Gombe Stream National
Park is located in
western Kigoma Region, Tanzania, 10 miles (20 km) north of Kigoma, the capital of Kigoma Region.
Established in 1968, Gombe is the smallest national park in Tanzania,
with only 20 square miles (52 km2) of forest running along the hills of the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika. The
terrain is distinguished by steep valleys, and the forest vegetation ranges
from grassland to alpine bamboo to tropical rainforest. Accessible only by boat, the park is most famous as
the location where Jane
Goodall pioneered
her behavioral research conducted on the chimpanzee populations. The Kasakela chimpanzee community, featured in several books and
documentaries, lives in Gombe Stream National Park. Gombe Stream’s high levels
of diversity make it an increasingly popular tourist destination. Besides
chimpanzees, primatesinhabiting Gombe Stream include beachcomber olive baboons, red
colobus, red-tailed monkeys, blue
monkeys, and vervet
monkeys.[2][6] Red-tailed monkeys and blue
monkeys have also been known to hybridize in the area. The park is also
home to over 200 bird species and bushpigs. There are also 11 species
of snakes, and occasional hippopotami and leopards.
Visitors to the park can trek into the forest to view the chimpanzees, as well
as swim and snorkel in Lake Tanganyika with almost 100 kinds of
colorful cichlid fish.
Jane Goodall first traveled to Tanzania
in 1960 at the age of 26 with no formal college training. At the time, it
was accepted that humans were undoubtedly similar to chimpanzees—we share over
98% of the same genetic code. However, little was known about chimpanzee
behavior or community structure. At the time she began her research, she says
“it was not permissible, at least not in ethological circles, to talk about an
animal's mind. Only humans had minds. Nor was it quite proper to talk about
animal personality. Of course everyone knew that they did have their own unique
characters--everyone who had ever owned a dog or other pet was aware of that.
But ethologists, striving to make theirs a "hard" science, shied away
from the task of trying to explain such things objectively.” However, her
research eventually proved just that—the intellectual and emotional
sophistication of non-humans, chimpanzees in particular. With the support of
renowned anthropologist Louis Leakey, Goodall set up a small research station
in Gombe Stream in hopes of learning more about the behavior of our closest
relatives. There she spent months tracking the elusive chimpanzee troops,
particularly the Kasakela chimpanzee community, and observing their daily habits until
she was slowly accepted by one troop and was allowed rare and intimate glimpses
into chimpanzee society.
Social grooming of chimps observed in Gombe Stream
National Park
Without college training directing her research,
Goodall observed things that strict scientific doctrines may have
overlooked. Instead of numbering the chimpanzees she observed, she gave
them names such as Fifi and David Greybeard, and observed them to have unique
and individual personalities, an unconventional idea at the time. She
found that "it isn’t only human beings who have personality, who are
capable of rational thought [and] emotions like joy and sorrow". She
also observed behaviors such as hugs, kisses, pats on the back, and even
tickling, what people consider identifiable human actions. Goodall insists
that these gestures are evidence of “the close, supportive, affectionate bonds
that develop between family members and other individuals within a community,
which can persist throughout a life span of more than 50 years.” These
findings suggest similarities between humans and chimpanzees exist in more than
genes alone, but can be seen in emotion, intelligence, and family and social
relationships.
Goodall’s research at Gombe Stream is best known to
the scientific community for challenging two long-standing beliefs of the day:
that only humans could construct and use tools, and that chimpanzees were
passive vegetarians.While observing one chimpanzee feeding at a termite mound,
she watched him repeatedly place stalks of grass into termite holes, then
remove them from the hole covered with clinging termites, effectively “fishing”
for termites.The chimps would also take twigs from trees and strip off the
leaves to make the twig more effective, a form of object modification which is
the rudimentary beginnings of toolmaking. Humans had long distinguished
ourselves from the rest of the animal kingdom as “Man the Toolmaker”. In
response to Goodall’s revolutionary findings, Louis Leakey wrote, “We must now
redefine man, redefine tool, or accept chimpanzees as human!”Over the course of
her study, Goodall found evidence of mental traits in chimpanzees such as
reasoned thought, abstraction, generalization, symbolic representation, and
even the concept of self, all previously thought to be uniquely human
abilities.
In contrast to the peaceful and
affectionate behaviors she observed, Goodall also found an aggressive side of
chimp nature at Gombe Stream. She discovered that chimps will systematically
hunt and eat smaller primates, such as colobus
monkeys. Goodall
watched a hunting group isolate a colobus monkey high in a tree and block all
possible exits, then one chimpanzee climbed up and captured and killed the
colobus. The others then each took parts of the carcass, sharing with
other members of the troop in response to begging behaviors. The chimps at
Gombe kill and eat as much as one-third of the colobus population in the park
each year. This alone was a major scientific find which challenged
previous conceptions of chimp diet and behavior.
But perhaps more startling, and disturbing, was the tendency for aggression and violence within chimpanzee troops.
Goodall observed dominant females deliberately killing the young of other
females in the troop in order to maintain their dominance,sometimes going so
far as cannibalism. She says of this revelation, “During the first ten
years of the study I had believed […] that the Gombe chimpanzees were, for the
most part, rather nicer than human beings. Then suddenly we found that
chimpanzees could be brutal—that they, like us, had a darker side to their
nature.” These findings revolutionized contemporary knowledge of
chimpanzee diet and feeding behaviors, and were further evidence of the social
similarities between humans and chimpanzees, albeit in a much darker manner.
Feeding station
where Jane Goodall used to feed the chimps
Goodall lived at Gombe Stream almost full-time for
fifteen years and the long-term data she accumulated is still of value to
scientists today. In 1967, the Gombe Stream Research Center (GSRC) was
established to coordinate ongoing chimpanzee research in the park. Run
mostly by a team of trained Tanzanians, the GSRC is the longest running field
study of an animals species in their natural surroundings, now over 40
years. This long-term data has provided scientists with insight into
chimpanzee demographic patterns, male politics, hunting, culture and
mother-infant relationships over multiple generations—rare and valuable
data. The ongoing research is also providing information on the current
threats to chimpanzees, such as disease, poaching and habitat disturbance,
which affect other species at Gombe as well. The research of Goodall has
also drastically changed ethological thinking and how behavioral studies are
conducted. Where once talk of animal emotion was dismissed as anthropomorphism,
her observations of animals in their natural habitat show that societies,
behavior and relationships between animals are quite complex. Her research
of chimpanzee habitat (food and special) requirements also aid in improved
design for new protected areas. The GSRC also conducts research on the
baboon population, led by the Jane Goodall Center for Primate
Studies. Research from the GSRC has resulted in 35 Ph.D. theses, over 400
papers and 30 books.
Conservation
The biodiversity of Gombe Stream National Park is
primarily threatened by human encroachment. Although 25% of Tanzania is
set aside in parks and reserves, wildlife populations are still
declining. This is mainly due to the lack of collaboration between park
management, government sectors, and rural communities. Village lands often
lie between parks and become obstacles for animals traveling between protected
areas. Without incentives to protect the animals, rural communities will hunt
them for food or kill them for safety reasons. Poverty also increases the
demand