Over this weekend, our group had the opportunity to go to
the Nguywe Rain Forest to see Chimpanzees. Half of the group went on Saturday
and the other half went on Sunday. We arose early in the morning so that we
could hit the road by 4am; after a 2 hour drive, and a short pit stop to pick
up our guide, we arrived in the rain forest. Upon arrival, our guide, Christopher,
gave us an introduction to the rain forest, which has over 1000 species of
plants and many different bird, ape, monkey, and cat species. Recently, there
have been efforts to conserve the rain forest. The section that we were in has
become disconnected from other parts of the rain forest. Conservationalists
have hopes to plant trees to build connections to other rain forest segments so
as to not keep the animals confined. Additionally,
Christopher told us how we would find the chimps. The park service provides
trackers whose job it is to go into the forest each morning and locate the
chimps. The trackers then use chimp noises they have learned to influence the
chimps to move to an area that is more easily accessible by trails.
The initial part of the hike was relatively benign but still
required looking down most of the time and using your walking stick
proficiently to stay on your feet. After hearing from the trackers via
walkie-talkie, Christopher took us off of the main trail down a very steep
hill. The steep incline combined with the muddy forest floor made for a
treacherous trip down toward the chimps. The group managed to stay relatively
quiet (so as not to scare the chimps away) despite many slips, slides, and
falls. I admit that I was the first of the group to take a tumble straight onto
my rear. William’s body managed to do a 360 holding on to a branch above his
head while his feet slid beneath him. Skelley fell directly into an ant pile resulting
in many ant bites to her torso and neck. We made it down the steep terrain with
all of our limbs intact and a few ant bites to spare and were subsequently
rewarded by a great view of 6-8 chimps in a fig tree enjoying their breakfast. While
watching the chimps, Christopher taught us many interesting things about the
chimps:
·
The chimps are social creatures and live in
groups called families. A family can be as big as 60-80 members with many adult
males and many adult females. There is one “chief” male chimp who is determined
by a fight among the males.
- The chimps eat both meat and vegetables, but meat only makes up 3% of their diet.
- Pregnancy length in chimps is 8 months. The mothers give birth on the ground (rather than up in the trees) and the family members stay on the ground to protect her. Soon after birth, the baby chimp is able to spend time in the trees with the rest of the family but his mother will have to carry him when jumping among trees.
- They can build a nest up in the trees in 2-3 minutes – they build a new one every night and each nest sleeps one chimp
- The chimps know the different medicinal properties of plants and know which ones to eat based on how they feel.
- The average life span of the chimpanzee in the wilderness is 50-60 years.
- Similarly to humans, they like to sleep in on rainy, cold days.
- The chimps communicate with each other. When they see or hear something that is unfamiliar to them, the chief will initiate an alert which the family will then echo.
Please pray for safe travels tomorrow as we drive to Kigali and then fly to Istanbul and then again for safe travels from Istanbul to Atlanta via Chicago on Friday. Thank you!
Bragg
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