Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest

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The Landmine Snare

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Maureen McCarthy, PhD candidate at the University of Southern California, was our very first guest blogger. She is doing field research in Uganda, and while there she has been featured as a regular on Scientific American’s blog. The entry that follows is particularly moving. WARNING: some disturbing images are included in this entry.

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This is our last week of data collection. It was supposed to be a laid-back week to collect a few more samples and enjoy a few final days tracking chimpanzees, a fieldwork victory lap of sorts. It didn’t turn out as I’d hoped, though. Instead, things went very, very wrong.

On Tuesday, we ventured back to a forest reserve south of the Budongo Forest. It’s one we’ve visited numerous times before…a much larger forest than most we visit, one which helps functionally connect the fragmented forests of this corridor region to the much larger Budongo Forest to the north. On the surface, chimpanzees here have a good habitat compared to our friends to the south in most forest fragments I’ve been studying. A closer look, however, reveals an abundance of illegal logging and snare hunting sites within the forest. Though snare hunting is illegal, it is a leading cause of injury and death among chimpanzees in Uganda. Up to one third of chimpanzees in forests of Western Uganda have sustained snare injuries (Reynolds, 2005; Wrangham and Goldberg, 1997; Wrangham and Mugume, 2000).

We received news that chimpanzees had been heard far inside the forest early that morning. Jack and I, along with a field assistant and a guide from the National Forestry Authority, began traveling through the forest en route to the area where they were heard. Around mid-morning, we too began hearing pant hoot vocalizations from the chimpanzees, as well as occasional whimpers and screams, which are not unusual, especially among larger parties. We projected waypoints for their location and followed trails in that direction until we knew we were close. It sounded like a large party was present, with a second party approximately 200 meters away.

We decided to leave the nearby party so as not to disturb them, instead backtracking along their trail in the hopes of finding nests from the previous night. After successfully locating numerous nests and dung samples, we followed their trail back to where they’d been calling in the hopes of finding that they’d gone, leaving some dung samples behind. Instead, we saw a number of chimpanzees, which, along with their earlier vocalizations, suggested a large party was still present. We watched as a subadult male climbed a tree. He produced a dung sample, and we noted its location so we could find it there after they had moved. When it seemed that the chimpanzees may be preparing to leave, we decided to slowly and carefully move closer to the tree where we saw the male, in an attempt to collect the dung. As we approached, we found that a young chimpanzee was watching us from deep within the dense vegetation. The youngster was about three years old. He watched us fearfully and whimpered from a limb about one meter off the ground, then became more fearful and began to scream. We wondered why he didn’t simply leave his leafy perch. Was he injured or trapped? One of our field assistants, who led in the front of our party, assured us confidently that he could see both hands and feet, and that all limbs were free. Despite these assurances, I was left with an uneasy feeling. However, a large party of chimpanzees was still nearby. An adult started to climb down from his position in a tree. I decided that it would be too risky to move closer through the dense vegetation. Given the thickness of the undergrowth, we would have to approach very closely to see the young chimp well enough to assess the situation thoroughly. If he then became very upset, others in the party could come to his defense and we could risk being seriously attacked. I would have to rely on my field assistant’s assessment that the youngster was fine despite what seemed to be unusual behavior. At least, we noted hopefully, there was no distressed mother visible. We left the possibility of sample collection behind and went home for the day.

The next morning, we came back in the hopes that the chimpanzees had all left and the dung samples remained. As we approached, we heard and saw no sign of chimpanzee presence. However, we soon heard the unmistakable whimpers of the same young chimpanzee. Jack and I looked at each other with sinking, awful dread. The infant chimpanzee was indeed trapped there. I approached, passing through the vegetation to get a close look at the chimpanzee. He had a wire snare around his left foot. He still seemed strong and relatively healthy despite being trapped. We suspected that he had been ensnared there sometime after the party arrived on Tuesday morning. We left the area immediately to get phone reception and called our colleagues at the Budongo Conservation Field Station for assistance. We hoped their veterinary staff could provide the necessary help to free the chimp from his snare.

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The ensnared chimpanzee. Note the trapped left foot, with the snare wire visible on the branch above. Photo © Maureen McCarthy.

Phone signals were poor and transportation was challenging between Budongo and our location. We spent hours waiting but eventually received word that help was on the way. Finally, two veterinarians from Budongo met us in a nearby village. I was relieved that help had finally arrived and that this chimpanzee could be given a chance to be free again and to go on with his young life. We trekked through the forest until we finally arrived again at the location of our little friend. As we pushed through the dense vegetation, I couldn’t see the chimp at his usual post. For a brief moment, my heart leapt as I thought he may have escaped his snare. A moment later, however, I was devastated by reality—he was not visible because he had died and was now hanging below the branch where we found him earlier.

My mind was reeling. How could he have died so soon? Sure, it took hours for help to arrive, but he looked so strong earlier. Dozens of “what ifs” flooded my thoughts. What if we had ignored the risks and pushed in further yesterday to assess the situation fully and see that he was truly ensnared? What if we had stayed by his side today? What if we had just tried to release him on our own before help arrived? If we did release him, could we have helped him find the other chimpanzees in his community? I was heartbroken and guilt-ridden with thoughts that I should have done more.

Thankfully, the veterinary staff from Budongo could not have been more calming and professional. Their assessment was that the chimpanzee was likely an orphan since there was no sign of his mother in the vicinity. We should expect a chimpanzee mother to remain nearby if her infant is trapped in a snare. They also assessed the cause of the infant’s death. The infant was found hanging upside down by the trapped leg. It seems that he had fallen from the leafy cushion of branches on which he was seated and was unable to right himself. Perhaps he was simply too tired after all the trauma he’d experienced since the previous day. As he hung upside down, the oxygen-poor blood accumulated in his head as the heart was unable to pump it back up to his chest and replenish his brain with oxygen-rich blood. The wound, along with our account of where the chimpanzees traveled, corroborated the notion that the injury had occurred the previous day. Perhaps most tragically, he had only just died. If we had been able to intervene only an hour sooner, the outcome could have been very different. This particular detail is staggeringly difficult for me…

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The snare injury, post-mortem. Photo © Maureen McCarthy.

The vets also assessed the reason for his injury. It was caused by what is known as a landmine snare, a particularly complex snare devised to catch a large animal such as a bushbuck. The complex construction made it clear that it would have been difficult if not impossible for the chimpanzee to free himself, at least not without losing his foot in the process. This snare was likely set by an illegal logger in one of the nearby camps within the forest, perhaps one of the men who went crashing through the forest to avoid being seen by us just earlier that morning.

The veterinarians freed the chimpanzee’s body from the snare and carefully collected it for post-mortem analysis and a respectful burial. He was so small, so vulnerable, and so beautiful. Life had only just left him, and I was simultaneously so sorry for him and so grateful that he no longer had to suffer the fear and pain he had been feeling.

What can we make of this tragedy? I feel distraught and helpless over the loss of this young innocent life. I can find comfort in a couple of thoughts, though. First, I am grateful that none of our team members was injured in what potentially could have been a very dangerous situation. If I had insisted that we push in to get a closer look when other chimps surrounded us, I could instead be writing an account of one of our team members being attacked by a chimpanzee. Second, I am grateful that, if he had to die, at least the loss of consciousness he experienced was relatively painless compared to a week or more of suffering slow starvation, a fate endured by some chimpanzees similarly caught in snares.

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Max, a snare injury survivor in Kibale National Park, Uganda. Photo courtesy of Ronan Donovan.

I can take one more comfort. That is, I can hope we learn something from this awful situation and create some sort of positive outcome. I hope the plight of this innocent chimpanzee can help shed light on the gravity of snare hunting as a threat to our closest living relatives. There are committed individuals in Uganda trying to ensure that this won’t happen to another chimpanzee. For example, please consider supporting a snare removal program such as the Jane Goodall Institute Snare Removal Program or the Kibale Snare Removal Program. Here’s hoping snare hunting becomes a thing of the past.

This post was originally published at Scientific American.

Works cited:

Reynolds, V. (2005). Chimpanzees of the Budongo Forest. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wrangham, R.W., Goldberg, T. (1997). An overview of chimpanzee conservation and management strategies. In Conserving the chimpanzees of Uganda: a population and habitat viability assessment for Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii (ed. E. Edroma, N. Rosen and P.S. Miller). IUCN/SSC, Apple Valley, MN.

Wrangham, R.W., Mugume, S. (2000). Snare removal program in Kibale National Park: a preliminary report. Pan Africa News 7: 18-20.

Resilience

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This is the first of a series of guest blogger posts from researchers that work with free-living apes. Maureen McCarthy graduated from the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Southern California. She is doing research with chimpanzees in Uganda and has a regular featured blog on Scientific American’s blog. Here’s her most recent entry that mentions Foxie:

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Their chorus of pant hoots gave them away in dramatic fashion. The chimpanzees we’d been looking for were nearby, and we knew exactly where to find them. Though farmland and trees blocked our view, we could hear that the chimpanzees had arrived at a particular fig tree laden with ripe fruits. As ripe fruit specialists, chimpanzees seek out fruiting figs like this Ficus exasperata. On a good day, we can use our knowledge of when these figs are ripening to help us find the chimpanzees.

We took a circuitous route through the gardens to a grassy hilltop with a clear, albeit distant, view of the Ficus.  I dropped my backpack and pulled out my binoculars. I began to scan the tree in an attempt to identify the large dark figures foraging. I could make out the silhouettes of at least seven or eight chimpanzees, all foraging on figs or seated in the huge tree.

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Chimpanzees feed in a Ficus exasperata tree. Photo © Jack Lester.

After observing their foraging for a few peaceful moments, I heard a jarring but familiar sound. A man working in a garden nearby shouted at the chimpanzees. Though the tree was in an isolated area of grassland several dozen meters from where he worked, he was clearly uncomfortable with their presence. A few threatening shouts were enough to convince the chimpanzees it was best to cut short their breakfast. They descended quickly from the fig. I now counted twelve chimpanzees as they walked in a single file line back across the grassland and to a small patch of forest nearby. As we watched them go, field assistant Nick commented that he felt sorry for the chimps.

At times like these, I am reminded of one of the most recurrent lessons from my research thus far: chimpanzees are surprisingly resilient. They may have waited until later to forage, or perhaps they found another source of nutrition (which, unfortunately, may have involved risky crop-raiding). However, as long as no one hunted them or set a mantrap to ensnare them, as is sometimes the case, they probably found something to eat and survived another day. Despite the rapid rate of forest degradation in their habitat, they have persisted. They continue to forage, reproduce, and tend to the complex political matters of chimpanzee life, even if these behaviors must be modified somewhat to fit a drastically altered environment.

I was again reminded of chimpanzee resilience when, on a recent visit to my mother’s home, I opened an old box to find my childhood collection of troll dolls. After a moment’s consideration, I decided to send them to a chimpanzee named Foxie. Foxie is a resident of Chimpanzee Sanctuary Northwest (CSNW), a sanctuary in Cle Elum, Washington that serves as home to seven chimpanzees. The “Cle Elum Seven,” as they are known, have lived in biomedical laboratories for most of their lives. They were involved in invasive hepatitis vaccine research and used for laboratory breeding. Foxie gave birth to five infants, but was forced to give them all up, just like so many other breeding female chimpanzees in laboratories. Perhaps as a fulfillment of the maternal behaviors she was never able to express, Foxie can now usually be found carrying a troll or other doll with her.

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Foxie cares for a troll doll.

The caregivers who know Foxie and the other members of the Cle Elum Seven can attest to this adaptability. All seven have displayed drastic changes in both behavior and physical appearance since arriving at CSNW several years ago. The shift from a windowless laboratory basement to a spacious sanctuary with dedicated caregivers and outdoor access has—not surprisingly—had an unambiguously positive effect on them.

Why might chimpanzees be so adaptable to change?  It may have aided the survival of their ancestors–and ours. For example, many primates regularly face drastic seasonal changes in rainfall, temperature, and food availability. Some primates have specialized adaptations that help them survive under harshly changing seasonal conditions. For chimpanzees, a learned knowledge of the fruit tree locations, even during periods of low fruit availability, is critical. Chimpanzees acquire this knowledge over a prolonged period of development, with high reliance on their mothers until full weaning at age 5, followed by juvenile and sub-adulthood learning periods lasting until age 15. A high degree of neural plasticity facilitates this learning ability. In humans, an especially high degree of plasticity may aid our strong reliance on learning. Plasticity may also play a key role in what we call resilience, enabling both humans and our chimpanzee kin to roll with the punches during trying times. For chimpanzees today, this may mean finding a new fruit tree when one due to ripen has been felled, or basking in the sun for the first time after decades inside a laboratory.

This post was originally published at Scientific American.