Responses of Wild Chimpanzees to Potential Predators

Abstract

This paper reports the responses of wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) to the presence of potential predators at Mt. Assirik, in the Parc National du Niokolo Koba, Senegal. Many field studies of wild chimpanzees have been made in the last 20 years but only a few reports have appeared on the responses of chimpanzees to potential predators (Gandini and Baldwin 1978, Izawa and Itani 1966, Itani 1979, Kano 1972, van Lawick-Goodall 1968, Nishida 1968, Pierce, unpubl.). The scarcity of such reports is due largely to the absence or rarity of predators large enough to present a threat to chimpanzees, in the majority of study sites. For example, at both Gombe and Kasoje in Tanzania where chimpanzees have been studied for 20 and 15 years respectively, leopards are the only potential predator and they are extremely rare.