Co-ordinated hunting 77joined them. He immediately moved to the tree where the monkeys now were. When they saw
Duane they moved to another tree, so then Duane climbed down again, I imagine because he couldn’t
jump as fast as the monkeys did.
Now Duane did not climb the tree the monkeys had moved to but went back to the first tree. He
had sighted one monkey which had hidden in this tree. He immediately climbed up followed by
Vernon and Kikunku from different directions. When the monkey saw Duane it jumped towards
where the rest were, Duane almost got it but missed. This chase continued for about 15 min. but
always missing, so Duane decided to rest on the ground while looking up still, with the rest of the
males all looking up. As they rested the monkeys were moving fast in the treetops to escape. The
chimpanzees gave up and moved in another direction.This was a co-ordinated hunt, albeit a failure. So was the next one Zephyr saw, not
long afterwards, on 13 October 1996. Both hunts were led by Duane, both were directed
at black and white colobus monkeys, and in both cases the target was an adult. In the
first case 8 chimpanzee males were involved, in the second 7. Both failed. I remember
Zephyr telling me during my visit to Uganda in March 1997 that our chimpanzees were
not good hunters. I agreed. Comparing them with the chimpanzees of Gombe or Taï they
seemed to be pretty hopeless at it. But I was surprised they hunted at all, I had never
suspected it.
A successful co-ordinated hunt by the Sonso chimpanzees occurred on 2 March 2000.
This hunt was seen from start to finish, and the meat-eating at its finish was recorded on
video thanks to a visitor to camp, Sarah Marshall, a friend of our student Julie Munn.
Sarah was kind enough to send us a copy of the video tape so that any remaining doubts
that our Sonso chimpanzees ate meat (and there were many local people who doubted it,
though I was convinced by now) could see for themselves. (We later showed it to the
Nyabyeya village community and they were very surprised.) On this occasion not one
but two colobus monkeys were caught, killed and eaten.
At 9.28 a.m. Joseph Karamaji, Julie Munn, Sarah Marshall and Miriam Schiller were following a
group of around 10 chimpanzees. At 9.34 they found Tinka sitting on the trail screaming, other
chimpanzees were around in the understorey, and a group of 3 black and white colobus monkeys
(an adult, a juvenile and an infant) were in a tree close by. Janie and Black climbed into the tree,
and Black chased the infant. The adult colobus threatened Black who retreated and tried another
route. At 9.35 the adult ran away and at the same time Duane climbed into the tree and caught the
infant. At 9.39 Duane came half way down the tree and sat with Black and Janie, half hidden by
leaves. The cracking of bone was heard as the colobus was eaten.
At 9.40 Duane and Maani climbed, using different routes, and chased the juvenile colobus. After
2 min it fell to the ground, Duane and Maani came down, and it was caught by Bwoya on the
ground, he held it down on the ground with a sapling. The observers were unable to determine how
it was killed.
At 9.45 Sarah Marshall began video recording and the following is an account of what takes
place on the video she made. The chimpanzees had formed into two parties, only one of which
could be seen clearly and filmed owing to the extent of ground cover. In this subgroup Duane had
a piece of meat and he took a leaf to eat with it. Next, Bwoya entered the group at which Duane got