IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Hicks, T.C. | |
| A chimpanzee Mega-Culture? Exploring behavioral continuity in _Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii_ across northern DR Congo | |
| 2010 Full Book | |
Chapter 1 focuses on the environment in which these chimpanzees (_P. t. schweinfurthii_) live, describing climate and rainfall patterns, the local flora and fauna, human impact, and finally, the conservation history of the area. Chapter 2 compares the response of chimpanzees to humans in different areas of the northern DRC. We hypothesize that chimpanzees living in remote forests will be found to react in a more relaxed and curious manner when encountering our research team than those chimpanzees living in proximity to roads and villages. This is probably tied to a difference in human hunting pressure on the different communities in the recent past. Chapter 3 details differences in chimpanzee sound production between areas of low and high human disturbance. We predict that chimpanzees living under increased pressure from poachers will reduce their sound-production and restrict it to the early morning hours. Chapter 4 is a compendium of our basic knowledge of these chimpanzees acquired prior to and during this field study, beginning with a brief review of their morphology and genetics. We then plot their distribution across the landscape of the northern DRC and make rough calculations of their density. Excitingly, an area that just 10 years ago was a 'blank spot' on maps of chimpanzee distribution has now been filled in, and we can be certain that tens of thousands of chimpanzees are still thriving in the woodlands and gallery forests. The chapter also includes a basic description of the chimpanzees' tree-nesting behavior and diet. In Chapter 5, we present evidence for behavioral continuity, describing a suite of traditions shared by the chimpanzee population across the vast area that was surveyed, and which possibly extends across a much larger area. This pattern stands in contrast to other chimpanzee populations, whose traditions seem to be more idiosyncratically distributed. Different explanations for this phenomenon are explored, including the possibility that it represents a 'Mega-Culture'. Chapter 6 is a 'call to arms', describing the imminent crisis that the chimpanzees of northern DRC are facing. This area is now one of the last remaining large, continuous populations of the species in Africa. With artisanal gold and diamond mining spreading rapidly across the landscape, the bushmeat trade is now gaining a foothold as it already has elsewhere. Unfortunately, chimpanzees are increasingly being targeted for their bushmeat and for their babies, which in some areas are now frequently offered for sale. With the inevitable decline and fragmentation of this chimpanzee population will vanish one of our last opportunities to understand the species in the context in which it evolved, and not merely as isolated populations of terrified fugitives clinging onto a tenuous existence, which is now the situation across much of tropical Africa. |
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