ABSTRACT

I will never forget my first day back with the chimps in May 2011. I had left my study group in December 2010 after an eight-month field season, the longest time I had been able to spend with them since I first began my study of Fongoli chimps in 2001 in southeastern Senegal, West Africa. As I arrived at the chimp party, which was gathered around a feeding tree at Maragoundi ravine, I got the usual second glances (barely noticeable) that told me they had indeed noticed I hadn’t been here in a while, yet I was no stranger. For the first time, though, I was greeted by a pant-hoot from two-year-old Aimee. She and her mother sat on the edge of a feeding tree crown, seemingly hesitant to enter because of the dominant males there, and I assumed Aimee’s panthooting was because she was excited about the prospects of eating. But as she finished her loud call, she turned and looked down at me and held her hand out, as if for reassurance or greeting—or both. Her mother seemed to try and stifle her loud and frankly inappropriate pant-hoot, if it was indeed directed at me, but whether she was worried about Aimee associating too closely with me or inciting the ire of the dominant males feeding nearby, I wasn’t sure. I smiled but could do little else, for both scientific and practical purposes. A little more than a year earlier, I had actually carried Aimee back to her group after my project manager had rescued her from poachers in the nearby town. Whether she remembered me from that incident in particular or was just behaving as one normally would when someone (some chimp, usually) who hadn’t been seen in a while reappeared, or even whether she just wanted someone to share her excitement that day is something I’ll never know. I do know it was one of the best moments of my life and the best homecoming I’ve had at Fongoli. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315663128/54c3e972-826e-4738-9928-66a7bea73c91/content/map21_1_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>