Loango Ape Project
One key component of conserving an endangered species is to conduct research to better understand its ecological needs, behavioural patterns, and population dynamics. In February 2005 the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology & Operation Loango established a collaborative project to habituate chimpanzees and gorillas in Loango National Park, Gabon for the joint purposes of ecotourism and research.
The overall goal of the Loango Ape Project is to establish a long-term research project of habituated chimpanzees and gorillas to better understand their ecology, behaviour, culture, demography, and health status and to provide an opportunity for ecotourists to observe the apes in their natural, undisturbed environment.
The recent creation of thirteen national parks in Gabon provides a remarkable opportunity to expand our knowledge of great apes in Central Africa. Loango National Park is an ideal location to conduct this project because of its unique ecosystem; it contains a mosaic of seashore, coastal forest, lagoon, savannah, swamps, secondary forest, and primary forest. This project will allow for effective protection of the apes’ and all the other wildlife that coexists in their habitat.
Specific activities of the project include:
- Habituate gorillas and chimpanzees to the presence of humans for research and tourism purposes. This is anticipated to take at least 5 years.
- Study the impact that the process of habituation has on the behavior and health of the gorillas and chimpanzees. Additionally, comparisons of health (through studies of parasites and antibodies) can be made with other populations.
- Examine the ecological patterns of both ape species to see the similarities and differences of their diet and ranging patterns while occupying the same habitat. Comparisons can also be made with other populations to understand the ecological flexibility of the apes. Loango National Park is a particularly interesting location to examine the feeding ecology of western gorillas and chimpanzees because it is ecologically distinctive from other sites where similar research has been conducted, including Lopé National Park.
- Study the social, behavioural and cultural complexities of the gorillas and chimpanzees. Specific topics include: social relationships, reproductive strategies, feeding patterns, dispersal patterns, tool use, and cultural behavior. We will also examine relationships between the gorillas and chimpanzees.
The Habituation Process
As with most wild animals, gorillas and chimpanzees tend to be naturally fearful of humans, following historical human hunting pressures. Therefore if one encounters an unhabituated ape in the forest, the most common response is to flee when detected. In order to make detailed, lengthy observations of apes in the wild it is necessary to ‘habituate’ them to our presence. The habituation process may take up to five years. The apes should be contacted on a daily basis only by trained human observers appearing as neutral and non-threatening as possible, until eventually the apes are no longer afraid and develop a certain level of trust to be near humans for extended periods of time. Until habituated, chimpanzees most commonly depart from humans if they feel afraid or uncomfortable, whereas gorillas may display at or charge observers if they approach too closely. Given the extreme difficulty of habituating apes, we are restricting the presence of humans other than our research teams into the study area in Loango until the apes are habituated.
Chimpanzees and Gorillas
Humans have long been fascinated by chimpanzees and gorillas because of their intelligence, patterns of sociality, similar physical resemblance, and close genetic relatedness and to us. The fact that studying their lifestyles in the wild is so difficult only adds to their mystic.
Chimpanzees live in large social groups, referred to as ‘communities’, which consist of many adult males, adult females, and their offspring. Communities may contain over 150 individuals, although 30 – 50 is a more normal size. All the members of a chimpanzee community do not always spend all their time together; instead they exhibit ‘fission-fusion’ system, which means that individuals move between differing subgroups and there is great variability in which group members are together at any one time. Females typically disperse to neighboring communities as they reach maturity, but males always remain in the community where they were born. As a result, males form strong social relationships with each other, even if they are not closely related genetically. Chimpanzees are territorial and males perform ‘boundary patrols’ to maintain these areas that provide food resources for their group members. Chimpanzees are also one of the few primate species known to hunt, predominantly monkeys and duiker.
One of the most remarkable indications of the intelligence of chimpanzees is their ability to make tools. They fashion simple tools that enable them to crack nuts, fish for termites and ants, etc. Because tool use is not a genetic trait and variability in tool use between chimpanzee populations often is not due to environmental conditions, it can be considered as an example of cultural variation. Culture in chimpanzees provides us with interesting insights into understanding human cultural variation.
Gorillas live in social groups consisting typically of one adult male (referred to as ‘silverback’), adult females, and immature offspring. The average group size is 10 individuals, although groups of 20 or more may also occur. Gorilla groups are extremely cohesive, with all members spending all of their time in close spatial proximity to one another. As with chimpanzees, females disperse to neighboring groups upon reaching maturity, but males also typically emigrate. Females will transfer during interactions between social groups, which may involve high levels of competition between silverbacks. In contrast, males disperse to become solitary until they are able to attract females and form their own social group. Gorilla groups have home ranges that overlap with one another. Strong social relationships exist between the silverback and adult females in a group.
Gorillas and chimpanzees have a broad distribution across Africa. Gorillas are now classified as consisting of 2 species and 4 subspecies (types of gorillas that vary according to morphological, ecological, and genetic makeup) and there are three subspecies of chimpanzees. Relatively little research has been conducted to date on the Central African subspecies of chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes troglodytes) and gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla), compared to their better studied cousins of eastern Africa. However, over the past decades research on both chimpanzees and gorillas at several sites across Africa has revealed an extraordinary degree of diversity in their ecological, behavioral, and demographic patterns to the extent that it is clear that the results from one study site cannot be generalized to represent the biology of the each species as a whole. Therefore, it is important that we study both species under a wide range of ecological conditions for both research and conservation purposes.
Threats to the Apes
Both chimpanzees and gorillas are highly endangered despite their wide distribution across many African countries. There is a realistic possibility that they will go extinct in the coming decades based on estimates of how the populations have been experiencing dramatic declines in recent years. Gorillas and chimpanzees have an inherently slow rate of population growth. Because of the long period of immaturity (females don’t start producing offspring until approximately age 10 and 15 in gorillas and chimpanzees, respectively) and the long period between births (4 – 6 years), ape populations can only increase in size at a very slow rate and it can take decades for a population that has suffered severe casualties to return to its original size. The thought that our grandchildren may live in a world without any chimpanzees and gorillas in their natural environment is unpleasant, but it is a distinct possibility unless urgently needed conservation activities are implemented.
The major threats that chimpanzees and gorillas face are:
- Deforestation of their natural habitats.
- Poaching. Gorillas and chimpanzees are killed for bushmeat and to keep as pets. Logging roads make previously undisturbed areas accessible and enable fast transport of animals to major cities.
- Disease. As more apes live in close proximity to human populations, the risk of disease transmission from humans to apes increases. Ebola has caused a dramatic decline of ape populations in eastern Gabon and the Republic of Congo in recent years.
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