Injuries 53- A wound to Duane (DN), the alpha male. (Events Book entry by Zephyr Kiwede,
observations by him, Juliet Craig, James Kakura and Raymond Ogen):
15/2/02 DN had the intention of copulating with Zimba (ZM) who was in full oestrus. DN started
chasing ZM, ZM was screaming a lot, DN ended up not succeeding in the attempt. He waited for
another opportunity. The chimpanzees moved to another tree where DN tried again, chasing ZM,
this turned into real fighting. Immediately Maani (MA, a senior male) joined the fight in favour of
ZM. DN was chased by MA and ZM up in the tree. After this fight we saw DN limping and blood
oozing from his right foot. He had sustained a big cut between his first and second toes. Jambo
(JM, a senior male) groomed DN very much after this incident, then JM stopped grooming DN and
moved to MA and they both groomed each other. After a while DN wanted to join them but as DN
approached, MA walked off.- A wound to Maani (MA) a senior male (Events Book entry by Zephyr Kiwede,
observations by him, Joseph Karamaji, Raymond Ogen and James Kakura):
22/2/02 MA was seen with an open wound which looked like a bite, he was limping and not using
his left hand, he was hanging it down and looked to be in great pain because he was restless when
seen. He lay on the ground and raised his leg up, and then the hand, we suspected that it could have
been revenge from DN following the events (above) with ZM. It may be that JM had become over-
friendly with DN and angered DN by siding with ZM against DN on 15/2/02.
27/2/02 MA was feeding in a Ficus barteritree, he climbed down. On reaching the ground he
started licking his wound and eventually picked some leaves of Acalypha, chewed them a bit, and
started using them to clean his wound. He passed the leaves across the wound three times then
dropped them and moved away.- Finally, while this book was being written, the alpha male Duane (DN) was injured as
a result of a fall. This was observed by Nick Newton-Fisher and Geresomu Muhumuza
who reported as follows:
18/2/04 DN and ZF, in the middle of some unseen altercation, fell approx. 60 feet from a branch
and thudded on to the ground. There was nothing to break their fall. ZF appears uninjured — he
may have landed on DN — while our alpha male has injured his left leg. Geresomu and I stayed with
DN for a while afterwards; putting any weight on his leg appeared to cause a lot of pain, but he did
eventually manage to hobble away, with several rests. He also has a laceration to the knuckle of
his third finger, left hand, which predated the fall.As it turned out, DN’s injuries were minor and within a week he was fully recovered; ZF
was unhurt.