By Hassani Rashidi- Tracker, Greystoke Mahale.
On the 12th December 2010, I was in the forest trekking Chimpanzees for the Tanzania Broadcasting Institution’s employees who came out to Mahale to film wild Chimpanzee’s. The Tanzanian National Park Authorities had asked Greystoke Mahale if they could lend them some of their staff to help the Broadcasting Institution find the Chimps. So Hamza and I set off into the forest for the second time that day.
We located the Chimpanzees in an area where there were Red Colobus. The Chimpanzees went quiet for a short period of time before they started vocalizing and ran towards the Red Colobus in the tree canopy. They ultimately hunted two Red Colobus; a juvenile and an adult. They ate the juvenile instantly when it was caught but played with the adult for quite sometime by dragging the still screaming monkey backwards and forwards. Finally they tired of the game and killed it by biting.
It was quite a drama watching chimpanzees hunting and treating two of their catches differently.
