Chimpanzees of the Budongo Forest : Ecology, Behaviour, and Conservation

The killing of Zesta 157

(see Table 8.1). The data in Table 8.1 tell us the following about Zesta in the month
before he was attacked:

1. He was sociable.


2. He both groomed and was groomed by several adult males.


3. These did not include the three top ranking males, DN, VN and BK.


4. His favourite copulation partner was JN.


5. His favourite grooming partner was BB, a juvenile male.

We can thus see a not unusual picture for a young adult male, whose social inter-
actions were with both some of the lower and higher status adult males in the community
and also with youngsters. What is perhaps most obvious from this one month is that he
was sexually interested in JN, who was at that time still considered a subadult female
because although she was sexually active, she was nulliparous (her first infant was not
born until a year later, in October 1998).

The killing of Zesta

Here are relevant facts from Fawcett and Muhumuza (2000):

At 0640 hr on 4 November 1998, ‘wraa’ calls (fear: Goodall 1986) were heard southeast of camp.

At 0720 in the core area of the Sonso range, the chimpanzees were located. Wraa calls were still

being emitted. Visibility was poor owing to low lighting conditions and dense undergrowth. There

was a flattened area of vegetation approximately 5–7 m^2 and an adult male chimpanzee, lying in a

prone position, tentatively identified as Zesta. At approximately 0730 Magosi, an old adult male

(ex-alpha) charged at and then circled Zesta. He was followed shortly afterwards by Black, another

Table 8.1: Grooming and copulation partners of Zesta, 1 October–4 November 1998.

Activity Partners involved No. of times Mutual No. of times
(age–sex group) groomed by grooming grooming
ZT ZT

Grooming MG (AM) 1 1 0
BB (JM) 7 2 7
BY (AM) 2 2 0
JN (SAF) 5 2 2
MA (AM) 5 1 5
NJ (AM) 1 0 0
MK (SAF) 1 0 0
SR (SAF) 0 0 1
BO (JM) 0 0 1
TK (AM) 1 1 2
AY (SAM) 0 0 1
Copulation JN (SAF) 7 — —