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

Death of a young adult male 45

community and 39 members of the Ngogo community had been studied; none was found
to be positive. At Gombe National Park, 15 members of the Mitumba community,
51 members of the Kasakela community and 10 members of the Kalende community
were studied; 7 individuals were found to be positive.
At Sonso all 40 non-infant members of the community were studied from urine
samples and all were found to be negative. Our chimpanzees have a clean bill of health
as far as SIVcpz is concerned.

Death rate

Nishidaet al. (1990: 86) list a number of causes of mortality: senility, death of the mother,
aggression and disease. Losses of Sonso individuals to date have been as shown in
Table 3.4. At the time of writing this covers a period of 10 years (1993–2003) so this
community has lost an average of 3.5 animals a year.

Death of a young adult male

In many cases we do not know the cause of death for sure, though there are indications.
Such is the case of the young adult male Andy (AY) (see Fig. 3.5). Andy was a well
integrated male in the community and was popular with researchers as he sometimes
made day nests in front of our camp, putting his head up every now and then to see
what we were doing. Because he spent much time near houses close to our camp site, he
may have died as a result of catching a respiratory disease from a local resident living
near our camp. The discovery of his cadaver was written up by three students then at
Sonso: Melissa Emery Thompson, Lori Oliver and Kim Duffy. I copy it with minor
changes here.

Background

On Tuesday 18 July 2000, Andy had been observed by L. Oliver to be coughing. Other individuals,

including Janie and Maani, were observed with a similar sustained cough, which the student

researchers found abnormal and worrisome. One of these chimpanzees, Maani, was also exhibiting

diarrhoea on this date.

Table 3.4: Deaths and disappearances.

Age-sex group Number

Adult/old males 10

Adult/old females 6

Subadult males 0

Subadult females 2

Juvenile males 5

Juvenile females 3

Infants 9

Total 35