colobus in hot pursuit. This led to the other three chimpanzees leaving also, in as dignified way as
they could. It was undoubtedly a triumph for these two brave colobus males over four much larger, but
cowardly chimpanzees. Possibly the colobus males were enraged by the loss of one of their young
and were protecting the rest of their group which was nearby. In any case, it seems that the Sonso
chimpanzees do not attack colobus unless they are sure of an easy kill, when a young one is on its own
and offers little resistance.
Non-primate species
It is not possible in this book to discuss the studies made by the BFP on non-primate species. The
majority of these have been summarized very succinctly by Zoe Wales in BFP Report No. 81, titled
What We Know About Budongo Forest. In this excellent set of summaries are to be found details of
BFP studies of invertebrates, amphibians, birds and small mammals up to 1990. Studies of non-primate
species under BFP are listed on the BFP’s website, http://www.budongo.org, which includes reports,
publications, dissertations and theses.
Let us end this Appendix with a eucnemid beetle. In 1995 Thomas Wagner identified a new genus of
the subfamily Melasinae which he recovered from the crown of a tree not far from our camp at Sonso.
This species is defined by three cornered hypomera and partly uncovered metepimera. The specimen,
a male, was described by Lucht (1998) and given the name Nebulatorpidus wagneri.
F The Budongo Forest Project
History of BFP
In 1998 Shirley McGreal of IPPL sent me a cutting from the New Vision, the Ugandan newspaper, about
two infant chimpanzees that had been smuggled from Uganda to Dubai en routeto a dealer; the whistle
had been blown and they had been returned to Uganda where they were being cared for by a young
couple in Entebbe. The article stated that the source of the chimpanzees was thought to be the Budongo
Forest.
In 1999 I had a sabbatical term and spent much time writing to all the big wildlife agencies suggesting
a research project to conserve the chimpanzees of Budongo. No luck: they had other priorities. A few
organizations helped, however, and so, with many setbacks, we slowly got off the ground. The Boise
Fund paid for my first return visit to Budongo in 1990, we got a grant from the Jane Goodall Institute
which enabled Chris Bakuneeta to join the project, we obtained much needed support from the National
Geographic Society’s Committee for Research and Exploration for our chimpanzee studies, and a grant
from the Rainforest Action Fund, a small organization that gave us some support for our first members
of staff at the outset. In 1991 the Project’s forestry research received a grant from the British
Government’s Overseas Development Agency under their Forestry Research Programme which enabled
us to begin a study of how past logging of Budongo Forest had affected wildlife, including endangered
species such as chimpanzees, and to what extent the wildlife in turn were essential dispersers of the seeds
of forest trees. Andy Plumptre joined the project (BFP) as research director in 1991 and set up a number
of long-term studies, some of which are still running today. It was at that time that the name Budongo
Forest Project (BFP) was coined; and it was then that the project’s logo (shown above) was designed.
We have been able to attract many excellent students from Uganda and from overseas (see Table F.1).
In 1997 BFP made a link with the Faculty of Forestry and Nature Conservation at Makerere University
The Budongo Forest Project 263