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The Mairirwe chimpanzees
The Mairirwe community is located in the southern part of the Budongo–Bugoma Corridor, closest to Bugoma Forest. We’ve monitored the Mairirwe chimpanzees since 2018. In 2025, the Mairirwe community comprised 23 members.
Farmers in this region commonly grow sugarcane commercially, which is highly attractive to chimpanzees and other wildlife like baboons. Several chimpanzees in the community exhibit limb injuries from snares and traps, which some farmers use to protect their fields, and there have been instances of retaliatory killing of chimpanzees.
BCCP is addressing these conflicts and threats to the chimpanzees in Mairirwe through our Chimp Monitoring and Community Outreach programmes.
Location map
Meet the chimps of Mairirwe
Buck has been the alpha male at Mairirwe since we started monitoring the group in 2018. For the past several years, he’s enjoyed little competition from other males as there’s been only one other fully adult male in the community, Isaac. Now middle-aged, Buck’s probably nearing the end of his reign: three young males—Kevin, Lewin, and Luiz—are growing up fast and are likely to challenge Buck’s authority in the next few years.
Isaac is the beta male at Mairirwe and sidekick to alpha male Buck. When we first identified him in 2018, Isaac’s left hand and wrist were badly crippled and completely immobile. Most likely, he’d been injured by a wire snare. Over the last few years, he gradually regained mobility in his limb, and he now uses his left hand almost normally for travel, climbing, and feeding. Isaac also has a deformed left foot, which was probably caused by an earlier encounter with a trap or snare when he was younger.
Luiz is an 11-year-old adolescent male. When we first identified him as a young juvenile, he had a wire snare wrapped around his left arm. Luckily for Luiz, the wire eventually fell off without leaving him with a permanent injury. Luiz is a confident male, and we expect him to mature into a high-ranking member of the community in the future.
Mary’s one of nine adult females in the Mairirwe community. She’s missing her right hand at the wrist—the legacy of an old encounter with a wire snare. Despite her disability, she manages to carry both her 18-month-old infant and her 5-year-old juvenile, Tom, during travel.
Harriet is the dominant female at Mairirwe and is treated with respect by the other adult females in the community. Occasionally, she’s been observed displaying at other females like a male chimpanzee. Harriet has a lively 3-year-old daughter named Heidi. Adult males Buck and Isaac sometimes let Heidi ride on their backs, as if they were her mother.
Lovis is an adult female in her mid-twenties. She has a calm demeanour and, unlike some shier females in the community, is unfazed by her daily encounters with BCCP’s Chimp Monitors. Lovis has an 18-month-old daughter and is the mother of the adolescent male Luiz.
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