By Dr Matt McLennan, BCCP Director
Perhaps the most rewarding part of my work with BCCP is following individual chimpanzees over many years as they live their lives. Of all the chimpanzee communities we monitor, the Bulindi chimpanzees have been observed the longest: we have followed them continuously for more than a decade. It is especially fascinating to watch the younger chimpanzees grow up.
Georgia was born in Bulindi in 2013. Genetic analysis showed that her mother, Leila, most likely migrated from the Kiraira–Kasunga chimpanzees (Maureen McCarthy, unpublished data).
Most young females leave their birth group when they reach adolescence and join another community to begin their reproductive lives. This way, they avoid breeding with close male relatives, including their brothers, fathers, and uncles. By 2022, Georgia had entered adolescence and was getting more and more attention from the Bulindi males. Later that year, she decided it was time to leave, and after several months’ absence we assumed she had joined another community.
But migration is challenging for young females in the Budongo–Bugoma Corridor. Deforestation of their traditional migration routes, the network of riverside forests, together with road development and advancing urbanisation, means females can struggle to find other chimpanzee groups, which may be 8–16 km away. After five months, Georgia returned to Bulindi. She had apparently failed to find another community to join. Find out how forest loss has transformed the landscape around Bulindi in our free eBook, The chimpanzees next door.
By mid-2023, Georgia was clearly pregnant and seemed resigned to staying in Bulindi. In early November, she gave birth to a healthy female infant at the remarkably young age of 10 years and 4 months. Most wild female chimpanzees give birth for the first time between the ages of 12 and 16. At the time, Georgia was the youngest mother in all the groups we monitor.
Despite her young age, Georgia took to motherhood easily, and her infant appeared to be developing well. Then, in June 2024, tragedy struck. The infant, now seven months old, lost the use of her legs and could only cling to Georgia with her hands. She seemed to have dislocated or fractured her right hip joint or pelvis: the hip bone stuck out, and the hair around her hip and upper leg fell out. Georgia did her best to cope with her infant’s disability, often carrying her daughter with one arm or cradling her between her legs while climbing, though the infant could at times be heard crying in pain.
By July, the infant’s condition had improved a little. She began riding on Georgia’s back again, holding on with her left foot, and some movement had returned to her right leg, which reassured us, as we had feared it might be paralysed. But she still couldn’t walk on the ground.
Next came a bizarre episode that remains difficult to understand. On 14 July, Bulindi Chimpanzee Monitor Johnmary found high-ranking male Jack carrying Georgia’s infant on his back. Georgia was nowhere to be seen. For the rest of the day, Jack groomed and carried the infant, even while climbing trees, and she ate from the cultivated jackfruit Jack harvested.
Jack carrying Georgia’s infant on his back (14 July 2024).
The next morning, Jack still had the infant. He was generally attentive, but she showed signs of distress, probably because of hunger. We feared the worst. Chimpanzee mothers don’t normally leave their precious infants with adult males, and at only seven months old, we assumed the infant depended on Georgia’s milk to survive. Later that morning, to our relief, Georgia reappeared. Her high-ranking mother, Leila, was away from the community range on a month-long romantic sojourn with male Murry. We expected Georgia to take her infant back quickly, but although she groomed Jack, she seemed nervous and made no attempt to reclaim her.
That afternoon, neither Jack nor Georgia had the infant. Johnmary backtracked to where the chimpanzees had been in the morning but couldn’t find her, and by the next day we assumed Georgia’s infant was dead.
On the fourth day, 17 July, came an unexpected twist: former alpha male Moses was carrying Georgia’s infant, who was still alive despite not having breastfed for at least 72 hours! We believe male Araali, who had been missing from the group, had taken the infant from Jack and stayed apart with her. When Jack and another high-ranking male, Gerald, arrived, they displayed at Moses and thrashed branches at him while he clutched the infant to his stomach, which shows the risk to an infant of being carried by unpredictable adult males. Like Jack, Moses groomed and carried the infant and shared his jackfruit with her. Later that afternoon, Jack took her back and nested with her.
Jack sharing jackfruit with Georgia’s infant (14 July 2024).
Moses sharing jackfruit with Georgia’s infant (17 July 2024).
On the morning of the fifth day, Jack still had the infant, who seemed remarkably alert. Presumably, the small amounts of jackfruit she had eaten over the previous four days were enough to keep her going. Georgia joined the group and groomed with Jack high up in a tree but, as before, made no attempt to take her infant. That afternoon, the males were seen travelling without the infant, and we began to hope that Georgia had finally got her baby back.
For the next two days, every chimpanzee was seen except Georgia and her infant. Then, on the morning of 21 July, Georgia rejoined the group, and to our great relief, she was carrying her infant! Wisely, she had avoided the males since recovering her, most likely on the afternoon of the 18th. Both Jack and Moses groomed with Georgia, but neither tried to take the infant from her.
Georgia and her infant (23 September 2024).
The males’ behaviour is difficult to understand. Perhaps Jack first took the infant out of concern for her injured leg, then became fixated on her, while Georgia, still only 11 years old and relatively inexperienced, lacked the confidence to take her back. Had Leila been there, she might have stepped in. To our knowledge, adult males “taking care” of such a young infant over several days and nights (four, in this case!) has never been observed in wild chimpanzees before.
Happily, the story has a good ending. Georgia’s infant, whom we named Gena, recovered from her leg injury and now walks and climbs without difficulty. She is almost three years old, and none of the males has shown any further interest in taking her away from Georgia. Want to see how Gena grows up? Sign up for our newsletter.
Georgia and her infant, Gena, aged 11 months (October 2024).
We only know Georgia and Gena’s story because our Chimpanzee Monitors follow the Bulindi chimpanzees every day. Your donation keeps them in the field, protecting the chimpanzees and supporting the families who live alongside them.
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