The Semliki Chimpanzee Project

22/08/2026

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1423656762958800&set=a.390063529651467

Monkey feet are offering new clues about how the shared ancestor of humans and chimpanzees moved.

20/08/2026

01/08/2026

🐵⏰ Less than 12 Hours Left! ⏰🐵

There is still time to support the Semliki Chimpanzee Project and celebrate World Chimpanzee Day by purchasing one of our special fundraiser t-shirts!

Every shirt purchased helps support our work protecting wild chimpanzees in Uganda, including anti-poaching patrols, conservation education, and long-term research that contributes to chimpanzee conservation.

Chimpanzees continue to face threats from habitat loss, snares, and illegal hunting. Your support helps us make a real difference on the ground.

Get your shirt before the campaign ends! Wear your support for chimpanzee conservation. Help protect one of our closest living relatives.

Help us stop poaching?support ATVs for Semliki's chimpanzee protection patrols.. In honor of World Chimpanzee Day (July 14), the Semliki Chimpanzee Project is launching...

23/07/2026

"Social tolerance underpins cooperation in humans and other social animals, but its proximate drivers in short-term, competitive contexts remain poorly understood. Reassurance behaviours may enable individuals to pre-empt conflict and signal benign intent, facilitating social tolerance. We tested whether reassuring body contact during anticipation of a collective feeding event promotes cofeeding tolerance in our closest primate relatives. Using a controlled cofeeding paradigm across five semi-wild bonobo and chimpanzee groups (n = 116 individuals), we quantified pre-feeding affiliative contact and measured access to a restricted, depleting food zone. In both species, increased affiliative body contact enhanced subsequent cofeeding tolerance in most groups. Bonobo female–female pairs and chimpanzee male–male pairs engaged in more pre-feeding reassurance than other-sex pairings, aligning with species-specific predictions. However, these trends were only clear for socially tolerant groups. Likewise, vulnerable chimpanzee-specific kissing behaviours were more prevalent in a tolerant group. Our results reveal that reassuring contact may function as a flexible, short-term mechanism to mitigate contest competition and promote group-level tolerance. By identifying a proximate behavioural tool for managing competition in our closest cousins, our findings demonstrate the important role that friendly social behaviours play in negotiating the trade-off between competition and cooperation, as is essential to our own species’ survival."

Abstract. Social tolerance underpins cooperation in humans and other social animals, but its proximate drivers in short-term, competitive contexts remain p

23/07/2026

World Chimpanzee Day Fundraiser: Help Protect Semliki's Chimpanzees

Please like and share to help us spread the word

In honor of World Chimpanzee Day (July 14), the Semliki Chimpanzee Project is launching a special fundraising campaign to support one of our most urgent conservation needs: the purchase of all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) for our anti-poaching patrol teams.

For nearly three decades, the Semliki Chimpanzee Project has worked to study and protect the wild chimpanzees of Uganda's Toro-Semliki Wildlife Reserve. These chimpanzees face numerous threats, but one of the most immediate and persistent is poaching. Although chimpanzees are not always the intended targets, wire snares set for antelope, bush pigs, and other wildlife can cause devastating injuries, permanent disability, and even death. Every year, patrol teams spend countless hours searching for and removing snares before animals become victims.

The challenge is that the chimpanzees and other wildlife inhabit a vast landscape. The Semliki chimpanzees range across one of the largest known territories of any chimpanzee population, and patrol teams must navigate difficult terrain, including forests, grasslands, seasonal wetlands, and remote areas where illegal activities often occur.

ATVs would dramatically improve our ability to respond to conservation threats by allowing patrol teams to:

Cover larger areas more efficiently.
Increase the frequency of anti-poaching patrols.
Reach remote sections of the reserve quickly.
Remove snares and other traps before animals are injured.
Monitor chimpanzees and other wildlife more effectively.
Respond rapidly to reports of illegal hunting, logging, or encroachment.

Research and conservation go hand in hand at Semliki. Every day our team is in the field monitoring chimpanzees, collecting critical scientific data, and actively protecting wildlife. The presence of researchers and patrol teams serves as a powerful deterrent to poaching and habitat destruction.

This World Chimpanzee Day, we invite you to join us in safeguarding one of Africa's most unique chimpanzee populations. Your support will help provide the tools our field teams need to protect chimpanzees, preserve biodiversity, and ensure that future generations can continue to learn from and marvel at these remarkable animals.

Every donation helps. Every snare removed saves lives. Every mile patrolled brings us closer to a safer future for Semliki's chimpanzees.

Help us stop poaching?support ATVs for Semliki's chimpanzee protection patrols.. In honor of World Chimpanzee Day (July 14), the Semliki Chimpanzee Project is launching...

16/07/2026

https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1603390984488791&set=a.265130198314883

Like the millions of other people whose lives she touched, I miss Jane Goodall.

I had the honor of chatting with Dr. Goodall in the last year of her remarkable life. She told me a story I’d never heard before: about the time Elon Musk tried to pick a fight with her online, and failed miserably.

“He's the only person who's criticized me on social media,” she said. “Attacked me, almost. He accused me of wanting genocide. Simply because I said, you know, we can't have unlimited economic development if we carry on as we are, and the human population continues to grow.”

So Jane had a few words with Musk’s No. 2: “I said, ‘Why is your boss attacking me?” And he said, ‘Well, Elon's going to find this planet or make a planet habitable for humans. And he's afraid if the human population on planet Earth drops, then there won't be enough people for him to populate his new planet.’”

“Out there, political leaders, not only in America, other countries, too,” Jane said, “they are setting out, not deliberately to destroy the environment, but because they're carrying on as usual, they are taking more from nature than she can replenish. And I'm not going to give in to them. I mean, I won't. So the more damage they do, the harder I'll fight. And I've got literally hundreds of thousands of young people now, all feeling the same.”

You can watch my interview with Jane by clicking on the link in the comments.

14/07/2026

Today, on World Chimpanzee Day, we celebrate our closest living relatives and renew our commitment to their conservation. Chimpanzees share much of what makes us human—complex social relationships, intelligence, culture, and emotion. As we share this video of one of our beloved Semliki chimpanzees, we honor the legacy of Dr. Jane Goodall and the ongoing efforts to protect these extraordinary apes from poaching, habitat loss, and other threats. Every chimpanzee matters, and every action to protect them counts.

13/07/2026

World Chimpanzee Day Fundraiser: Help Protect Semliki's Chimpanzees

In honor of World Chimpanzee Day (July 14), the Semliki Chimpanzee Project is launching a special fundraising campaign to support one of our most urgent conservation needs: the purchase of all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) for our anti-poaching patrol teams.

For nearly three decades, the Semliki Chimpanzee Project has worked to study and protect the wild chimpanzees of Uganda's Toro-Semliki Wildlife Reserve. These chimpanzees face numerous threats, but one of the most immediate and persistent is poaching. Although chimpanzees are not always the intended targets, wire snares set for antelope, bush pigs, and other wildlife can cause devastating injuries, permanent disability, and even death. Every year, patrol teams spend countless hours searching for and removing snares before animals become victims.

The challenge is that the chimpanzees and other wildlife inhabit a vast landscape. The Semliki chimpanzees range across one of the largest known territories of any chimpanzee population, and patrol teams must navigate difficult terrain, including forests, grasslands, seasonal wetlands, and remote areas where illegal activities often occur.

ATVs would dramatically improve our ability to respond to conservation threats by allowing patrol teams to:

Cover larger areas more efficiently.
Increase the frequency of anti-poaching patrols.
Reach remote sections of the reserve quickly.
Remove snares and other traps before animals are injured.
Monitor chimpanzees and other wildlife more effectively.
Respond rapidly to reports of illegal hunting, logging, or encroachment.

Research and conservation go hand in hand at Semliki. Every day our team is in the field monitoring chimpanzees, collecting critical scientific data, and actively protecting wildlife. The presence of researchers and patrol teams serves as a powerful deterrent to poaching and habitat destruction.

Every donation helps. Every snare removed saves lives. Every mile patrolled brings us closer to a safer future for Semliki's chimpanzees.

https://www.bonfire.com/store/the-semliki-chimpanzee-project/

Shop with a Purpose. Wear Conservation. Support Chimpanzees. 🐒🌿

11/07/2026

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1527375179417081&set=a.658899779597963

On 16 July, join BES-Net, UNESCO LINKS and the Permanent Delegation of Colombia to UNESCO for an official side event during the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development Global Conference.

The event will feature Kofán representatives, National Natural Parks of Colombia and UNESCO partners in a dialogue on biocultural diversity, Indigenous knowledge, protected area governance and medicinal plant conservation.

Participants will also learn about the Ai’ Ingi Aindekhw documentary, a digital brochure on customary governance and a forthcoming photo archive developed through the BES Solution Fund project in Colombia.

📅 16 July 2026
🕓 16:50 to 18:05
📍 UNESCO Paris, Room IX
🌐 Hybrid, with English and Spanish interpretation

Register to join the conversation in Paris or online!
https://unesco-org.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_kdeXQaV-Q4-Fopk5qQpNaQ #/registration