Tai and Its Afflictions

Abstract

Abstract This chapter talks about the Tai National Park in Ivory Coast, which provides the only long-term study of Western Chimpanzees wherein relations between neighboring groups are well investigated. The Park is 435,000 hectares of dense evergreen rainforest. Research findings from Tai expands the ongoing variation demonstration, with distinctive use of territory and intergroup clashes more sophisticated than any previous discussions. It recounts the three deadly intergroup assaults of male chimpanzees from 2002 to 2007 that disrupted Tai chimpanzee communities as two very young males fought their way to the peak and led the killings. The chapter document the anthropogenic destruction of Tai chimpanzee populations, beginning with leopards as a natural killer. Most reports about leopard predation come from 1985–1990, when there were twenty-nine observed or inferred chimpanzee–leopard interactions.