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[Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>]

'Drunk and Disorderly' Chimps
Attacking Ugandan Children
By WAIRAGALA WAKABI
Monday, February 9, 2004 
http://www.nationaudio.com/News/EastAfrican/current/Features/Magazine0902200411.html

Chimpanzees in western Uganda are increasingly raiding illegal 
brewing operations in forested river valleys and getting drunk on the 
country beer. Once intoxicated, they become hostile and attack and at 
times kill human children, parks officials say.

The officials, however, insist that even a drunk chimp cannot take on 
a grown man. All the babies they have attacked have been either 
unaccompanied, or are in in the company of other children.

One notorious chimp nicknamed Saddam is blamed for killing at least 
three babies and maiming several others in Ruteete sub-county which 
borders the Kibale National Park. 

Early this year, officials of the Jane Goodall Institute in Uganda 
were quoted in BBC's Wildlife Magazine as saying that chimpanzees had 
killed eight children and injured many others in Ugandan national 
parks. Debby Cox, the director of the institute, suggested that the 
aggressive behaviour of the chimps was caused by increased proximity 
between the animals and humans.

Dr Michael Gavin, who carried out the study, was reported by the 
magazine as saying that the technique used by the chimps to kill or 
maim the children mirrored the way they tear apart other prey, 
suggesting that they snatched the children to eat them. "In most 
cases they bite off the limbs first before disembowelling them, just 
as they would the red colombus monkey, which is among their favourite 
prey," he said.

A January 14 report on the chimp attacks, prepared by the Uganda 
Wildlife Authority (UWA), says that local beer is usually brewed 
illegally along river valleys, which are also the habitat of chimps. 
"When chimps come across the local brew, they drink it, become drunk 
and in that state any encounter with people means an attack," says 
the report, compiled for the UWA executive director, a copy of which 
was obtained by The EastAfrican.

In the Kibale Park, situated in an area known for brewing banana 
beer, authorities say there have been 12 chimp attacks since 1996, 
and three of the victims died. The park recorded at least six other 
attacks between 1992 and 1995. 

The attacks are normally experienced in areas neighbouring the park 
and normally occur between October and December. This is probably due 
to food scarcity prevailing in the main chimp habitat during this 
period, which forces them to move beyond the park boundary in search 
of food.

"Crops such as sugarcane and bananas, which are grown near the parks, 
are preferred by chimps. Once the chimps come across a sugarcane 
plantation, for example, they tend to abandon the park and, as a 
result, come into conflict with the local communities," says the 
report.

And when crop-raiding chimps are chased, they get frightened and 
charge back - especially if they have imbibed some brew.

Barbara Musoke, spokesperson of the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), 
said that the killings had taken place over a period of 10 years. "We 
have reduced wildlife and human conflicts. The cases reported are 
cumulative, they happened over a period of time," she said, adding 
that the incidence of attacks had dropped. 

Ms Musoke also said that, in the past one year, there had been no 
chimp attacks at all. Most of the attacks reportedly took place on 
the outskirts of the game parks and others in parts of the parks 
where people cultivate and sometimes settle illegally. Local 
villagers also go into the parks in search of fuelwood, fruit and 
poles for building houses.

"We educate the public on wildlife and its behaviour and we have 
buffer zones between human settlements and the parks. In areas 
frequented by elephants and buffalo, we have built trenches to stop 
these animals from crossing the boundaries," Ms Musoke said. The 
authority also has wildlife reserve management committees where local 
communities are represented, making it easier to educate the public 
on living harmoniously with the wildlife.

The most recent chimp attacks resulted in the death of a 
three-month-old child while two others were maimed. The dead child, 
was snatched by a chimp from under a tree in a vegetable garden where 
his mother and grandmother were digging. The child was rescued by 
people in the neighbourhood, but the chimp had torn off his face and 
he died in hospital.

UWA says that all the attacks involved children under five years old 
and took place when no men were around. In some cases, children left 
unguarded cried, attracting the attention of chimpanzees. The victims 
were usually carried between 13 and 240 metres from the scene of the 
attack. 

"The attacks were predatory in nature," said a UWA official, "because 
the chimpanzees attempted to carry the child away and eat it."

Following the recent attacks, local people have reportedly become 
increasingly vigilant, abandoning remote fields near forest patches 
and never leaving young children unattended. UWA has also dug moats 
around parks and other protected areas, and widened the buffer zones 
between humans and wildlife.

The UWA report says that, prior to the events in Kibale, there had 
been only one published account of a chimpanzee attacking and killing 
a human child. The incident occurred in Tanzania when a group of 
women gathering firewood met an adult male chimpanzee. It seized a 
baby from its mother's back and partially ate it. The earliest cases 
in Uganda were reported in 1992, when two children were killed in 
Kibale.

Conservationists say that because reports of chimp attacks are rare, 
they are difficult to interpret. "The behaviour of a normal 
chimpanzee is well known. Ordinarily, chimpanzees live as a large 
social community (20-120 individuals), travel over a wide area, are 
afraid of people and tend to make predatory attacks - at least on 
monkeys - when in a large group. By contrast, the attacks documented 
in Uganda were by solitary chimpanzees, except for one incident in 
which two chimps were involved." 

Ugandan wildlife officials say cases of chimpanzee attacks on humans, 
particularly children, have been minimised in recent years after 
extensive buffer zones were created between wildlife reserves and 
human settlements. Increased human encroachment on game sanctuaries, 
usually accompanied by large-scale deforestation, had seen a rise in 
chimpanzee attacks on humans, resulting in some deaths.

UWA officials say the research was carried out in good faith and will 
give "a better sense of direction on how to handle conflicts between 
wildlife and humans." They did not expect locals to hunt down the 
chimps because "they are aware of the importance of chimps and those 
attacks are just isolated incidents," said Ms Musoke.

Ignatius Nyakisero, marketing manager of the Uganda Tourist Board, 
said a team would be sent to the game reserves to establish whether 
there were still cases of chimps attacking humans. There were fears 
that the tourism industry would suffer unless the government 
clarified that the attacks had abated and the reported deaths took 
place over a period of 10 years.

Uganda is heavily reliant on the tourism industry, which is the 
leading foreign exchange earner. In 2002, the country attracted 
254,000 tourists and this figure is expected to have risen by about 
15 per cent in 2003. The country seeks to attract 500,000 tourists 
annually by 2014.

Researchers from the Goodall Institute earlier this year found that 
Uganda has 4,950 chimpanzees. This figure was earlier estimated at 
3,000-4,000. 

In Uganda, out of the 20 forests surveyed, only four were found to 
have chimp populations that were large enough to remain viable in the 
long run. The researchers also reported that over 25 per cent of 
chimpanzees in tourist and research areas had missing hands or feet 
as a result of snares set for antelopes.

Tony Kirungi, a conservation official with the Queen Elizabeth 
National Park, says communities neighbouring Ugandan parks continue 
to experience crop raids and animal attacks on humans. 

Elephants, velvet monkeys, bush pigs and baboons are the other major 
problem animals for the local communities. Besides moats, park 
officials are also planting thorny shrubs and constructing stone 
walls around the parks. 

President Museveni has suggested that electric fences be erected 
around the parks to rein in the wild animals.

Chimps and gorillas are among the top tourist attractions in Uganda, 
accounting for over half of UWA's income. But UWA officials say 
gorillas are by far the most popular and that, unlike chimps, 
gorillas do not attack humans.

Uganda has about 350 mountain gorillas, out of a total of only 600 in 
the entire world. The rest of the gorillas are said to be in Rwanda 
and the Democratic Republic of Congo, both Uganda's neighbours. 

Mountain gorillas feature prominently in a TV documentary just 
released by Discovery Channel on Uganda, in which President Museveni 
guides the camera in the western Bwindi and Mgahinga national parks.