riding the learning curve

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This past month has mostly been a matter of steadily hauling myself up a learning curve. I’ve had a lot to learn – remembering how to recognize the individual chimps, how to get around the forest, how to tactfully avoid running into elephants, where to by my groceries, what cell phone company now has the best reception… you name it. I have also had a lot to set up in terms of my own data collection protocols. It’s coming along – slowly by slowly, as they say in Uganda. I’m happy to report I haven’t been chased by an elephant yet, have only had to be pulled (I mean that literally) out of the swamp once, and have only been caught in the forest during a few major storms – not too bad considering it's the rainy season. The weather is wonderfully cool now – think June in Muskoka or Canmore – nice and warm during the day but you can bundle up in sweaters and under blankets at night. It stays even cooler in the forest, so I’m happy wearing pants and long sleeves, even though I sweat buckets from all of the hiking. I usually hike 1-5 km to find chimps in the morning and have hiked about 15 km per day on average this month. Last Saturday was a record-breaking 23km day!

There is a type of tree called Uvariopsis that came into fruit last week, which the chimps love to eat. The fruit season will last a while – say a month or two– and during this season the chimps will spend most of their time in an area of their home territory where there is a large clump of these trees. It means two things for me – long days of hiking and crossing a lot of swamps, and big groups of chimps. Chimpanzees have a fission-fusion social system, meaning that the individuals within the community are not usually all together in one big group like we see in most other social animals. They split up into smaller sub-groups – called parties – which change in size and composition often as they fission and fuse throughout the day. Just like humans – we might leave our house in the morning, then spend some time with colleagues at work, then meet up with some friends for frisbee in park, and then maybe your frisbee friends join up with even more friends for a pint at the pub. So, when there is a lot of food available in one area, the chimps form very large parties. This is great for me because it means I see a lot of social interaction and can collect data on many individuals in one day.

In the way of other wildlife highlights, this month we saw a marsh mongoose running through the yard one night and a potto hanging upside down just feet from my backdoor. I also had army ants invade my house one morning – luckily I was up at 5 am to get ready for the forest just at they were starting in. Still in my pyjamas, I worked up a sweat furiously sweeping them out… what a way to start the day! I also frequently see bush babies – a type of nocturnal primate – in my front yard. 

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