Vernon Reynolds

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Vernon Reynolds
Born14 December 1935
Alma materCollyer's School, Horsham University College, London
Known forStudy of chimpanzees, founder of the Budongo Conservation Field Station

Vernon Reynolds (born 14 December 1935) [1] is a British biological anthropologist known for his research on chimpanzee behavior and as founder of the Budongo Conservation Field Station. [2] He has been described as "...one of a trio of pioneers (Jane Goodall and Adriaan Kortlandt being the others) who founded field studies of chimpanzees in the 1960s." [3]

Contents

Education

Reynolds was educated at Collyer's School, Horsham and University College, London. [4]

He taught anthropology at the University of Bristol from 1966 to 1972, when he was appointed University Lecturer in Biological Anthropology at the University of Oxford. [4] He continued to teach at Oxford later becoming Professor and a Fellow of Magdalen College until his retirement in 2001. Today, he holds the title as Emeritus Professor. [4]

Research

Budongo Conversation Field Station

In 1990, Reynolds founded the Budongo Conservation Field Station (BCFS) in the Budongo Forest in Uganda. [2] The purpose of the station is to conduct scientific research on primates, lead conservation efforts, and serve as a model for sustainable rainforest management. [2]

Originally, the station was called the Budongo Forest Project when Reynolds studied and protected about 800 chimpanzees in the forest. [5] In 1988, as Uganda faced a civil war, Reynolds read a news report from a major Ugandan newspaper concerning chimpanzee infants being smuggled as pets for wealthy individuals in Dubai. [2] Motivated by the report, he spent the next year seeking funds to establish a base committed to research the chimpanzee population changes in the Budongo forest. [2] After securing initial funding from the Jane Goodall Institute, Reynolds' crew was able to construct trails in the forest to gain better access with the chimpanzees. [2]

Today, Reynolds remains involved with the BCFS serving in a supporting role as a member of the board of directors and as senior advisor. [6] [7]

Study on Chimpanzee Culture

In 1999, Reynolds, Jane Goodall, and his research team published an extensive study on the cultural variation of chimpanzees. [8] Their study expanded on some of the previously known chimpanzees' behavioral patterns. [8] The study revealed 39 behavioral patterns that differed in various communities. Reynolds and his team observed that certain behaviors such as grooming, courtship, and tool use, were present in various chimpanzee communities but absent in others. [8] The study described their cultural findings as drawing resemblance to human cultures, a feature that was once unapparent in other species. [8]

Books

The focus of Reynolds's 2005 book, The Chimpanzees of the Budongo Forest: Ecology Behaviour and Conservation, is on his 15 years account on the Sonso chimpanzee community. [6] [9] The Sonso community is a group of fifty chimpanzees that resides in the Budongo Forest. [10]

The book described the community's social organization, diet, culture, behavioral adaptations while living in the complex environment of the Budongo Forest. [9] Reynolds described the mating rituals, with the Sonso females arranging male to male competition rather than actively seeking males with the most desirable characteristics. [11]

Toward the end of the book, Reynolds discussed some of the threats that the Sonso community faced and issues with conservation efforts, including revenge huntings from hostilities with the local people and accidental killings from snares. [11] To improve the Sonsos' chance of survival, Reynolds called for the establishment of a buffer zone between the forests and the fields. [11] He also advocated educating the locals on chimpanzee conservation efforts. [11]

Awards

In 2020, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Primatological Society (IPS). [12] He was honored for his research, conservation contributions, and advancement of education toward non-human primates. [12]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chimpanzee</span> Great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa

The chimpanzee, also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed one. When its close relative the bonobo was more commonly known as the pygmy chimpanzee, this species was often called the common chimpanzee or the robust chimpanzee. The chimpanzee and the bonobo are the only species in the genus Pan. Evidence from fossils and DNA sequencing shows that Pan is a sister taxon to the human lineage and is humans' closest living relative. The chimpanzee is covered in coarse black hair, but has a bare face, fingers, toes, palms of the hands, and soles of the feet. It is larger and more robust than the bonobo, weighing 40–70 kg (88–154 lb) for males and 27–50 kg (60–110 lb) for females and standing 150 cm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Goodall</span> English primatologist and anthropologist (born 1934)

Dame Jane Morris Goodall, formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English primatologist and anthropologist. She is considered the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, after 60 years studying the social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees. Goodall first went to Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania to observe its chimpanzees in 1960.

<i>Pan</i> (genus) Genus of African great apes

The genus Pan consists of two extant species: the chimpanzee and the bonobo. Taxonomically, these two ape species are collectively termed panins. The two species were formerly collectively called "chimpanzees" or "chimps"; if bonobos were recognized as a separate group at all, they were referred to as "pygmy chimpanzees". Together with humans, gorillas, and orangutans they are part of the family Hominidae. Native to sub-Saharan Africa, chimpanzees and bonobos are currently both found in the Congo jungle, while only the chimpanzee is also found further north in West Africa. Both species are listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and in 2017 the Convention on Migratory Species selected the chimpanzee for special protection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gombe Stream National Park</span> National park in Tanzania

Gombe Stream National Park is a national park in Kigoma District of Kigoma Region in Tanzania, 16 km (10 mi) north of Kigoma, the capital of Kigoma Region. Established in 1968, it is one of the smallest national parks in Tanzania, with only 35 km2 (13.5 sq mi) of protected land along the hills of the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika. The terrain is distinguished by steep valleys, and the vegetation ranges from grassland to woodland to tropical rainforest. Accessible only by boat, the park is most famous as the location where Jane Goodall pioneered her behavioural research on the common chimpanzee populations. The Kasakela chimpanzee community, featured in several books and documentaries, lives in Gombe National Park.

The Goualougo Triangle, is a 100-square-mile (260 km2) region on the southern end of the Nouabale-Ndoki National Park, located in the Republic of Congo, in Central Africa. The northern Congo lowland forest ecosystem of the park is one of the most intact fauna habitats of its type in Africa. Populations of several endangered or threatened species are found here, including forest elephants, western lowland gorillas and a high density of common chimpanzees.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Goodall Institute</span> Global wildlife and environment conservation organization

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adriaan Kortlandt</span> Dutch ethologist

Prof. Dr. Adriaan Kortlandt was a Dutch ethologist. He has been described together with Vernon Reynolds and Jane Goodall as "...one of a trio of pioneers ... who founded field studies of chimpanzees in the 1960s."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ugandan red colobus</span> Species of Old World monkey

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Barbara Boardman Smuts is an American anthropologist and psychologist noted for her research into baboons, dolphins, and chimpanzees, and a Professor Emeritus at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

The Kasekela chimpanzee community is a habituated community of wild eastern chimpanzees that lives in Gombe National Park near Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania. The community was the subject of Jane Goodall's pioneering study that began in 1960, and studies have continued ever since, becoming the longest continuous study of any animals in their natural habitat. As a result, the community has been instrumental in the study of chimpanzees and has been popularized in several books and documentaries. The community's popularity was enhanced by Goodall's practice of giving names to the chimpanzees she was observing, in contrast to the typical scientific practice of identifying the subjects by number. Goodall generally used a naming convention in which infants were given names starting with the same letter as their mother, allowing the recognition of matrilineal lines.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Budongo Forest</span> Forest in Uganda

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References

  1. ↑ "Reynolds, Vernon". Library of Congress Name Authority File. Retrieved 15 September 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Budongo Conservation Field Station - BCFS | The History of Budongo". Budongo Conservation Field Station - BCFS. Retrieved 10 May 2020.
  3. ↑ McGrew, William C. (August 2006). "Chimpanzees of the Budongo Forest, Uganda". Primate Conservation. 21: 179–180. doi: 10.1896/0898-6207.21.1.179 .
  4. 1 2 3 "Dr Vernon Reynolds". Magdalen College Oxford. Retrieved 15 September 2018.
  5. ↑ "Dept. of Primatology | Budongo Conservation Field Station". www.eva.mpg.de. Retrieved 22 May 2020.
  6. 1 2 CTPH. "Prof. Vernon Reynolds". APS Conference. Retrieved 22 May 2020.
  7. ↑ "Budongo Conservation Field Station - BCFS | Meet the team - Board". Budongo Conservation Field Station - BCFS. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Whiten, A.; Goodall, J.; McGrew, W. C.; Nishida, T.; Reynolds, V.; Sugiyama, Y.; Tutin, C. E. G.; Wrangham, R. W.; Boesch, C. (June 1999). "Cultures in chimpanzees". Nature. 399 (6737): 682–685. Bibcode:1999Natur.399..682W. doi:10.1038/21415. ISSN   1476-4687. PMID   10385119. S2CID   4385871.
  9. 1 2 Reynolds, Vernon (2008). The chimpanzees of the Budongo Forest : ecology, behaviour, and conservation. Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN   978-0-19-851546-3. OCLC   837606687.
  10. ↑ "A visit to Budongo Conservation Field Station". perso.telecom-paristech.fr. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Hashimoto, Chie (18 June 2007). "Vernon Reynolds. The Chimpanzees of the Budongo Forest: Ecology, Behaviour and Conservation: Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005. 314 pp". Primates. 48. doi:10.1007/s10329-006-0028-8. S2CID   34803049.
  12. 1 2 "Budongo Conservation Field Station - BCFS | IPS awards BCFS Founder". Budongo Conservation Field Station - BCFS. Retrieved 10 May 2020.
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