangutan caretaker, were in Rwanda from Nov. 28-Dec. 6 to begin the process to establish the Rwanda National Conservation Project with Earthpark and the U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy, two other Iowa-based projects supported by Townsend.

On Wednesday, Dec. 4, we drove once more to the forest remnant at Gishwati, picking up the deputy mayor of Rutsiro district on the way. Frank Rutabingwa met us there, and we all set out with Bonaventure, leader of the reforestation team, to walk through the fragment.

What I had not appreciated on our previous visit to Gishwati is that the forest occupies a deep gorge. Viewed from the top, the distance from edge to edge is small, but the distance covered walking down into and up out of the gorge is considerably greater. We walked for four hours, and my legs were trembling when we finally emerged. I apologized to Frank about my earlier comment about how tiny the fragment was.

During the walk we saw fresh chimpanzee ground nests, and a sapling whose bark had been stripped and probably eaten by chimpanzees. Most exciting, we heard the chimpanzees vocalizing, but they are unhabituated and avoided us. But they are there!

Our project will surely include a study of the behavioral ecology of the Gishwati chimpanzee population, to determine population size, resource and space use, patterns of social and reproductive behavior, degree of genetic relatedness, patterns of tool use and communication, health and nutritional status, and degree of human conflict. I would jump at this opportunity myself, but it clearly is a job for a younger scientist.

Next: Chimpanzees use walking sticks to ascend steep hillsides