War and peace in the Taï chimpanzee forest: running a long-term chimpanzee research project

Taï National Park's chimpanzees exhibit remarkable cultural diversity, including nut-cracking behavior and cooperative hunting, despite enduring significant ecological pressures such as human poaching and leopard predation. The Taï Chimpanzee Project (TCP), initiated in 1979, integrated ecology into the study of chimpanzee behavioral diversity, providing long-term data on rainforest-living chimpanzees. Over four decades, the project faced challenges including civil wars, recurrent poaching, and outbreaks of Ebola, anthrax, and respiratory diseases. Through habituation of three neighboring chimpanzee communities, local engagement, and robust law enforcement and health monitoring programs, the TCP ensured the survival of both the chimpanzees and the research project amidst extreme political instability and encroachment by cocoa and coffee plantations.

Boesch, C. (2019). War and peace in the Taï chimpanzee forest: running a long-term chimpanzee research project. The Chimpanzees of the Taï Forest, 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108674218.002