Obama (the chimp) is dead

This is a text message I received in December. Thank goodness for that parenthetical statement, huh?!?! Obama was a two year old chimp (named around the time of the nomination of someone we all know) in the Kanyawara community. His mother, Rosa, never emigrated out of the group and therefore has continued to have weak young (all 3 have died) most likely due to inbreeding. There was a disease outbreak in the chimp community of some sort of cough. Little Obama got a cough and was then found dead. His mother showed up to a feeding tree that the field assistants were at carrying his dead body. She continued to carry him around. Emily (the chimp project manager) asked Jeff and I to go out and get some footage of mother and baby. Jeff was the camera man and I was the guide. We wandered out to the popular feeding tree of the week and found it empty. I hooted and the chimp field assistants hooted from just a short distance away. We went and found two field assistants with a group of 6 chimps, including Rosa and Obama. There were two adult males and two adult females with infants (one being Rosa and the dead Obama). The other infant was a similar age and was sooo cute. It was goofing off and having a good time. But every once in a while, it would wander over to Obama and poke him. It was sad to think that just a day before, Obama was a cute little furball like that infant. Rosa kept an eye on Obama, who she left laying on the trail next to her. Every once in a while, she would swat a bug off of him. The adults were grooming each other and just hanging out. After a little time, they got up and started to move. The males vocalized loudly as they were leaving and kind of turned around to vocalize. I’m not sure if this had anything to do with Rosa and the baby or not. She hung back a little and eventually picked up Obama and started to go. She followed them for a while and eventually branched off and found a little tree to feed in. She was about shoulder height in this little tree and held Obama in her lap as she fed. His limp body just hung over the sides of her body. Jeff got some good footage of all of this. Then she started moving again. She took us through some tangles of vegetation and then back out onto a trail where she struggled with Obama’s body. She looked so tired and I felt really bad for her. When the chimps split up, one FA stayed with us and Rosa and the other went with the other chimps. Jeff and the FA were eager to keep up with her and get good footage of her, but I was feeling too bad for her. I just wanted to hang back and give her space. She kept stopping to rest and sometimes was even dragging the body. Chimps travel on all 4 limbs and babies usually cling to their moms, which allow the moms to still travel with all their limbs. Obama wasn’t able to cling, obviously, so Rosa was struggling to keep hold of him and move down the trail. She eventually met back up with some other chimps in THV (thick ground vegetation that is a pain in the butt for researchers). When we got to this area, we found 2 other field assistants watching other chimps. We stayed with Rosa and Obama. At one point, she was up in a shrub and had Obama next to her on top of the vegetation. She was eating with one hand and resting her other hand on the top of his body (I think to keep track of it). Then she let go and started eating with both hands. It wasn’t long before the body started to move and the field assistants and I let out a collective “OOOH!” Rosa reached down through the vegetation and grabbed his hand just at the last second and pulled the body back up with her and held it. A little bit later, some other field assistants and the female researcher who is here right now showed up to watch Rosa. They had apparently lost their focal individual. At this point, there were something like 6 field assistants and a researcher and me and Jeff with this poor chimp. Apparently the field assistants and researcher were fine with this, but I wasn’t. So Jeff and I left. We had followed her around for several hours and Jeff had gotten lots of good footage for Emily.

The next day, vets from Kampala arrived at the field station to make arrangements for the necropsy. Rosa continued to carry Obama around, so they darted her on the third day, took some blood samples, and took the baby away from her. Most recent reports say that she is doing fine and that she is even starting to swell (aka – is getting ready to mate). And that is the story of Obama the chimp.