Chimpanzees may seem like friendly, cuddly creatures but they can pose a serious threat to humans as villagers are finding out in a virtual war with the animals.
A full-grown chimp can have up to five times the upper body strength of a man, says Dutch primatologist Frans de Waal: “People watch pro wrestlers on TV and think they are strong. But a pro wrestler would not be able to hold a chimpanzee still if they wanted to.
“Chimpanzee males have been measured as having five times the arm strength as a human male. Even a young chimpanzee of four or five years, you could not hold it still if you wanted to.”
He says that along with being powerful, they can be vicious: “They can show tremendous mutilation. They go for the face; they go for the hands and feet; they go for the testicles. To outsiders, they have very nasty behaviours.”
For a long time, the sheer power of chimpanzees was not a threat to humans, because the surprisingly intelligent animals were largely afraid of us and would hide rather than fight.
But now, with African settlements going and becoming ever closer to the chimps’ territories, that fear is disappearing. To be replaced by naked aggression – a virtual war has broken out in Uganda as the chimps have begun to push back at African expansion.
The animals, which have been known to use sticks and stones as weapons, particularly target children in their attacks.
Two-year-old Mujuni Semata was snatched by an adult male chimpanzee while the family were in their garden together and torn apart before his distraught parents could rescue him.
Attacks by chimps on African infants have continued, with at least three fatalities and half a dozen injuries or narrow escapes in the Muhororo area over the past few years.
In 2017, a toddler named Maculate Rukundo was snatched by chimps in the same area as her mum worked in the fields. She gave chase but backed off when she was faced with a whole troop of menacing chimpanzees.
By the time she returned with some of her fellow villagers Maculate lay dead in a pool of blood with her intestines spilling onto the ground where the animals had torn her belly open with their teeth.
There are countless other examples – babies and small children taken from their homes and killed or left with grievous injuries.
In one case, a father tried to prevent his child being snatched and had two fingers bitten off.
One notorious chimpanzee “serial killer” – nicknamed Saddam by fearful locals – was responsible for the deaths of at least seven babies.
He would tear open their bellies and eat parts of their intestines before discarding the bodies.
Saddam was eventually surrounded by hunters and shot to death at the scene of his final kill – the slaying of an 18-month-old girl.
Chimpanzees are protected by law in Uganda. It’s illegal to hunt or kill them, whether they are in a reserve or living wild in a forest.
Occasionally permission is given to destroy rogue males such as Saddam but there is evidence that locals frequently take the law into their own hands. Bodies of chimps showing signs of attack with spears and clubs are often found decomposing in the Ugandan forest.
This war is by no means one-sided.
British primatologist Matt McLennan tried to study the chimps in the area, to understand how the conflict between man and ape had arisen: “We found out pretty quickly that they didn’t like people inside the forest,” he told National Geographic. “Their strategy was to try to intimidate us. Which they did very effectively.”
McLennan found that the chimpanzees had lost their fear of humans as the forest had been cleared, and begun to react with the same kind of aggression as they would with a rival troop of chimps.
Wow so nothing is enough for those blacks anymore, they just keep expanding everywhere, even into chimp territory, even into Europe, everywhere….. but look chimps are standing their ground unlike dumb white people who invite them in and even give their daughters to them for marriage. Disgusting!
Those blacks should not be allowed to kill those poor chimps like they did with Saddam! Who cares how many infants he snatched? Why have they invaded chimp territory in the first place???? Chimps are an endangered species and if the Ugandans are allowed to kill the chimps then they will go extinct.
They should just retreat and go back to wherever the hell they came from.
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Chimps- going extinct. Blacks- dime a dozen. Right, blacks need to back off!
When the chimps reclaim Africa I will cheer.