S2E9 - Observing Wild Chimpanzees in Senegal with Jill Pruetz
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Chimpanzees at Fongoli, Senegal soaking in water-- a behavior once considered rare among wild chimps. Photo courtesy of Jill Pruetz
Chimpanzees are our closest living relatives. In fact, chimps are more closely related to you and I than they are to other apes, like gorillas. That means we can learn a lot about ourselves by studying chimpanzees. But to really learn the secrets of these amazing animals, you can’t just watch them in a zoo. You have to venture out to where they live…
Fongoli savanna chimpanzees sharing meat after a hunt. Photo courtesy of Jill Pruetz
Jane Goodall’s work with wild chimpanzees in Tanzania in the 1960s was groundbreaking in many ways. No one had ever gotten wild chimpanzees to trust them enough to allow close observation of what they do. And, although people had studied captive chimpanzees for decades, she saw chimps doing things that had never been seen before. Her work revealed that wild chimpanzees have much more complex and sophisticated behaviors than people previously thought. That was true of both their individual behaviors– like fishing for termites with a stick– but also their social interactions.
But Jane Goodall’s work also proved that it was possible for wild chimpanzees to become habituated to the presence of humans. And that paved the way for other researchers to do the same...
Researchers like Dr. Jill Pruetz...
A member of the Fongoli Savanna Chimp Project making observations. Photo courtesy of Jill Pruetz
Anthropologist and Primatologist Dr. Jill Pruetz
Jill Pruetz has been studying wild chimpanzees in the West African nation of Senegal since 2001, when she began the processing of habituating chimpanzees at a savanna site called Fongoli. While several other groups of forest chimps had been habituated since Jane Goodall’s work in the 1960s, no one had successfully habituated savanna chimps. Until Jill Pruetz did-- and her work has revealed that savanna chimps are quite different from forest chimps…
In addition to publishing dozens of research papers about chimps and other primates, Jill Pruetz is also the author of several books, including her latest, Apes on the Edge: Chimpanzee Life on the West African Savanna published by The University of Chicago Press.
A chimpanzee using a stick tool to hunt for bush babies. Photo courtesy of Jill Pruetz
A wild savanna chimpanzee at Fongoli, Senegal. Photo courtesy of Jill Pruetz
Learn more about Jill Pruetz’s work with savanna chimpanzees and how you can help:
Jill Pruetz's Faculty Profile: https://faculty.txst.edu/profile/2013121
Jill Pruetz book, Apes on the Edge: Chimpanzee Life on the West African Savanna: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo238989411.html
Neighbor Ape, a non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of chimpanzees in Senegal and to the well-being of humans that live alongside them: https://www.globalgiving.org/donate/10235/neighbor-ape/
The savanna ecosystem at Fongoli, Senegal-- Jill Pruetz's field site since 2001. Photo courtesy of Jill Pruetz
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