Tag: chimpanzees

Tarangire - land of the giants - centuries-old baobab tree and elephant Copyrith Rupi Mangat

Tarangire National Park

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Part 2 of 2

By the river’s edge

Watch the drama

Published 14 October 2017 Saturday magazine Nation newspaper

Above: Tarangire – land of the giants – centuries-old baobab tree and elephant
Copyright Rupi

It’s stark dry – August at the height of the dry season. Tall and golden, the sun-bleached grass shimmers under the blazing sun interspersed with stoic baobabs and towering termite mounds.  We drive across the dry riverbed and into Tarangire National Park from the adjoining Randilen Wildlife Management Area and watch a family of banded mongoose playing around a termite mound.

Banded mongoose dig a grub-fest by Silale Swamp Copyright Rupi Mangat
Banded mongoose dig a grub-fest at Silale Swamp Copyright Rupi Mangat

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Playful young chimpanzee in Gombe National Park on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. Copyright Rupi Mangat

To Tanganyika

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For the chimpanzees (sokwe mtu in Kiswahili)

Published The East African Nation media 16-22 September 2017

Above: Playful young chimpanzee in Gombe National Park on the shores of Lake Tanganyika.  Copyright Rupi Mangat

When l heard Dr Jane Goodall talk in Nairobi about her ground-breaking pioneering chimpanzee research in Gombe it became my mission to get there in search of our closest relative whose DNA is 98 per cent like ours. It was Goodall who first documented chimpanzees using tools for a purpose – inserting sticks in a termite mound to fish out the insects for a snack – that made Louis Leakey the Kenyan paleoanthropologist quote famously, “Now we must redefine tool, redefine Man, or accept chimpanzees as humans” Continue reading “To Tanganyika” →

Chimpanzee baby playing in the forest Image by: Michael Nichols

Trying for Chimpanzees

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Discovering more of the Nile at Murchison Falls and looking for chimpanzees in Uganda

Published 19 August 2017 – Saturday magazine, Nation newspaper

Above: Chimpanzee baby playing in the forest – Image by: Michael Nichols

Part 2 of 2

“When the crocodile jumps into the boat, you jump out,” tells our guide on the sail to reach the base of Murchison falls.

The Nile crocodile on the banks of the Nile near Murchison Falls - copyright Rupi Mangat
The Nile crocodile on the banks of the Nile near Murchison Falls – copyright Rupi Mangat

The Nile crocodile is gigantic – almost 15 feet long lying still as a statue with gaping jaws revealing a set of sharp-pointed teeth. My childhood memory is of the banks lined with crocodiles – we see only four now.

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