The soundscape of a video is often as important as what you see to understand the context. These two adult male chimpanzees are feeding beside a road in eastern DRCongo, waiting to cross. Roads now partition most African forests and when busy, form a barrier to movement of animals. These apes though are used to human activity, having been habituated for tourism, and even pay little attention to the loud helicopter passing overhead, disturbing the peace of the forest - although it is in fact a UN peace-keeping helicopter. This community of chimpanzees lives in one of the most dangerous places on earth where few tourists venture - eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, #DRC.
Their forest, Tongo, is part of Africa's oldest national park, created in 1925 as the Parc National Albert when this was part of the Belgian Congo, and has been known since independence as Virunga National Park. Most famous for the mountain gorillas of the Virunga Massif, the park is far bigger than the eponymous volcanoes and is one of the most biodiverse in the world. Chimpanzees and a small population of Grauer's gorillas also live here, making it the only park in the world with four kinds of great ape - humans being the fourth (in taxonomic terms we are upright apes, sharing some 98-99% of our DNA with gorillas and chimpanzees). Sadly, some of the humans living in the park are geurrillas - several different armed rebel groups vie for control of the more remote parts of the park and surrounding area, murdering park staff and civilians all too frequently. Great efforts are under way to pacify the region and then rebuild the once successful tourism. Wildlife is central to the region's sustainable economic development, bringing benefits to the communities around the park. Thus, today's #BrightenYourDay video, the 60th to lift spirits in the #Covid19 #pandemic, is to show the world a less well known attraction of Virunga - the chimpanzees of Tongo.
Notice how the left-hand male, Kasongo, is not just eating the leaves he is gathering, he has made a wadge and is chewing and sucking it to extract the flavour - something done with certain species of food-plant, possibly for nutrients or medicinal value. Their prognathous jaw and mobile lips enable chimpanzees to look down and examine the wadge in the lower lip. This video gives a glimpse of how chimpanzees can go about their lives despite our roads and aircraft. We can but hope that they will still be there when visitors return, once it is safe from rebels and safe from the novel coronavirus.