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As a result, park officials now limit chimp-watching groups to six and a guide, all of whom must stay at least ten meters from the animals. Trackers go out before wake in the morning; look for nests, droppings, and fruit scraps; and radio back as soon as they locate chimps. Depending on where they have been feeding, reaching the chimps may involve a five-minute boat-ride down the beach or a four-hour hike toward a mountain summit. Once we reach the ten-meter limit, we must don surgical masks and content ourselves with onr hour of observation per day - regulations intended to reduce the risk of contangion. "Keep track of your belongings, because some of the chimps are curious and have not heard about ten-meter rule", Kabeth quips.
In the morning Kabeth brings news that the trackers have located Pimu, M-group's current alpha male, a thirty-minute walk behind the camp. "Be ready to go in ten minutes", he says. "If Pimu decides to move, the others will follow. Chimps travel fast, so they might be hours away if we delay."
Carrying cameras, rain ponchos, water bottles, and our surgical masks, we enter the forest along paths covered in dead leaves, clambering over fallen branches and under huge creepers, using walking sticks to ease stiff hips and knees. Where I see a wall of green, Kabeth sees a salad bar and a pharmacy. There are primitive three-leafed cabbages, fragrant ginger, wild licorice; plants that can ease difficult births or induce abortions; and those that can relieve diarrhea, malaria, and tuberculosis.He shows a sticky-furred aspilia leaves that chimps roll and swallow whole to rid their systems of parasites, and tiny, blue, cup-shaped flowers that the Batongwe people, who once shared the forest, squeezed for eye-drops. One of the more than 500 plant and tree species, Mahale chimps eat 128 and use 123 as medicines.
The members of M-group don't always gather in a big group, but they recognise one another's voices. Obsessive pant-granting (the soft call chimps use to show submission) and pant-hooting (rapid screams broken by sharp intakes of breath conveying excitement) are the chimpanzee equivalent of IM-ing, indicating to both chimps and researchers who is hanging out with whom, or who's uo or who's down on the social ladder. We hear their pant-hoots before we see the three male chimps - bigger than I have ever seen in captivity, with barrel chests and massive arms and thighs - knuckle-running down the path. Pimu, the twenty-one-year-old alpha animal, is trailed by Primus, the number three, and Orion, whom Kabeth recognizes by the white scar on his glossy black back.
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