As a group of scientists from Panthera gathered around to watch trail camera footage from Gabon’s Batéké Plateau National Park, they were hoping to catch a few glimpses of lions and leopards, the main subjects of their studies. As they started watching, though, they found footage of a chimpanzee — doing something no one had ever caught on camera before.
“What they found, instead, was an exceedingly rare video of a curious endangered female chimpanzee using a stick to investigate a remote camera,” Amanda Whalen, a PR representative, told The Dodo.
Gabon ANPN/Panthera/Gaboma Multimedia and Productions
The chimp was using the stick as a tool to explore and fiddle with the camera, and even though it wasn’t what the scientists had expected to find, it was arguably even better.
“It was probably the 100th or 150th video we had reviewed from the savannas and forests of the park, and all of a sudden the entire team let out a yell of excitement, as this was the first time we had seen footage as incredible as this in the park,” Alex Botha, a senior field technician on the Arabian Leopard Initiative at Panthera, told The Dodo.
Gabon ANPN/Panthera/Gaboma Multimedia and Productions
The fact that the trail camera had caught footage of an endangered animal like the chimpanzee was incredible in itself, proving that conservation efforts were indeed paying off. The chimp’s fascinating and adorable behavior was a fantastic added bonus.
While chimpanzees have been seen using tools before, they have traditionally been chimps who are used to humans, and even then, the behavior has mainly been seen in relation to food. To see a chimp who is not used to humans using a tool, not for food, but for curiosity has left the scientists in awe.
Gabon ANPN/Panthera/Gaboma Multimedia and Productions
“There is an entire publication devoted to the reaction of great apes to camera traps across
tropical Africa (Kalan et al. 2019),” Dr. Tobias Deschner, a primatologist with Osnabrück University, told The Dodo. “Interestingly, there hasn’t been any report in this publication on using tools to probe cameras. It seems, therefore, that this aspect is indeed very rare.”
In trying to determine whether the strange object might be dangerous, the curious chimp ended up making the scientists’ day.
Panthera/Gabon ANPN
The group was thrilled to see something so rare on camera, and were also proud to see that chimps were once again repopulating and living happily in the area.
“This footage is a testament to the conservation efforts in the landscape and highlight the importance of the increased patrol effort by local authorities, regular community engagement, and the wildlife monitoring program that has documented unique behaviours such as these, but most importantly, the growing populations of wildlife that have recolonized many areas that were once ravaged by poaching,” Botha said.
