Illegal Harvesting within a Protected Area: Spatial Distribution of Activities, Social Drivers of Wild Meat Consumption, and Wildlife Conservation.

The African tropical forests host an inestimable number of resources, including food, medicine, vegetal and animal species. Among them, chimpanzees are threatened with extinction by human activities affecting their habitats, such as forest product harvesting, and/or more directly, snaring and trafficking. We aimed to better understand the spatial distribution of these illegal activities, and the reasons for setting snares and consuming wild meat in an agricultural landscape (subsistence farming and cash crops) densely populated near a protected area (Sebitoli, Northern part of Kibale National Park, Uganda).

All-You-Can-Eat: Influence of Proximity to Maize Gardens on the Wild Diet and the Forest Activities of the Sebitoli Chimpanzee Community in Kibale National Park.

Frugivorous primates have developed several strategies to deal with wild fruit scarcity, such as modifying their activity budget or enlarging their diet. Agricultural expansion threatens primate habitats and populations (e.g.

Chimpanzees facing a dangerous situation: A high-traffic asphalted road in the Sebitoli area of Kibale National Park, Uganda.

Despite the spread of road infrastructures throughout Africa to support regional development, industry, and tourism, few studies have examined how wild animals adapt their behavior and ecology in road-forest ecotones. Indeed, while numerous studies have demonstrated chimpanzee adaptability in anthropogenic landscapes, none have examined the effects of asphalted highways on wild chimpanzee behaviors. In a 29-month survey, we assessed the dangers posed by an asphalted road crossing the Sebitoli area of Kibale National Park (Uganda).

Two Cases of Cleft Lip and Other Congenital Anomalies in Wild Chimpanzees Living in Kibale National Park, Uganda.

Design: Observations of wild chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) were conducted in Kibale National Park, Uganda, at the sites of Sebitoli and Ngogo.

Results: We report the first two cases of cleft lip in wild chimpanzees. Additionally, some other chimpanzees in the Sebitoli community show facial dysplasia and congenital anomalies, such as patches of depigmented hairs and limb defects.

Wild chimpanzees on the edge: nocturnal activities in croplands.

In a rapidly changing landscape highly impacted by anthropogenic activities, the great apes are facing new challenges to coexist with humans. For chimpanzee communities inhabiting encroached territories, not bordered by rival conspecifics but by human agricultural fields, such boundaries are risky areas. To investigate the hypothesis that they use specific strategies for incursions out of the forest into maize fields to prevent the risk of detection by humans guarding their field, we carried out video recordings of chimpanzees at the edge of the forest bordered by a maize plantation in Kibale National Park, Uganda.

Suitable habitats for endangered frugivorous mammals: small-scale comparison, regeneration forest and chimpanzee density in Kibale National Park, Uganda.

Landscape patterns and chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) densities in Kibale National Park show important variation among communities that are geographically close to one another (from 1.5 to 5.1 chimpanzees/km2).