Always monkeying around

“As a child, he bugged me constantly to get him a monkey. I never did, but every Sunday after church we would have to drive by this house to see a pet monkey that lived there,” recalled Richard Morgan, Dave’s father.

“I remember getting this World Wildlife Fund card with a chimpanzee on it. It said they were endangered and could possibly be extinct in the near future. I couldn’t have believed that 15 years later I would have the opportunity to work with live chimps in the wild,” Morgan said.

Not only has he worked with them, he is helping to save them. Morgan’s preliminary chimp surveys in the Goualougo Triangle helped convince the German timber company Congolese Industrielle des Bois to return its legal rights to harvest timber in the area to the government of Congo. Most of the triangle was added to the recently (1993) created Nouabale-Ndoki National Park.

The Goualougo Triangle rests between the Ndoki and Goualougo Rivers. These rivers and their accompanying swamps have acted as barriers to human habitation. National Geographic magazine called it “The Last Place on Earth.” According to Morgan, human population density in the Republic of Congo is seven-tenths of a person per square kilometer. In the Triangle it is even less. The area was originally home to a few pygmy tribes.

The remoteness of the area and the lack of human presence is one aspect that makes the Triangle study so unique. Most chimpanzees across Africa are heavily hunted and react out of fear when they encounter humans. Goualougo chimps react out of curiosity and interest. Their lack of fear and their curiosity regarding researchers has led to them being referred to as naïve.

This naïveté spurred a visit from pre-eminent chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall. Goodall has spent more than 40 years studying chimps in Gombe National Park in Tanzania.

“When she was here, she said, ‘This is the type of forest I dreamed about studying chimps in,’” Morgan said.

There are four subspecies of chimps. Morgan is studying the central subspecies, Pan troglodytes troglodytes. While this subspecies is reported to be the most numerous, it may be the least known. According to Morgan most of our knowledge of chimpanzees comes from long-studied populations in either east or west Africa. He noted that studies of different populations have shown that different communities of chimps across Africa can be recognized by their unique behavioral repertories and technological diversity.

A path to the wild

Although Morgan is currently working on a PhD at Cambridge University, he certainly took an alternative route. After a short internship at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C., Morgan went to work at Busch Gardens.

“After I finished at Western, I just wanted to gain some experience working with great apes,” said Morgan, who also worked at Soco Gardens Zoo in Maggie Valley while in college.

When Dr. Michael Fay, a conservationist with the Wildlife Conservation Society and a Conservation Fellow at National Geographic came to Busch Gardens seeking support for Nouabale-Ndoki, it got Morgan’s attention. He volunteered and spent two years at Nouabale-Ndoki studying gorillas. With logging quickly approaching the park’s boundary, Morgan began applying for grants to do a long-term chimpanzee study. With the support of Fay and donations from the Wildlife Conservation Society, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the American Zoos Association and others, the 1999 preliminary study began.

According to Morgan, there are two main threats facing chimps in the Goualougo Triangle; mechanized logging and the bushmeat trade. The overall goal of the chimpanzee project is to devise a conservation plan to protect the unique chimp populations in the region. A greater understanding of the central chimp population and their basic requirements will help park managers create a plan that will benefit all chimps of the northern Congo.

While most of the Goualougo Triangle will be preserved by its inclusion into the Nouabale-Ndoki Park, an outlying area is scheduled to be logged within the next couple of years. Morgan is working feverishly to get a good database in this area so he can go back after the timbering and look at the effects on the chimp population.

Morgan said the numerous elephant trails in the region enable researchers to travel quietly while searching for chimps.

“Groups are generally found through vocalizations at night. We go back in the morning and start following them,” Morgan said.

Researchers have logged more than 620 hours of observations.

“We know 173 different chimps,” Morgan said. Spotting scopes are used to get good looks and sketches are made for future references.

Besides being invaluable as trackers, the indigenous people have helped researchers learn more about the animals in the Goualougo Triangle. Morgan said it was not known before this study began that gorillas and chimps would both nest in trees. Researchers had presumed that nests found in trees would automatically be from chimps, but natives showed them differently.

“All of our information on gorillas was from studies on mountain gorillas that don’t nest in trees. However, in the Goualougo, we were shown gorillas on the ground and in trees,” Morgan said.

Morgan said it is sometimes questionable who is studying whom.

“We had found tracks and knew there was a group of chimps nearby, but we couldn’t find them. Finally we sat down to take a break, and suddenly there was a male chimp in the trail looking at us. There were no vocalizations. The chimp approached closer, grabbed a stick and threw it up into the air and watched for our reaction. We just sat still. The chimp backed away, climbed up a vine and sat watching us, making no vocalizations the entire time.”

Of course, chimps aren’t the only animals encountered in the jungle. Morgan recalls a not-so-pleasant encounter with a male gorilla.

“I was in the bush alone and noticed a nearby elephant. I was keeping an eye on it because you never know for sure what elephants might do. Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement and turned to see an adult male gorilla about 40 meters from me, in the trail.”

Morgan said male gorillas almost always made intimidating noises and occasionally bluff charges but usually didn’t carry through. This time was different.

“Maybe he had had a bad day, or maybe something had bitten him.”

Whatever the case, this charge wasn’t a bluff. Morgan said the animal tackled him and pile-drove him into the wet earth like an NFL linebacker. The gorilla jumped on Morgan’s back, screamed and slapped him around the head a bit, then bit him in the shoulder before backing off. The gorilla then circled, screaming loudly. The circles got bigger and bigger until the gorilla disappeared in the jungle.

Morgan said he didn’t think the gorilla intended the attack to be fatal because, “he gave me time to cover my head and groin, which is where gorillas go when they really mean business.” Still, 35 stitches in the shoulder is more than a hickey.

Irate gorillas, meandering elephants, foot worms and African weather are all part of the job description and hardly worth mentioning as far as Morgan is concerned. He would rather talk chimps and their survival odds in the Congo.

“It’s not all doom and gloom out there. All we hear about is the destruction. But there are a lot of people out there trying to make a difference. The annexation of the Goualougo Triangle and the focus on the central chimp shows that we can use animal species to help bring conservation to large areas. It’s important to educate and train the residents and provide a way for them to earn a living from working there.”