After the 2-hour ride from Kigoma to Gombe,
we dock and arrive first at the gate to Gombe Stream National Park, check in
with the officials, and begin our initial “chimp check.” Our guide, Khalfan
(hal-FAN), tells us about the history of the area, some of the species found
there, and tells me the rules: no flash, we can’t get closer than about 10
meters, don’t stare if they are looking at you, and we can only stay an hour. I
think we broke at least two of these rules, but oh well. “No problem, Hakuna matata.” (They actually say that
here. All the time.)
We trek up hill on muddy paths (hello quads),
crossing a small creek by jumping from stone to stone, then more up hill to
meet the official chimpanzee tracker. It is warm and humid and I am definitely
sweating at this point. The tracker leads us off the path and through the bush
(tall clumped grasses and small saplings punctuated by large trees) and we walk
for another few minutes.
We hear them first – the distinctive chimp
call. Rounding the corner, there they are in the trees. Incredibly, spread out
among three or four trees, in front of me is the Central Kasakela group of
chimpanzees, first studied by Jane Goodall in the 1960s. There are adult males
and females, adolescents and infants. They are eating fruit in the trees,
calling to each other, moving easily from limb to limb, and I am entranced.
One, playing next to its mother is 8 months
old. Another, I’m told was just born two weeks ago, but she is hard to see
because she is still clinging to her mother. There are two small juveniles
playing, bouncing, play biting, and slapping each other. These extended
families of chimpanzees are here, where they should be, in the trees of Gombe. I
thought I would cry when I saw the chimps. Instead, I had a strange feeling of
belonging – of wonder, but also of normalcy. I don’t know if that makes sense. Maybe
it’s due to the 20 years of watching films and reading, teaching about these
chimps – the Kasakela chimps – and volunteering for the Jane Goodall Institute.
It felt familiar and somehow “right” that I would be there.
I learn the latest family gossip of the “F
family,” the chimp family first named and studied by Jane Goodall when she
arrived in the 60s under the mentorship of Louis Leakey. She was “too young”
and “A Female!” for the Brits and Tanzanians to leave her out stranded in the
bush alone, so her mother came along as a proper chaperone. I’m fairly certain
they would have taken tea in the afternoon in the bush. The “F family,” “G” family,
and “S family” make up the bulk of the Central Kasakela group. There are also Northern
and Southern Kasakela chimps, but they are not habituated to people.
The alpha male – up to about two months ago –
is named Ferdinand. It turns out that Ferdinand has made a fatal mistake. While
in a conflict with another group, he abandoned the other adult males of his
party while they were fighting. Big boo boo, Ferdinand. When the adult males
realized he wasn’t coming back with reinforcements, they had to run as well,
losing the conflict. So, they went after Ferdinand for being a coward and loser,
and with the support of three other adult males of the group, severely beat
him. He retreated to a tall tree to escape a sure death, and remained there
while the army of males waited below to continue his punishment. He stayed so
long that finally the adults got hungry and moved off to find food. When they
returned later, he was gone.
Since then, Ferdinand has been a ghost. The
trackers can’t find him. One day last week someone saw him alone in a tree away
from the main group, making a nest for the night. The trackers leave the chimps
in the nests in the evening, and return before the chimps wake in the morning
so they know where the chimps are every day. But when they returned, Ferdinand
had disappeared. Apparently, Fudge has now risen to alpha male, and you can bet
that with his alliance, Fudge will eventually find Ferdinand. Chimps can be
downright Machiavellian, and you know they will not let this slide if they find
him any time soon.
We stayed probably about an hour and a half
in the bush, following the chimps as they moved from place to place. They move,
then hang out for a while, before moving on again. Fortunately this first day they
didn’t go far, or too fast, so we got to spend a lot of time up close with
them. Apparently, the day before they sent the trackers and visitors on a wild
goose chase up and down the mountains, and left all of the humans completely
wiped out.
We also happened to run into a research group
– a post-doc named Kara (I would look up her full name if I had Internet) and her
mentor, Anne Pusey, who has been working in the area for 20 years. To my utter
humiliation, I didn’t recognize Dr. Pusey and asked if Kara the post-doc was
“traveling with her mother.” (kill me now) The great Dr. Pusey maintains the
database of all Gombe activity at Duke University. Traveling with them is Deus,
the Director of Research at Gombe (again, I would like to include his last name
but limits on connectivity prevent me from doing so). They also employ research
assistants (with grant money), several of whom were traveling with them.
Kara’s on-going research is on adolescent
females and whether they choose to stay or leave the groups of their birth. It
is common in chimp society for adolescent females to leave – biologically, this
maintains a diverse gene pool and the chimps generally do it instinctively.
However, at Gombe, some stay and some leave. One young female chimp was
severely beaten when she tried to join the Northern group, so she is back with
her natal group, and has a really ragged and scarred behind where they kicked
the $%#@ out of her.
These researchers are currently working on
developing a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), and are taking photos and
collecting fecal samples as content. They were very gracious with all my
questions, and even allowed me to take a short video in which she introduced
her research. We traveled with them for a while following the chimps and I felt
like a million bucks just being close to the research going on here.
If you are a local Tanzanian who wants to
work among the chimps of Gombe, you can aspire to a number of positions. For
most, you need a certificate or degree in wildlife studies, wildlife
conservation, and guide training for those who want to work with visitors.
There are “researchers” for each of the species of primate there (including the
chimp communities, red colobus monkeys, blue monkeys, olive baboons, and
others) who follow and record the behavior of the troops from morning until 2
pm, then switch with another researcher until the chimps build a nest for the
night. This is referred to as “nest-to-nest” tracking.
There are field assistants, who record
certain aspects of behavior when relevant to a particular research study. One
field assistant I met was collecting fresh chimp poop (which is actually
totally disgusting if I have to be honest) with a small spoon into a plastic
vial. Later, the lab would use the DNA in the fecal sample to sort out the
paternity of particular juveniles. Guides meet the visitors and do the most interaction
with them. Guides need a good command of several languages in order to
efficiently accompany and educate the guests.
And there is one head tracker, an imposing
bald fellow who doesn’t smile much and speaks very little English. He is the
contact person for the guides as they set out with visitors from the staging
area into the forest. Since he follows them closely and doesn't have to deal with visitors, the guides call him before heading out to see which way they
should go to find the chimps. Sometimes he doesn’t pick up, so the guides have
to ask the chimps where they are by sending out a single call (“HOOOOOOOOO”),
which the chimps respond to (“Hey, human, we’re over here!”).
Of course there are many other positions,
including park staff, research staff, and others. The locals may bring their
families to live on site, in baboon-proof homes with wire netting all around
them. It gives the impression of living in a caged cell. However, it’s
absolutely necessary because the chimps have been known to steal a human baby
and the baboons will steal and wreck anything. So, worth it.
If you are a foreign graduate student who
wants to work among the Gombe chimps, so far I’ve found out that you can work
with Anne Pusey at Duke University, get involved somehow through the UCSD grad
program in Physical Anthro, or apply directly through your university. I wonder
if I would have made a good grad student in physical anthro, since I wasn’t a
very successful one in cultural (split after my Master’s degree even though I
was in a PhD program). Whatever the case, I’m not really one to regret things.
I’m so thrilled to be here now.
