“There is nothing like talking to a group of six-year olds about my work to remind me that I’ve got the coolest job in the world” says Zarin Machanda, PhD. When she was a kid, she dreamed of working with chimpanzees after watching a movie about chimps who were part of the space program. By the time she got to college, at McGill, she was planning a more practical career as a veterinarian. But “a perfect storm of events” led to volunteering at a wildlife sanctuary near Montreal where 15 chimpanzees had just been retired from biomedical research, at the same time when the only class that fit her schedule one semester was human evolution. She was hooked, and now works as a biological anthropologist running one of the longest-lasting research projects on chimpanzee life in Uganda, at Kibale National Park.
As a PhD student, Machanda studied evolutionary biology with Richard Wrangham, PhD, at Harvard University. Wrangham, another Lexington resident, founded the Kibale Chimpanzee Project in 1987. The project has kept records of the daily activities of a group of about 50-60 chimpanzees continuously since that time. Machanda took over running the research part of the project in 2008-09 when Wrangham stepped down.
What does the Kibale Project do? Field workers follow all chimpanzees for an entire day and record their activities every minute. Literally, a timer goes off every minute and the crew write down what the individual they’re following is doing at that time: traveling, eating, vocalizing, building a nest. This is no small task, since the home range of the group is about 25 sq km in the park (9.65 sq miles). Not all chimpanzees are followed every day, but on average, each primate is followed at least once a month or more. The field notes are then scanned and all the information organized and entered into databases.
At Kibale, Machanda does not have a specific question driving her work, but sees her job as an imperative “to document their lives before they go extinct.”
“I have hope we can keep them alive, but…” she trails off.
Machanda also teaches at Tufts University, where she does research in anthropology. She focuses on chimpanzee relationships and social bonds. For example, how do chimpanzees show that they like each other? How do male members of the group cooperate to hunt together? How do they use communication to signal and maintain social bonds? She has worked to determine what different individuals communicate to each other with their sounds — developing a sort of audio dictionary of chimpanzee sounds or vocalizations. Machanda, who frequently speaks to school groups, says the audio dictionary is a favorite topic of 4th graders, who love trying out to sound like a chimp.
What has been surprising about her work is that “conservation really does matter.” Habitat loss is one of the two main causes of chimpanzee death, the other being susceptibility to human disease. For this reason, outside guests are not allowed to the field site, though if you are visiting the area, a guest house run by a related non-profit is available outside the park. To people asking how to help, Machanda says donating to conservation efforts is always helpful. Another step is to be more conscious consumers, both of goods and social media. She cautions that videos or photos of “cute” baby wild animals interacting with humans can encourage the wild-life pet trade and “encourages the perception that they are not endangered animals.”
Machanda travels to Uganda for several weeks at least once a year, and hopes, once her kids, now ages 3 and 6, are older (and can listen to directions), to spend the summers there with them. And if she happens to be at Kibale on July 14, her birthday, she can celebrate together with the chimpanzees – July 14th is also World Chimpanzee Day.