Mahale
Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania, October 2021
“Just look in their eyes and say it's not true, look in their eyes, they're checking out you”
Animal Nation (Peter Gabriel)
When I was a kid I watched Lancelot Link, the live action Saturday morning television show featuring dressed-up chimpanzees “speaking” in funny accents. Daktari, starring the lovable chimp, Judy, was another childhood favorite. And, of course, there was Cheeta, Tarzan’s adorable and mischievous chimpanzee.
Those portrayals had nothing to do with reality, of course. In fact, subjecting intelligent animals whose genetic make-up is nearly identical to humans to funny hats and ridiculous costumes is an affront to these fascinating, gifted, and complex primates. When my wife, Joscelyn, and I visited Tanzania’s Mahale Mountains National Park in October 2021, I was reminded of those TV shows and their insulting portrayal of those fascinating creatures. Mocking the natural world, though perhaps not intentionally, embarrasses and degrades us all.
Pan troglodytes
Reaching Mahale involved a 3-hour flight from Lake Manze in Nyerere National Park near Tanzania’s eastern coast to the country’s western border on Lake Tanganyika (the world’s longest and second deepest freshwater lake) followed by a short boat ride south to Greystoke Mahale Camp. Nestled at the foot of the majestic Mahale Mountains, Greystoke is pure luxury, a paradise with gorgeous views all around, a friendly, attentive staff, and the perfect place to relax after trekking into the steamy rainforest to observe the chimpanzees.
Mahale’s eastern chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) population varies between 800-900, though only one group of about 60 individuals has been habituated to human visitors. ‘M’ group, designated by Japanese researchers from Kyoto University working in the park since the early 1960s set up feeding stations thus allowing the chimps to be habituated to humans. Additionally, specific researchers spent as much time among the chimpanzees as possible and singled out individual chimps, naming each one. The feeding stations have long since disappeared, but the Japanese researchers have continued giving names to the chimps, a practice that encourages guides, trackers, and guests to form personal connections with them.
To reach “M” group, one must usually trek deep into the rain forest of the Mahale Mountains-a relatively straightforward endeavor, one might think. But interacting with these creatures is a complicated and demanding process, and one that began hundreds of years ago. The Mahale Mountains are the ancestral lands of the Batongwe and Holoholo peoples, who settled in western Tanzania after migrating from the Congo centuries ago. From the outset, both indigenous groups coexisted peacefully with the chimps, never hunting them believing that their ancestors lived on in the chimps. When the Japanese research team arrived in 1962, the scientists wisely sought out Batongwe assistance and counsel, a collaborative effort that resulted in the habituation of “M” group. Although the Batongwe and Holoholo practiced a form of sustainable swidden agriculture that conserved forest habitat, all humans living within the protected area were forcefully evicted in 1979 to make way for the park (which opened in 1985), despite the fact that (as has been repeatedly demonstrated), native peoples’ cultural practices promote biological diversity.
Greystoke
Bearing all this history in mind, Joscelyn and I had high expectations for this leg of our Africa adventure. Upon arrival at Greystoke, we received an orientation on interacting with chimpanzees. The rules are extensive and designed to provide maximum protection for the chimps: a limit of 6 visitors in a group and 1 hour per day in the chimps’ presence; masks must be worn; maintain a distance of 10 meters; no smoking or eating; minimum age of 12; no flash photography. Other recommendations included bringing plenty of water, dressing lightly and protectively (long trousers, sleeves, and a hat), wearing sturdy hiking shoes.
Normally, trackers will head into the mountains in the early morning to locate the chimps and follow them as they move through the forest. Our first morning, the trackers found the chimps relatively quickly, radioed our guide, Matius, and off we (Joscelyn and I, two other visitors, and a Mahale Park ranger) went. The Mahale rainforest is a wonder of biodiversity: huge, old growth trees tower above; countless insects buzz about; ants scramble through underbrush, fruits, flowers, and bushes explode with color; monkeys (colobus and vervet) chatter overhead; bush pigs grunt somewhere off the trail. And then, after an hour of walking, there they are, lazing or scrambling around in the low branches, going about their day unconcerned with the humans gawking wide-eyed and whispering in hushed tones.
All the anticipation, orientations, and research cannot prepare you for that first face-to-face moment, though. It’s one thing to see a chimpanzee on the screen, or in a zoo, but to encounter a group in their forest, in their world, is an incomparable and humbling privilege. Our small group of humans gathered in awe as a half dozen chimpanzees watched us from the limbs above, calmly snacking on fruit and leaves. For a short time, we were within the ten-meter limit, the cramped forest opening prevented us from moving further away but the chimps eventually wandered off on their own seeking more food and, if I were to anthropomorphize, some privacy.
The moment you meet an animal in its own environment, on its turf, whether it’s a lion, elephant, or chimpanzee is a reminder of just how small and weak are we humans. Simultaneously, those moments also call out for celebration and awe-that there are creatures on this planet that can still inspire awe and joy, simply because they exist. The first chimpanzee Joscelyn and I saw, Nkombo, looked into our eyes and it was all we could do to not break down weeping on the spot. As we later learned, her story is compelling, fascinating, and heartbreaking. At 51 (in 2021), Nkombo was one of M group’s oldest females and dominant matriarchs. However, she’d never had offspring of her own, her pregnancies all ending in miscarriages, or stillborn babies.
Murder in Mahale
Jane Goodall, one of the first, and certainly the most well-known, primatologists to study chimpanzee social and family life, began observing the Kasakela chimpanzee community in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania, in 1960. Finding that “it isn't only human beings who have personality, who are capable of rational thought [and] emotions like joy and sorrow” and insisted that behavior is evidence those “close, supportive, affectionate bonds” help maintain social order and stability.
Goodall's field research disputed the two long held notions about chimpanzee behavior: only humans could construct and use tools, and that chimpanzees were vegetarians. She observed them stripping leaves from twigs to dip into termite nests to feed on the insects. Additionally, in contrast to the affectionate behaviors she’d seen, Goodall found that chimpanzees target, kill, and eat smaller primates, witnessing a hunting group trap a colobus monkey high in a tree and block all its escape routes until one of the hunters captured and killed the colobus.
But perhaps most astonishingly, Goodall saw and documented aggression and violence within chimpanzee troops, witnessing dominant females, in an effort to maintain their social standing, kill the offspring of younger females. She said, “During the first ten years of the study I had believed…that the Gombe chimpanzees were, for the most part, rather nicer than human beings. Then suddenly we found that chimpanzees could be brutal—that they, like us, had a darker side to their nature.” Her 1990 memoir, “Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe” describes in startling detail the 1974–1978 Gombe Chimpanzee War; an account of the splintering and subsequent brutality of two competing chimpanzee groups.
That duality Goodall described was a surprise and revelation to us as the reality of chimpanzee life became more evident. Our initial wonder at being in the presence of these magnificent creatures only grew as we were fortunate to experience Mahale’s chimpanzees on two separate forest treks. But, as I've written elsewhere, the reality of the natural world is less than rosy, and certainly not the paradise it may seem.
In 2011, several camp guides witnessed and documented the torture and murder of an alpha male, Pimu, a brutal and arguably mentally unstable chimp, whose own antisocial behavior may have finally prompted the outrage of his lieutenants. This alarming episode was documented in a graphic report from the University of Kent and Japan’s Great Ape Research Institute. Perhaps the most frightening aspect of this behavior, though, is the report’s chilling conclusion: “[this is] the first observed case of use of objects (a stone and a branch) by chimpanzees as weapons to maim and kill a conspecific, which potentially increases our understanding of the origins of weapon-use in humans.”
Genetics notwithstanding (and although the report notes that such actions among chimps are rare), aggressive and lethal behavior is apparently another trait shared with humans. Nobody comes away from Mahale thinking chimps should be riding bicycles dressed in cowboy outfits.
Observing chimpanzees requires the experience, knowledge, and service of an expert guide. Our group was fortunate to work with Matius, whose empathy and familiarity with M group made trekking with him a deeper and richer experience. He described the chimps’ life, society, and politics with such clarity and understanding he imbues them with a sort of humanity that I was not expecting to find.
Matius’s journey has not been idyllic, though. He witnessed human atrocities in the Congo (DRC) when working the trading routes on Lake Tanganyika and in 2011, he was present at Pimu's murder. Despite the disturbing events he’s witnessed, Matius, along with all the guides we met in Tanzania, was one of the most gentle, engaging, and serene men I’ve ever met, and we were fortunate to experience the passion and love he brings to his work, Mahale’s guests, and the chimpanzees.
Our visit to Mahale, indeed during our entire time in Tanzania, illustrated how beauty and brutality coexist, their inseparability, and how they are two sides of the same coin. Chimpanzees, beautiful, fascinating, and complex beings that they are, nonetheless have the capacity to maim and kill. According to our guides, Pimu ruled through force and brutality, raping several females over the years that he was the alpha. Is it any surprise that M group finally turned on him?
We may never fully understand chimp behavior, but we do know that we humans can choose between the two extremes: to honor our role as a part of nature, understanding that social stability and progress is achieved through honest cooperation and compromise, or persist in ignoring the warning signs and continue down a path of lies, division, and cruelty.
(All photographs @ Mark Caicedo/PuraVida Photography)
