Taï Forest, September 1976

As a total newcomer during my first stay in the Taï forest, I am not sure where I should start my study and so I have been exploring different locations that could be of interest. This brought me so far into the middle of the park today that I was a two-day walk from any human settlement. While searching for chimpanzees in the pouring rain, I hear loud chimpanzee screams not too far away. I immediately move in the direction I think the screams are coming from, although I am not confident because of the noisy downpour. Luckily, the chimpanzees are constantly calling and eventually I locate them behind an area that had been cleared by a fallen tree. Hiding behind a tree trunk, I cannot believe my eyes: high up in a tree, an adult male chimpanzee is holding a large, still alive red colobus monkey by the leg and around him, two screaming adults are moving to get access to the meat. I move forward to get a better view but I am immediately spotted by the chimpanzees, who flee, dragging their prey along with them. I remain alone in the rain, upset that I had been stupid enough to expose myself and trying to make sense of the completely unexpected scene I had just witnessed!

This was the first observation by a scientist of hunting in West Africa chimpanzees, contradicting a published report suggesting that chimpanzees in that region did not hunt! This was just one in a series of observations that showed me how hasty conclusions can be in the scientific literature. It was another seven years before I saw an actual hunt, but with time I was able to gain a better understanding of the complexity of the hunts in Taï chimpanzees.