Gombe National Park

Gombe National Park (Template:IPAc-en) is a national park in Tanzania, located in the Kigoma District of the Kigoma Region. It was formerly called Gombe Stream National Park.<ref name="Tanzania">Tanzania National Parks: “Gombe Stream National Park” Template:Webarchive, 2008.</ref>

Overview

Established in 1968, it is one of the smallest national parks in Tanzania, with only Template:Cvt of protected land along the hills of the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika.<ref name="Tanzania"/><ref name="GSRC">The Jane Goodall Institute: “Gombe Stream Research Centre”, 2008.</ref> The terrain is distinguished by steep valleys, and the vegetation ranges from grassland to woodland to tropical rainforest.<ref name= "PBS">PBS: Nature- “Jane Goodall’s Wild Chimpanzees”, 1996.</ref> Accessible only by boat, the park is most famous as the location where Jane Goodall pioneered her behavioural research on the common chimpanzee populations.<ref name="Tanzania"/><ref name="GSRC"/> The Kasakela chimpanzee community, featured in several books and documentaries, lives in Gombe National Park.<ref name=kasakela>Template:Cite book</ref>

Wildlife

Gombe National Park encompasses grasslands, woodlands, steep valleys and tropical rainforest; it boasts one of the highest concentrations of primates in Africa.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Chimpanzees share a habitat with several other primate species, beachcomber olive baboons, red colobus, red-tailed monkey, blue monkey and vervet monkey.<ref name=Tanzania /><ref name= "Ape">African Ape Study Sites: “Gombe National Park, Tanzania” Template:Webarchive, 1999.</ref> Red-tailed monkeys and blue monkeys are known to hybridize in the area.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The leopard is one of the primary predators of chimpanzees, other primates and bushpigs.<ref name=Tanzani/><ref name=PBS/> There are around 200 different bird species in the park, as well as hippopotamus, small antelopes and various snake species.Template:Cn

Jane Goodall's impact on Gombe

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Jane Goodall

Gombe National Park is famous for being the site of Jane Goodall's groundbreaking research on chimpanzees and other primates. Goodall first travelled to Tanzania in 1960 at the age of 26 with no formal college training.<ref name=PBS/> Little was known about chimpanzee behaviour or community structure at the time. Her research eventually proved 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 in hopes of learning more about the behaviour of our closest relatives.<ref name="PBS"/> 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.<ref name="PBS"/>

Social grooming of chimpanzees observed in Gombe National Park

Without college training directing her research, Goodall observed things that strict scientific doctrines may have overlooked.<ref name="PBS"/> 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.<ref name="PBS"/> She found that "it isn’t only human beings who have personality, who are capable of rational thought [and] emotions like joy and sorrow".<ref name="PBS"/> She also observed behaviours such as hugs, kisses, pats on the back, and even tickling, what people consider identifiable human actions.<ref name="PBS"/> 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.”<ref name="PBS"/>

Goodall’s research at Gombe 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.<ref name="PBS"/> 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.<ref name="Chimp">Goodall, J. 1999. Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey. New York: Warner Books</ref> 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.<ref name="Chimp"/> 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!"<ref name="Chimp"/> 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.<ref name="Goodall">The Jane Goodall Institute: “Chimpanzee Central”, 2008.</ref>

Hunting chimpanzee with prey

In contrast to the peaceful and affectionate behaviours she observed, Goodall also found an aggressive side of chimp nature at Gombe. She discovered that chimps will systematically hunt and eat smaller primates, such as red colobus.<ref name="PBS"/> 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.<ref name="Goodall"/> The others then each took parts of the carcass, sharing with other members of the troop in response to begging behaviours.<ref name="Goodall"/> The chimps at Gombe kill and eat as much as one-third of the colobus population in the park each year.<ref name="PBS"/> Goodall observed dominant females deliberately killing the young of other females in the troop in order to maintain their dominance,<ref name="PBS"/> sometimes going so far as cannibalism.<ref name="Chimp"/>

Gombe Stream Research Centre

Feeding station where Jane Goodall used to feed the chimps

Goodall lived at Gombe almost full-time for fifteen years and the long-term data she accumulated is still of value to scientists today.<ref name=PBS/> In 1967, the Gombe Stream Research Centre (GSRC) was established to coordinate ongoing chimpanzee research in the park.<ref name="GSRC"/> Run mostly by a team of trained Tanzanians, the GSRC is the longest-running field study of an animal species in their natural surroundings, now over 60 years.<ref name="GSRC"/><ref name="Wilson et al. (2020)">Template:Cite journal</ref> 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.<ref name="GSRC"/> 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.<ref name="Pusey">Pusey et al., “The Contribution of Long-Term Research at Gombe National Park to Chimpanzee Conservation” Template:Webarchive, Conservation Biology, 2007.</ref> The research of Goodall has also drastically changed ethological thinking and how behavioural studies are conducted.<ref name="Jane">Jane Goodall, “Learning from the Chimpanzees: A Message Humans Can Understand” Science, 1998.</ref> Where once talk of animal emotion was dismissed as anthropomorphism, her observations of animals in their natural habitat show that societies, behaviour, and relationships between animals are quite complex.<ref name="Jane"/> Her research of chimpanzee habitat (food and other requirements) also aid in improved design for new protected areas.<ref name="Pusey"/> The GSRC also conducts research on the baboon population, led by the Jane Goodall Center for Primate Studies.<ref name="African">African Conservation Foundation: “Gombe Stream Research Centre” Template:Webarchive, 2008.</ref>

Conservation

The biodiversity of Gombe National Park is primarily threatened by human encroachment.<ref name="GSRC" /> Although 25% of Tanzania is set aside in parks and reserves, wildlife populations are still declining.<ref name="Obstacles">Property & Environment Research Center: “Overcoming Government Obstacles – Some Tanzanian Communities Manage Wildlife” Template:Webarchive, 2004.</ref> This is mainly due to the lack of collaboration between park management, government sectors, and rural communities.<ref name="Obstacles" /> 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.<ref name="Obstacles" /> Poverty also increases the demand.

See also

• USC Jane Goodall Research Center
• List of protected areas of Tanzania
• Tanzania National Parks Authority
• Gombe Chimpanzee War

External links

• Official website
• Tanzania tourist board
• Ape site at UCSD Template:Webarchive
• Explore - Street View, Google Maps