3. Morbidity and mortality
KigereKadogonew dead baby — miscarriage — c. 4 months? — hands and feet not
fully formed — she draped it over the crook of a branch y’day evg & it’s still there this morning,
with flies buzzing around it. Some hair on head & arms but legs are white skin & bare of hair.
Kigere feeding nearby. Ruda also here with her new baby Rachel,Bob. F. sur (11 Sept 1997,
7.58 a.m.).Intestinal parasites
Kalema (1992, 1997) undertook the first, pioneering field study of the intestinal para-
sites of the Sonso chimpanzees (see Fig. 3.1), over a two-week period in September
- Kalema, using the McMaster method to count eggs and a light microscope to
identify them at the Sonso field site, identified two types of helminth in 28 chimpanzee
faecal samples from an area of forest within the range of the Sonso population:
Oesophagostomum stephanostomumandStrongyloides fulleborni. Five samples from
another, recently logged area contained no evidence of helminths. Eggs and larvae of
these helminth species occur on the ground in the forest and are ingested incidentally by
chimpanzees, whereupon they develop into larvae in the large and small intestine, some of
which are subsequently excreted and can be found in faeces. An unidentified trematode,
possiblyDicrocoelium dendriticum, was also found in one sample. Rates of infection are
shown in Table 3.1. Heavy infections with Oesophagostomumsp. can cause severe diar-
rhoea. One of the samples had 230 Oesophagostomumeggs per gram faeces; this was the
most heavily infested sample. However, the consistency of the faeces was firm.
A six-week field study was conducted by Barrows (1996). She sampled all five diurnal
primate species living at Budongo, with a focus on chimpanzees. The five primate
species studied were: chimpanzees, baboons, black and white colobus monkeys, blue
monkeys and redtail monkeys. In addition samples were studied from employees of
the BFP who entered the forest as part of their work. Samples were collected immedi-
ately after defaecation, from identified individuals, and initially examined at camp using
a variety of methods to detect a wide range of endoparasites. They were subsequently
analysed in detail in the UK.
The results of this study are shown in Tables 3.2 and 3.3. Table 3.3 shows the preva-
lence of infection for the chimpanzee population. The results were analysed with respect