Workshop in March 2001 when we held a one-day course on bee-keeping and distributed
hives to 18 local farmers.
In general, despite some indifference, the attitudes towards conservation encountered
by Muhumuza were ‘highly positive’. The main constraints given for lack of progress
were lack of resources, poor communication and transport facilities, and lack of funding
for projects. Among the recommendations for wildlife conservation suggested by
Muhumuza were that farmers should not be allowed to buy or use land around the edges
of Budongo Forest or if they did, they should grow unpalatable (to wildlife) crops such
as millet or sorghum. His study was conducted in the villages but he also stressed the
need to continue the work BFP is doing in schools so the idea of conservation is present
in the minds of the next generation.
Census of chimpanzees in Uganda
Arising from the PHVA, a nationwide survey was made of the chimpanzees of Uganda
(Plumptreet al. 2003). The great advantage of this survey is that it was done using one
set of methods, by one set of people, with the same set of concepts about extrapolating
from transect-based counts to overall calculations of population size. This is better
than trying to get an idea of the population size of chimpanzees in various forests in
Uganda from a number of independent surveys using different methods and of varying
reliability.
As with earlier censuses of chimpanzees, the basis of the national census was nest
counts. The method used was the one pioneered by Plumptre in his work in Budongo
Forest (Plumptre and Reynolds 1996, 1997), namely the ‘Marked Nest Count’ method.
Walks were made along a series of five 4-km carefully sited transects at 2-weekly
intervals over a total of 3–4 months, marking each chimpanzee nest seen using a ribbon
and a stake beneath the nest. The results were ratcheted up to the forest as a whole using
the computer package DISTANCE which can calculate density using perpendicular
distance data, and correcting for two factors:
- that infants up to 4 years of age do not make nests;
- that a certain percentage of nests are day-beds and these must be discounted.
A figure of 1.1 nests per day per nest-building chimpanzee was derived from a study
based on dawn-to-dusk follows of individual Sonso chimpanzees (Plumptre and
Reynolds 1997).
The corrected results of this national survey are shown in Table 12.5. In this table, all
the major forests are included, as well as all the intervening areas where chimpanzees
are known to occur. The result: Kibale Forest (a National Park) has the highest popula-
tion of any forest in Uganda with 1430 chimpanzees, compared with 639 for Budongo
Forest Reserve. Uganda as a whole has 4962 chimpanzees, or, with 95% confidence
limits applied to the distribution, between 4000 and 5700 chimpanzees. This is a higher
estimate than the 3300 total estimated at the PHVA in 1997.
Census of chimpanzees in Uganda 233