Fifty Years of Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Research Aids Tanzania

We happened to be in Tanzania during the fifty year anniversary of when Jane Goodall started her research at Gombe Stream, Tanzania. We were the guests of the Jane Goodall Institute while we were on vacation and the Dr. was very helpful in explaining the many research activities continuing in the study of chimpanzee. As visitors, we observed researchers monitoring the chimpanzees and followed families of chimpanzees through the forest watching them move, eat, and play.

About Gombe Stream and Gombe National Park

We stayed in the luxury tent camps offered at Gombe National Park which is reached by a boat ride across Lake Tanganyika. Gombe stream is one of the many streams that cascade down the edge of the rift valley in Gombe National Park. The areas where the chimpanzees live is only 36 sq. kilometers, very narrow and reaches to the shore of Tanganyika. The habitat in Gombe Stream National Park changes from wet savannah woodland, Guinean forest, and riverine forest in the valleys with Congo species and Mozambique species. Most of antelopes died out in Gombe National Park. In addition to the chimpanzees, Red Crowned Colubus monkey, Redtail Vervet and Blue Vervet monkey and a hybrid between the Vervet species along with baboons.

About Lake Tanganyika

Lake Tanganyika is one of the deepest lakes in the world and supports a fishing industry with 90 different species of fish. Lake Tanganyika is bordered by five countries, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, and Zambia. (Mozambique is the country to the south of Tanzania along the coast.) We swam in the lake but many of the locals do not because of the hippopotamus and crocodiles that inhabit the waters. Where we swam the drop off was quite steep and these animals rarely seen and the water was quite refreshing.

Jane Goodall's Discoveries about Chimpanzees and their Behavior
(From my notes on a lecture given by Dr. Anthony Collins of the Jane Goodall Institute)

Jane originally went to Gombe Stream to help explain why bones are found mainly in lake sediments, i.e. if there were some sort of behavior that led to the finds by anthropologist Leakey in his study of the evolution of early man. Her first discovery was that longhaired chimpanzees are scared of the beach and never go into the lake.

Jane's major discoveries include the fact that chimpanzees are tool users and tool makers and they eat meat i.e. the red-headed colubus is one of their favorite foods but mostly they eat plants. She learned the personalities of different individuals and how their behavior was similar inside families. With mothers, she learned that daughters tend to raise their babies the way they were taught. Jane described the struggle for dominance among males as well as their cooperation. For example, in fights, one will run away but eventually look for reassurance and reconciliation. For another example, males will search out males in other communities and beat them until dead. The chimpanzees behave in a fission-fusion social system i.e. some will join a community look for a mate, others will leave and join another community or will form a new community. The studies at Gombe Streams established the family trees of many of the current chimpanzees.

Jane Goodall's Book "In the Shadow of Man" tells of her early years at Gombe Stream including her mentorship by Louis Leakey who's son Richard E. Leakey wrote "People of the Lakes".

Current and Planned Research at Gombe National Park
(From my notes on a lecture given by Dr. Anthony Collins of the Jane Goodall Institute)

Currently sixteen researchers, many from villages around Gombe study plants and animals at Gombe Stream. Most know the name of plants and how to get around. Jamani Kukwani works as an administrator. Kristin Mosher takes many of the chimpanzee photos, see the chimpanzee research blog for some examples.

Research activities include video recording chimpanzees and the noninvasive collection of parasites, bacteria and viruses, hormone information along with DNA from stool samples. These studies are augmented with GIS data used to map the chimpanzee's range which can be quite extensive. Also monitored from the stool samples and post-mortem examinations are the chimpanzee diet and various diseases. The information is used to understand how the transmission of diseases occurs between species, examination of reproductive problems and of stress and the affect inbreeding has on a population.

One example is the identification that there's a family of viruses spread across monkeys and a crossover of two became SIV and eventually through eating chimp became HIV. It's now understood that these viruses are not artificial contamination but a virus alive for over 100 years that lives in chimps and became spread and can be quite changeable. They've followed up with studies on mothers with SIV finding that they give birth less often or may be sterile.

Future research studies will determine whether chimpanzees use medicinal plants, the effects of female competition and settlement, whether chimpanzees recognize paternal kinship, the affect of early experience on maternal behavior, individual and family differences, and transmission of cultural behavior between chimpanzee families.

Baboons have also been studied since 1967 in two groups and they know 270 baboons and their lineage.

Problem Identified by Chimpanzee Studies
(From my notes on a lecture given by Dr. Anthony Collins of the Jane Goodall Institute)

Chimpanzees are failing as a species. They only occur in Africa. The numbers of chimpanzees are down from two million to less than 200,000. At Gombe Stream there were five communities of chimpanzees in 1973, as of 2009 there are only three and two aren't doing well. Five hundred individuals are needed to conserve a population's genetic diversity, Gombe has only 106.

The primary causes of their loss are from being eaten, habitat disruption, and diseases-many obtained from humans such as coughs, colds, internal parasites and major diseases like pneumonia, scabies, and polio. Big population collapses occur when diseases hit.

Habitat losses around Gombe Stream National Park have occurred as humans moved in and chopped down forest with the result that outside emergency sources of food are lost. Because the National Park has protected it, the forest increased inside Gombe but outside much has been lost and the hillside in places eroded and the lands in dispute over ownership.

Impressions of the Jane Goodall Institute

We enjoyed our stay at Gombe Stream National Park and appreciated the guidance provided by her staff in addition to our Natural Wildlife Adventure's guides. The Jane Goodall Institute has expanded their research programs to help the chimpanzees survive by sponsoring conservation activity such as the TACARE project and by teaching children about conservation through the Roots and Shoots program. They also aid widow and children with schools. They show how science can make a difference in a country like Tanzania.

If you'd like to see more photographs, see Chasing Chimpanzees at Gombe National Park Tanzania