Measuring Hair Cortisol Concentrations to Assess the Effect of Anthropogenic Impacts on Wild Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

Non-human primates face major environmental changes due to increased human impacts all over the world. Although some species are able to survive in certain landscapes with anthropogenic impact, their long-term viability and fitness may be decreased due to chronic stress. Here we assessed long-term stress levels through cortisol analysis in chimpanzee hair obtained from sleeping nests in northwestern Uganda, in order to estimate welfare in the context of ecotourism, forest fragmentation with human-wildlife conflicts, and illegal logging with hunting activity (albeit not of primates), compared with a control without human contact or conflict. Concerning methodological issues, season [F(2,129) = 37.4, p < 0.0001, r2 = 0.18] and the age of nests [F(2,178) = 20.3, p < 0.0001, r2 = 0.11] significantly predicted hair cortisol concentrations (HCC). With regard to effects of anthropogenic impacts, our results neither showed elevation of HCC due to ecotourism, nor due to illegal logging compared to their control groups. We did, however, find significantly increased HCC in the fragment group compared to chimpanzees living in a nearby intact forest [F(1,88) = 5.0, p = 0.03, r2 = 0.20]. In conclusion, our results suggest that hair cortisol analysis is a powerful tool that can help understanding the impact of anthropogenic disturbances on chimpanzee well-being and could be applied to other great ape species.