Gombe Field Diaries

Tutaonana Mwaka Kesho (See You Next Year!)

lincoln park zoo — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 17:17:46 +0000

After a wonderful morning out with Eliza and her son, Eriki, we’ve spent the afternoon meeting our data collection teams and getting various business wrapped up for the trip. Time always seems too short at Gombe, but this trip seems especially so since we had only 5 days in the park!

Elizabeth Lonsdorf offers this parting view of the shore at Gombe National Park as she wraps up her last field visit there as director of Lincoln Park Zoo's Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes.

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Mama Na Watoto (Mother and Children)

lincoln park zoo — Mon, 21 May 2012 20:27:40 +0000

Golden's baby, Glamma, courtesy of Dominic Travis, D.V.M.

Today I went into the Gombe National Park forest in hopes of finding a mother-infant chimpanzee pair. One of our research focuses is the health and development of young chimpanzees. We use new data currently being collected as well as archival data going all the way back to the 1970s.

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Back in Gombe

lincoln park zoo — Fri, 18 May 2012 19:52:19 +0000

Photo opportunities haven’t been great, so here’s a picture of Elizabeth in Gombe last year!

I have arrived back in Gombe after three days of nonstop traveling from Chicago. I’m here on my annual visit to check up on the zoo’s Gombe research projects, including our investigations into chimpanzee health and mother-infant behavior.

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Tutaonana Tena (Until We See Each Other Again)

graphics — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 21:10:22 +0000

Well, we have wrapped up our work in the park and are getting ready to make the long journey home. The visit was quite successful—I managed to meet with all the relevant staff I had planned to, and the project continues to run smoothly with the help of our in-country partners.

On our last day out in the forest, we went out looking for chimpanzees and passed a rather famous spot known as “Jane’s Peak.”

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Tutapanda Juu (We Will Climb Up)

graphics — Tue, 31 May 2011 15:23:21 +0000

Today’s goal was to go into the field with our data-collection team that focuses on mother-infant interactions. This is a project that Jane Goodall started in the 1970s to better understand how chimpanzee behavioral and social development compares to human infant development. Data collection continues to this day and we are in the process of entering this massive dataset at Lincoln Park Zoo.

It wasn't an easy climb after Sandi and her kids!

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Mvua, Mvua—Toka! (Rain, Rain, Go Away.)

graphics — Wed, 25 May 2011 21:15:24 +0000

We woke up at about 5 a.m. this morning to loud and long sounds of thunder...not what you want to hear when you’re looking forward to following chimpanzees. The rain was coming....

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Tumefika! (We have arrived!)

graphics — Fri, 20 May 2011 21:20:45 +0000

After four days, four different planes, and three nights in three different accommodations, we have finally arrived at Gombe.

One of the parts I love most about my job as director of the Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes is overseeing our field projects. We started the Gombe Ecosystem Health Project in 2004 to assess, understand and attempt to mitigate the risks of infectious disease in wild chimpanzees. I’m here for my annual trip to meet with staff and collaborators, bring supplies, gather the past year’s data and assess the current health of the chimpanzees.

It’s always wonderful to return to Gombe and see the staff and chimpanzees that I’ve known for 13 years now. Accompanying me on this trip is my colleague Dr. Kristin Bonnie of Beloit College, who collaborates with us in our studies of ape social learning at the zoo. Kristin has studied chimpanzees for the past 10 years but has never seen them in the wild!

We’ve just gotten ourselves settled this evening in our fourth and final accommodation of the trip and look forward to getting out into the forest to see chimpanzees tomorrow.

Elizabeth Lonsdorf

Primates Wambea Wengine (Other Curious Primates)

graphics — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 19:14:52 +0000

The title applies to both the chimpanzees and myself. Chimpanzees are very curious creatures, as am I. When I’m in the forest, I enjoy the breaks from the daily routine provided by any forest anomalies that pop up. I recently discovered how the chimps are the same way.

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