172 The problem of snares
removed by the hunter. This unfortunate individual, whom we were not able to identify,
had been unable to free itself from the snare and had died at the site of the snare, either
from septicaemia or starvation or predation.
The second case was similar. On 11 March 2002 Ofen and Dominic, our two snare
removers, returned from the forest with the remains of a chimpanzee who had died, in
their opinion as a result of being caught in a snare. The remains were washed and they
are shown in Fig. 9.4. The pelvis and lower skeleton were missing, presumed eaten by
predators. The men had been unable to find the snare itself but were convinced that this
had been the cause of death because the area where the cadaver was found was very
much trampled down, and was around a sapling which showed, from the abrasions on
the bark, that a snare had been attached to it. Probably a hunter had returned to the site
after the chimpanzee had died and retrieved his snare so he could use it again, and also
to avoid any danger that he would be identified by it, for by now we were heavily
engaged in anti-snare patrols and educating the villagers against putting snares in places
where chimpanzees might be caught. We had told them that if a chimpanzee were to be
caught in a snare, they must come to the Project immediately and report the fact, and we
would then investigate all methods of releasing it, and would not take action against
the person responsible. But no hunter has, to date, ever come forward to us to admit he
has caught a chimpanzee in a snare, partly because all hunting is forbidden by law, and
partly because they do not believe we would not take action against them.
Examination of the skull, dentition and skeletal remains, together with consultation
with others,^67 led us to conclude that this individual was probably Willis, son of Wilma.
He was a late stage juvenile aged around 8–9 years who went missing at this time.
Deaths from traps
Besides these snare deaths, there have been two cases of deaths from leg-hold traps,
both in cultivated areas to the south of the main block of the Budongo Forest, one in
Kasokwa Forest and one nearby in Kasongoire Forest. We do not have many details about
the Kasongoire case, but we have details about the Kasokwa case because as an offshoot
from the BFP we have been studying the small Kasokwa community (12 members) of
chimpanzees since September 1999, employing a field assistant to make daily observa-
tions of them (see Chapter 11). The incident at Kasokwa was written up by Julie Munn
and Gladys Kalema (Munn and Kalema 2000). A map of Kasokwa Forest is shown in
Fig. 11.1. Kasongoire Forest is some kilometres to the southwest of Kasokwa.
The Kasokwa chimpanzees live in a riverine forest strip which, although enjoying
protected status, has been heavily encroached by the surrounding population. The popu-
lation increase is due to the attractiveness to people of the Kinyara Sugar Works, which
is contiguous with the Kasokwa Forest. Immigrants mainly from the north of Uganda
have been settling here for some years, putting up houses and cultivating land that was
(^67) David Pilbeam directed us to new work by Zihlmann et al. (2004) on age determination of wild
chimpanzee from dentition, and I am grateful to all concerned for the help this provided.