ABSTRACT
Since finishing my PhD in May 2000, I have returned to Filoha six times, both to collect additional behavioral data and to collect samples for DNA analysis. One of the main questions I have been interested in since finishing my PhD research has been whether social relationships among hamadryas females are based on kinship. As discussed in Chapter 7, this question is critical to an understanding of the function of hamadryas female social relationships, as well as to a better understanding of patterns of dispersal, philopatry, and social organization among hamadryas as a whole. The issue of female kinship can only be addressed by collecting samples from individual females and then comparing levels of relatedness between dyads characterized by varying degrees of social interaction. While live capture and release has proven to be a successful means of sample collection in the Awash hybrid zone, it was discovered in 1997 and 2000 (when the Filoha group was trapped as part of the ANPBRP) that not only are female hamadryas extremely trap-shy (of about 70 individuals trapped at Filoha over the two seasons, only 6 were females), but trapping disrupts the hamadryas social structure in that leader males typically lose their females to other males when either the male or his female is trapped.
