hitherto empty. A survey of Kasokwa Forest Reserve by Lloyd and Mugume (2000)
found that encroachers were cutting trees on a daily basis. Half of the chimpanzees in
this forest had limb injuries, a shocking proportion.
On 6 June 2000 locals first observed Kigere, the alpha male of the Kasokwa
community, dragging a large steel leg-hold trap which had closed over the fingers of his
right hand. This unfortunate individual had been caught once before in a leg-hold trap
and had lost his entire lower right leg below the knee. On 17 June 2000, Richard
Kyamanywa found Kigere lying dead in thick bushes just outside Kasokwa Forest.
He still had the trap on his fingers. A postmortem examination was carried out on
18 June 2000 by wildlife veterinarian Gladys Kalema. The trap (40 cm in length and
weighing 10 kg) was attached across the distal metacarpals of the right hand. Based on
the observations of local villagers it seems that the trap was attached for 10 days. As a
result, the right arm had developed extensive gangrene which had led to overwhelming
septicaemia and toxaemia. This was the worst case of chimpanzee suffering we at BFP
had ever come across. Death was a welcome release for Kigere.
Another such case was reported in June 2000 near Nyakafunjo. A chimpanzee
(probably not one of the Sonso community) was seen in a man-trap and this was report-
ed to BFP. The director of BFP, Fred Babweteera, called the JGI at Entebbe and they
dispatched a team of two veterinarians the same day. Although the chimpanzee could
not be found, it was concluded that it was caught in a man-trap because it left behind
a noticeable trail (indicating dragging of a heavy object) with some blood. It seems likely
that this chimpanzee died a few days later. One local farmer confessed to having owned
a man-trap in this area but said that he couldn’t remember the exact site where he set this
trap. It seems likely that this ‘forgotten’ trap killed the chimpanzee.
Deaths from spearing
Most injuries and deaths of chimpanzees caused by humans arise from snaring and
trapping, but spearing happens too. We cannot tell how many deaths or injuries this has
caused but we have one tragic example from Sonso and a second example from
Kasokwa (see Chapter 11).
On 6 May 2003 I received an email from our Assistant Director, Sean O’Hara, with
some exceedingly bad news: Jambo, our fine adult male, had been speared (Fig. 9.5).
Jambo had been raiding a sugar cane field belonging to a man living in Nyakafunjo, who
had planted cane right up to the forest edge, a real temptation to wildlife. The owner of
the cane had employed a guard who had fatally speared Jambo. His cadaver was found
two days after his death, in elephant grass at the forest edge to which he had run in his
final moments. He had been speared from close quarters, the spear had penetrated his
neck and gone down into his chest, probably reaching his heart as he died very quickly.
Our staff collected his cadaver and buried him in the Broussonetiasat camp. It was, for
all, a very sad occasion; Jambo was a fine, uninjured, prime male, not power hungry but
a very solid member of the community which was now weakened by his death. He had
been born around 1975 and was thus 28 years old. For so long he had avoided snares and
Death from spearing 173