In the past 15 years, a number of additional sites have been established, many closer to the center of the species’ range. van Boxel In the 30 years following the initiation by primatologists of the first long-term chimpanzee ( Pan troglodytes ) field studies in the early 1960s, research sites were heavily- biased towards the far eastern and western edges of chimpanzees’ distribution (Baldwin & Teleki, 1973 reviewed in McGrew, 1992). One side of the thermometer was open to the air, but the other side was within a meter of the wall of the house, surrounded by the corridor on three sides. In this case we used a standard high-low temperature thermometer without a Stevenson screen. As before, the readings were taken daily at 7:00 hours.
#EASTERN CHIMPANZEE FULL#
The thermometers were housed in a Stevenson screen, which had been constructed following the specifications acquired from the Los Angeles Pierce College Weather Station website: Between October 2007 and November 2008, a full year of climate data was recorded by DM in the town of Aketi. Between March and July 2005, maximum and midday (but not minimum) daily temperatures were measured daily at Camp Louis using a station and a maximum temperature thermometer. Due to technical and logistical problems, little temperature data was collected in the Bili region. The study area is located within Central Africa’s ‘humid tropical’ climate region (Doumenge 1990, Figure 3), which is characterized by a clear dry season (a period of lower rainfall and higher temperatures) of up to 3 or 4 months. As the new apparatus did not have a cover, during daylight hours, the amount of rain was measured immediately following each period of rainfall, in order to prevent evaporation.
Unfortunately the apparatus was stolen, and so a new tin rain gauge (19.8 cm in diameter) was used in its place. For the first month of the 2007-2008 field season, DM measured daily rainfall at our house in the town of Aketi using the same rain gauge. The rain was collected every morning at 7:00 hours by Dido Makeima (DM) or TH from a 16-cm-diameter metal rain gauge with an anti- evaporation cover, and the quantity of rainfall was measured using a plastic syringe marked in milliliters. Between October 2004 and July 2005, daily rainfall measures were collected at the Camp Louis (Bili Forest) base camp. The methodology of our bushmeat counts will be presented in detail along with the results in Chapter 6. Our project workers kept records of chimpanzee and elephant meat seen along the roads starting in September 2007, during and after their departure from Bili (Chapter 6). Table III gives the road distances traveled, as well as means of transport and the observer. Records were kept of all distances traveled along the roads, and our encounters with bushmeat as we traveled. In addition, in the towns of Buta and Aketi we conducted market surveys (which we had also done, but more informally, in Bili). Beginning in 2006, Congolese field assistants recorded all elephant parts and chimpanzee meat/orphans that they saw. Throughout the 5 year study, during our time in villages and towns (Table II), and also while traveling on the road (Table III), we recorded all bushmeat that we saw, whether it was smoked or fresh, the type of animal (primate, duiker, pig, etc.), and species if possible. The transect methodology is described in detail in Chapter 4 of this thesis.
The transects were separated from one another by approximately 4 km north to south. Nest-counting generally followed 1-2 weeks after cutting. From there Camp Director Makassi cut by means of GPS navigation two additional transects 4 and 8 km south of the first one. To select the starting point for our first transect, we randomly selected a point 1.5 km north of Camp Louis and had our cutting team cut east to the road and 40 km west. We walked a total of 160 km of transects, 99 km in the Camp Louis Forest and 61 km in the Gangu Forest.
55 km long parallel transects and use them to access the forest, and counting nests and other evidence as we traveled.
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