Injuries 51our Sonso chimpanzees we do not know. As mentioned before, we operate a strict 7-m
rule (human visitors, staff and researchers must not approach closer than 7 m to any
chimpanzee) at Sonso. In 1991 Gladys Kalema visited our project and warned us of the
dangers we might one day face.^15 Recently much has been written about human trans-
mission of diseases to apes (see Wallis and Lee 1999; Woodford et al. 2002), especially
with regard to gorillas where the dangers arising from tourism are greatest. We have not
allowed tourists to visit our chimpanzees at Sonso and this has probably saved them
from a number of disease outbreaks, but we are not complacent because, however
careful we are, the forest is constantly being visited by local hunters setting snares and
others collecting firewood or forest products, and at any time a disease outbreak with the
possibility of large-scale mortality could happen.
Non-fatal epidemic
There has been one serious non-fatal epidemic during the period of our studies (i.e.
since 1990). This was a respiratory disease that gradually spread over the community.
We called in veterinary support and as a result a full report was written by Gladys
Kalema, Veterinary Officer to the Uganda Wildlife Authority, and Wayne Boardman,
Wildlife Veterinarian at the Uganda Wildlife Education Centre, Entebbe. We had
been very concerned the epidemic might pose a threat to the lives of our community
members; mercifully it did not. Their report is presented in Appendix D.
Other communities have been less fortunate. At Mahale where such respiratory
infections occur periodically and can spread widely in the community, they have caused,
directly or indirectly, many deaths. Nishida et al. (2003) report that over a 19-year
period of study, disease was the most common cause of death, accounting for 48% of all
deaths. From 1993 to 1994, 11 chimpanzees were suspected to have fallen victim to a
flu-like epidemic.
Injuries
A number of the Sonso chimpanzees have sustained non-snare-related injuries over the
course of our studies:
- A leg or foot injury to Tinka (TK), a low ranking, fairly old, adult male (Events Book
entry by Emma Stokes, observations by her, James Kakura and Zephyr Kiwede):
At 07.43 hrs on the morning of 22/10/97, TK was observed feeding on Broussonetialeaves, seated
in the lowermost fork of a tree. Whilst moving within the tree he was unable to move his left foot
voluntarily, and locomotion was enabled only by lifting the foot with the left hand and placing it in
front of the right foot. This made arboreal locomotion a very slow and unsteady process, and both(^15) It has since been recommended (Homsy 1999) that the minimum distance be increased to 7.5 m.