HRRBAA: Habituation Feasibility Assessment for Critically Endangered Primates

这个高风险的研究项目将评估在塞内加尔的Niokolo-Koba国家公园适应草原黑猩猩社区的可行性，以探索他们的觅食，狩猎和社会行为。驯化是野生动物对人类变得宽容的过程，使研究人员能够非侵入性地收集详细的长期行为观察。在过去，习惯化导致了关于我们最近的动物亲戚的基准发现，例如黑猩猩吃肉并在其社区内分配这种珍贵的食物，以及雌性和雄性使用矛状工具狩猎小型哺乳动物。草原黑猩猩之所以引起人们的兴趣，是因为它们生活在危险的、生物多样性丰富的干旱环境中，而这些环境可能与人类进化的环境相似。该项目将鼓励美国科学家和塞内加尔科学家，当地现场助理，公园代理人和学生之间的国际合作，并支持学生培训，科学推广和灵长类动物保护工作。研究人员预测，研究习惯性的稀树草原黑猩猩与狒狒（它们的主要竞争对手）以及大量的大型哺乳动物（如羚羊、狮子和豹子）一起在帕克兰里活动，将产生关于它们行为的重要科学发现。实地工作目标包括：（1）定位和跟踪不习惯的草原黑猩猩，（2）估计黑猩猩群落的规模和组成，（3）根据黑猩猩的身体特征识别个体。鉴于习惯化是困难的，这个项目的主要目标是评估其可行性。最大的挑战包括持续定位和保持与稀树草原黑猩猩的中立接触，因为它们出现在低人口密度和大面积的范围内。研究人员将在旱季在水坑进行接触，并在饮用水充足的雨季进行巡逻。项目人员将遵循黑猩猩健康监测和疾病传播预防的国际标准准则。习惯的可行性是通过反复接触个人，连续12个月监测他们对观察者的反应，并测试对研究人员的容忍度。其他目标包括改善对黑猩猩群落组成和活动范围的估计。这些任务将通过遗传学和相机陷阱方法补充对黑猩猩的直接观察来完成。如果最初的研究阶段是成功的，那么接下来的步骤需要仔细检查这些热带草原黑猩猩在竞争激烈和危险的热带草原景观中生存的行为策略。

This high-risk research project will gauge the feasibility of habituating a savanna chimpanzee community at Niokolo-Koba National Park in Senegal in order to explore their foraging, hunting, and social behaviors. Habituation is a process where wild animals become tolerant of humans, enabling researchers to non-invasibely collect detailed, long-term behavioral observations. In the past, habituation has resulted in benchmark discoveries about our closest animal relatives, such as the findings that chimpanzees eat meat and distribute this prized food within their communities, and that females and males use spear-like tools to hunt small mammals. Savanna chimpanzees are of interest because they inhabit risky and biodiverse arid environments that may parallel environments in which hominins evolved. This project will encourage international collaborations among U.S. scientists and Senegalese scientists, local field assistants, park agents, and students, as well as support student training, science outreach, and primate conservation efforts. Researchers predict that the study of habituated savanna chimpanzees ranging in parkland alongside baboons - their main competitor - as well as abundant numbers of large mammals, such as antelopes, lions, and leopards, will yield important scientific discoveries about their behavior. Fieldwork objectives include: (1) Locating and following unhabituated savanna chimpanzees, (2) estimating the size and composition of the chimpanzee community, and (3) identifying individuals based on their physical characteristics. Given that habituation is difficult, the primary goal of this project is to evaluate its feasibility. The greatest challenges include persistently locating and maintaining neutral contact with savanna chimpanzees because they occur at low population densities and range over large areas. The researchers will make contact at water holes during the dry season and conduct patrols in the wet season when drinking water is abundant. Project personnel will follow international standard guidelines for chimpanzee health monitoring and disease transmission prevention. Habituation feasibility is determined by repeatedly contacting individuals, monitoring their responses to observers during 12 consecutive months, and testing for increasing tolerance towards researchers. Additional goals include improving estimates of chimpanzee community composition and home range. These tasks will be accomplished through supplementing direct observations of chimpanzees with genetic and camera trap methods. If the initial research phase is successful, then the next steps entail closely examining the behavioral strategies of these savanna chimps for surviving in a highly competitive and dangerous savanna landscape.