174 The problem of snares
traps, only to be killed by a sugar cane guard; for years we had been educating the
people of Nyakafunjo and other villages about the importance of chimpanzees and the
need to protect them; this man was new to the area, we were subsequently told. The New
Vision, Uganda’s daily paper, featured this killing and we hoped it would lead to a pro-
secution; at the time of writing this has not yet happened, although the two farmers on
whose field Jambo was killed were ordered not to cultivate sugar cane on these fields
and told that if they did so the sugar would not be bought by Kinyara Sugar Works; at
the time of writing this stipulation is being adhered to.
The subsequent investigation brought another matter to light. In 1999 Vernon, the
second ranking adult male and close ally of Duane, disappeared; he was last seen on
28 June of that year. It now transpires that a chimpanzee had been killed, also speared
by a guard, in that very same field in 1999 at the time of Vernon’s disappearance. The
matter had been reported to the village authorities and the guard disappeared, never to
be seen again. This time the same thing had happened again. That one sugar cane field
may thus have claimed the lives of two of the finest chimpanzees in the Sonso
community, though it was never proved that the earlier spearing was indeed of Vernon.
As related more fully in Chapter 12, the Kinyara Sugar Works senior management were
dismayed by these events and when Jambo was killed inaugurated a rule that no sugar
was henceforth to be planted within 50 m of the forest edge. The offending field
was harvested prematurely in the days following the spearing, the crop was cut and
cleared, and the stubble was sprayed to prevent regrowth. More details are given by
O’Hara (2003).
Fig. 9.5: Jambo — a fine Sonso male at the peak of his powers (photo: M. Emery Thompson).