Diving Forest Elephants

Dateline: Kessala, Gabon  8 October 2011

Cantilevered out over the Mpassa River, the platform provides a wonderful view of a bend in the river and the sandbar surrounded by places for elephants to drink mineral water. From here we can see the ARU (autonomous recording unit) that we have used to monitor elephant activity over the last two years.

In most particulars this site is just like any other 'bai': mineral access, an opening where family units can meet and interact, a place where individuals can find mates. But different because it is a big river with a strong current. Last night a nice big male with heavy tusks was up to his hips in the river when we arrived. Over and over again he first squatted down, then apparently knelt on the river bottom in order to get his trunk down into a mineral pit. At times he was completely under, but his butt kept popping up and an occasional tail-twitch gave away his position. (I will put a video here when I get somewhere that can handle the upload!)

A bit later in the afternoon a female group arrived; two adult females each with a calf. On of these calves ws probably 7-8 years old, the other maybe about 4 years. Strange that there was not a very young calf with either female. The group materialized across the deep channel where the male was diving and immediately went into the river. They swam a bit, then the females got to a point where they could stand. The two calves kept going toward the middle of the river and the sand bar. I expect they didn't like fighting the current where their mothers stopped to drink - perhaps exhausting for them to hold their position against the current when their feet barely touched bottom and with their lighter bodies.

A few years ago Nicolas Bout, a colleague of mine here in Gabon, observed this 'diving' behavior and wrote a short note for publication, interpreting that the elephants were after minerals. Some reviewer of the note rejected this as unconfirmed so the note was refused. But my video clearly shows identical behavior sequences to elephants in typical forest clearings. The females were sometimes in shallower water where is was clear that they were on their knees (as often seen in the Dzanga clearing in Central African Republic), forcefully pushing trunks into the bottom of the river, blowing out air and then pausing. Then up to drink. I think I will have to join forces with Nicolas and submit the note again!

They Stick it to Elephants

Dateline: Franceville, Gabon 7 October 2011

Elephants. The biggest land mammal on earth. Forest elephants might not be quite the largest of the three species, but surely they are the most mysterious. How can something so big be so poorly known? I’m just back from a few days in the Precious Woods forestry concession north of Lastourville, Gabon. Five years ago we started recording elephant calls at several clearings within a day’s walk of Ivindo National Park, and one of these, we found, has more elephants visiting at some times of year than any other known location in Gabon. That time of year is now, and yet we didn’t see many animals. Is it all explained by a somewhat late start to the rainy season? Have we unwittingly changed the pattern of visitation by establishing a regular monitoring program here (it is a small opening and probably holds our scent like a brandy snifter holds alcohol fumes)? Is it because of logging activity in the area 18 months ago? What really drives these animals to visit clearings in the first place – or the second or third?

We did have a lovely male come in just a few minutes before dark, and with a waxing moon we had a tantalizingly lit stage before us, showing flowing shapes enough to know that others came after dark, although we could hear that well enough. Still the forest was relatively quiet in terms of pachyderms, and perhaps this explains the decidedly unquiet time I am having right now.

There is something else that populates the forests of Gabon, not so big, but likely keenly aware of when forest elephants are numerous and when they are not. This is the elephant tick – a tiny beast less than the diameter of a pin head. How this arachnid, so minute in size, can specialize as an ectoparasite on the tough, thick, skin of an elephant is perhaps a wonder of nature – but when elephants are scarce these little beasts find easy sustenance on Peter Wrege! Always I get some of these on me, part of what comes with working in rainforests with elephants. Unfortunately my reaction seems to be getting increasingly severe and sometimes the bites last as itchy welts for well over six months (the ticks themselves usually drop off on their own, perhaps in disgust at having attached to the wrong host). On this particular excursion we hiked to the bai and then slept there the night – no opportunity to limit the damage by washing away some of the attackers with an evening bath. So I’m covered now and not all that happy about it – I’m sure the ticks and I would both be happier with a few more elephants to focus on.

Déjà Vu

Dateline: Gabon 27 September 2011

What a surprise, this morning, to find a little bit of my past right here before the house where I am staying in Iguela. One of the constant joys of coming to Loango National Park is that several species of bee-eaters are found here. I studied one of this spectacular family of birds for eight years in Kenya back in the 1980’s and always it is a pleasure to see others on my travels.

While boating through the delta of the Ogooue River on the way to Iguela, and again along the Ngowe River a few days ago, rosy bee-eaters were swooping around in the air and dipping into the water for a drink or a bath-on-the-wing. This is certainly one of the most elegant of the bee-eater species (in a family of beauties), with a mourning gray back and wings contrasting the gorgeous rosy throat, breast and belly. The other common species is one of the little ones, the blue-breasted bee-eater, which likes the open areas of savannah edges. This is the one that so pleased me this morning.

Bee-eaters are so named because they are specialists at eating venomous insects like bees and wasps, although they also eat just about any flying insect of a suitable size. Most of the species, including the blue-throated, sally forth from a perch to snap up flying insects, returning to their perch to whack them against the perch before eating or feeding them to nestlings (or their mate). All bee-eaters nest in holes that they dig themselves – the one that I studied in Kenya nested colonially in vertical earthen banks, sometimes hundreds all together. Others, like the rosy bee-eater, are also colonial but nest in the ground, digging a burrow more than a meter long with an expanded nesting chamber at the end. The smallest bee-eaters, like the blue-breasted, tend to be solitary nesters and dig their holes in small ridges of earth, or the tops of aardvark holes, or even just in the ground. A pair of blue-breasted bee-eaters forages in the edges of a savannah area behind the house here in Iguela. I have seen them on other trips and have always enjoyed taking a coffee or tea out on the back steps to sit and watch their foraging antics.

So this morning I was having coffee and enjoying the cool of early morning without anyone else up in the compound when I noticed that the pair were catching prey and processing them on the perch, but then flying off again without eating them. For sure this indicated they were feeding nestlings. Much to my surprise, I followed one around the side of the house and saw it go into a hole dug into the ground not 15 feet in front on the house! I have been here for two days and never noticed this happening. Where were by observer’s eyes?

So it has been great fun to get a little bit of video of this pair coming to their nest hole, and remembering the fantastic experiences I had living in Nakuru National Park, Kenya, following the complex social lives of white-fronted bee-eaters. 

Ngowe Supreme

Dateline: Gabon, 23 September 2011

The familiar scene unfolded around me – sound and vibration of the 25hp outboard motor (least favorite), the coolness of air motion (and consequent freedom from tsetse flies), the edges of the Ngowe River flowing past, sometimes a close bank of papyrus or white mangrove and sometimes more of a vista across swampy grasses to the forest edge at slightly higher elevation. I have been along this river many times coming from, or going to, the Akaka Camp. It is a favorite path because of the lovely scenes it offers and the multitude of water-loving birds that are startled up by the passing boat. Always also a little frustrating not to have more time to poke around and try for some photographs or video. The brilliant turquoise of a malachite kingfisher as it streaks across the river and into hiding in the mangroves. Squako herons and anhingas everywhere. Palm-nut vultures and African fish eagles. And especially finfoots!

But this particular voyage down to Akaka was destined to be the very best that ever I have had. Although the rainy season should have begun here already, it was still surprisingly dry. This means that the extensive swamps that line the Ngowe were relatively firm because the river level was below the bank – and that means elephants. Once again I am surprised at how suddenly these huge animals can appear when encountering them in the equatorial habitats of Central Africa. A winding River and mangrove/papyrus-lined banks make for startling and dramatic appearances. Our first bull loomed up on the right not more than 30 feet away – nearly black with his wet hide. He was a bit startled too but held his ground. Only one or two kilometers further along we came upon hippos in the river, first a group of three then a larger group of at least five or six. Lieth, our ecoguard, was clearly not very happy to be on the river with these large and sometimes aggressive animals. He was not willing to slow down or to stop and swung the boat wide to the opposite side of the river (still only 25-30 feet away) to pass. It is true that these animals will sometimes walk along the bottom of a river and then surface under a boat – throwing everyone into the water and extreme danger. Still, I wish we could have stopped at a safe distance to watch, then perhaps approach as seemed prudent. Near Akaka a family of elephants appeared – five or six we think, but there could have been small ones invisible in the tall grasses. These were less interested in remaining close to a noisy boat and humans, moving off a little and testing the air for our scent.

After arriving at the camp we had time to make the relatively short hike to where our acoustic recorder was hanging (‘ARUs’ we call them, after Autonomous Recording Unit). Along the trail we had just worked our way around a tree fall blocking the path when we saw a big bull elephant coming along the trail toward us. I don’t think he was aware of us yet, and we backtracked a little then took a wide detour to the side of the trail to continue on.

The ARU was hanging on a particularly high limb – perhaps about 40 feet up. Ghislain, my protégé, wanted me to do the climbing. He went up for the first unit we processed on this day and he really struggles on the climb. He is a heavy man and the climbing harness is not big enough to get over his belly to be secured higher on the torso where it belongs. This means that when he sits down in the harness during the climbing process, too much of his body mass is above the attachment point and he tips backwards more than optimal. Each move up the rope thus requires that he pull up his own body first to vertical, then make the incremental gain on the rope itself. Exhausting. It is an exhausting process even without this extra effort.

Anyway, we did not get the rope positioned really optimally and it took a bunch of throws to get it even there. Then I had a problem with the prussic climbing knot, which refused to grip properly for the climb. In the end we pulled everything down and got the rope into a better position and then I used a different system to climb to the ARU. All of this was taking more time than we expected and it was important, with the number of elephants around, to get back to camp well before dark. But we did manage to get the job done and had no encounters on the hike back.

Best of all, as we were preparing something to eat (actually Lieth and Ghislain were doing the honors), three elephants approached the river bank directly opposite the platform we were sitting on. The sun was setting and the scene had that beautiful softness of light that makes this time of day so special. Birds were calling more than usual as they headed for roost – especially flocks of African grey parrots and black-casqued hornbills. One by one the elephants slipped into the river and began to swim across not quite toward us. It was phenomenal! When the river got deep enough, they completely submerged. Then only the crowns of their heads appeared, along with their trunks for a sip of air, before disappearing below the water surface again. Fantastic!

With friends like these...

Dateline: Gabon, September 20 2011

The logistics of travelling in Gabon are never easy and always uncertain, it seems. AndI have not learned my lessons very well because always I schedule a little too tight for comfort. The objective this time was the little village of Iguela, on the north side of a lagoon that marks the northern boundary of Loango National Park. This park is on the coast of Gabon and one of the most diverse that I have seen: beaches, swamps, gallery forest, strips of savannah, rivers and lagoons, and some fairly extensive continuous forest. I was travelling here with Ghislain, the Gabonese man who is learning how to do all of the acoustic monitoring work for the Wildlife Conservation Society with whom I collaborate.

For about a month I have been setting up the timing of this trip, although nothing certain was really much agreed before I actually got to Gabon. But the dates of our mission got set and I had arranged for places to stay before and after entering the park. The first change was that we had to leave by plane from Libreville to Port Gentil Tuesday afternoon instead of Wednesday morning. This required quickly figuring out where to stay overnight because our boat-taxi through the delta of the Ogooue River to a town north of Iguela travels only on Wedesday, Friday, and Saturday (in that direction). Fortunately, I had become friends with a French couple who had once managed the Loango Lodge, a sometimes tourist destination on the edge of Loango N.P. They own a hotel in Port Gentil and have a sort of inconveniently placed room at this hotel that normally they don’t rent out and instead make available at no cost to researchers traveling to and from Loango. So I called him and he said ‘no problem’, you can stay at my house (which I thought he meant as the hotel – his English is excellent, but occasionally there are words used in a bit different way). “Call me when you get to Port Gentil.”

So we arrived and made our way to the hotel, where I requested at the desk about the room being reserved for us. No such reservation, so I called Philippe. Turns out he was going to put me up at his home after all. But when he joined us, and asked our plans, he said that the boat-taxi was not going the next day because ‘there were not enough packs’. Basically this outfit cancels any trip if there are not a quarum of passengers. I had made the mistake of trying to do this trip, both going and coming, in the middle of the week when there are often not enough passengers!

Fortunately for us, Philippe knows many people in Port Gentil and called to confirm that the Olako boat was almost certainly not going and was able to make arrangements with one of the petroleum companies working in the delta to take us on one of their boats going south with materials.

I had a wonderful evening with Philippe and his family, good conversation, and began developing some ideas to use acoustic monitoring on a pet project of his. He was leaving early the next morning for Libreville, but made arrangements for a colleague to get Ghislain and me to the right place with our gear (Ghislain knows some people in Port Gentil and opted to stay with them instead of at Philippe’s house).

What I also found out was that he had arranged to purchase some huge piece of machinery like a caterpillar tractor, was arranging to take this south through the delta to the same place we were going (Omboue), where he was going to let the town use it in garbage cleanup and maintenance! He has a piece of property between Omboue and Iguela, on the beach, where he hopes to encourage some research and perhaps some tourism, but he also is very motivated to work with and for the people who live locally in the area. He genuinely wants to help them, and in turn, they help him – and people like me are fortunate beneficiaries.
Find out more of what Philippe and Sylvie are doing in gabon: www.fondation-liambissi.org (and polish up your French!).

July 10^th,

Mboti (I think)!

Yesterday, Tomo walked me through the neighboring village of Bomassa. This village currently has 700 people living in it. The houses range from fairly sound wood structures the people obtained from the logging concession that was here a little while ago, to clay and stick structures, to branch and leaf huts. The village is a mixture of pygmies who have inhabited this region for a long time, and people who emigrated here from other areas of nearby forest as a result of pressures put on their villages. There is a Christian church and one other church (not sure which one) and a small school, each a simple wood building with one large room. WCS built the school and are currently building a hospital for the villagers. Most of the people are wearing modern clothes, well, comparatively so to traditional dress. Chickens and goats run all over the place and I assumed they served as a main food source for the village. I was wrong. They sacrifice these animals for rituals, but don’t eat them. That was likely what I heard several nights ago as they were chanting and drumming. They still prefer to hunt their food rather that raise it and wait for it to be mature enough to eat. There was an elephant skull randomly placed in the grass by a hut. Apparently an elephant body washed up from the river. The face was clearly hacked and tusks were long gone. I’m not indicating that this was an act of poaching, though that is a huge problem here, but who ever found the body made sure to quickly get those tusks.

I brought my digital SLR through the village and was told it was completely fine for me to take pictures. I still felt weird about it, to some extent disrespectful, but Tomo assured me the people were fine with it. I snapped away. Most people seemed ok and didn’t care, though some certainly glared at me, understandably so. There was one group of children who were thrilled. They clustered together and posed for a picture that they insisted I take. These kids were adorable! I showed them the photo; they giggled and pointed at one another, then shyly ran away but peeked around the corner of a building shortly after in hopes of having another.

Today Davy, Arbon, Kobo (the guide) and I went on a hike…. To say the least. We took a motorized pirogue down the Sangha River to a village called Monbongo. From the village, we walked to a small bai where not much was going on, so we continued on. We were in search of Monbongo Bai, and our guide Kobo knows exactly where to take us, or so we thought. To start, we hike along a dirt road and notice a lot of animal tracks. Arbon and Davy point out bongo, wild cat, gorilla, leopard, and elephant tracks, all within several feet of one another. These tracks were no older than 24 hours. The elephant tracks were the freshest, just a few hours old. We follow the elephant tracks into the dense brush of the Congolese rainforest. Kobo, with machete in hand, hacks away at the brush that keeps us from following the elephant tracks. At this point we aren’t even on a trail. He knows this forest so well, he doesn’t need a trail.

We follow muddy footprints, charge through leaves of huge tropical plants, climb over fallen trees, dodge giant piles of fresh buffalo ad bongo dung. I’m still wearing my Reef flipflops because my boots are in Brazzaville. “You’re strong”, Arbon tells me. Huh? He goes on to say that not many people can tolerate the jungle, especially in sandals. “Bobbi: Forest Girl”, he states. He’s impressed at my success of conquering every nearly-impassible obstacle with ease. Apparently I’ve got some pretty good forest skills. Brownie points for this middle-class America chick!

We get to a green pool of water. Arbon explains that the color is a result of animal dung polluting the water. So this whole muddy area is basically animal dung! We keep walking. My cat-like reflexes allow me to stealthily avoid the deep mud puddles, “Arbon says’ “wow!”. I must admit I was feeling pretty good, a little too good. My feet are clear from scrapes and clean of the mud…splat! I completely submerged my right foot in the mud of an elephant track. I yank my foot out, but lose my sandal. Davy grabs it for me and Arbon runs to me and douses my foot with water while Davy washes my sandal with his water. “The mud is bad, it causes itch and hurt”. Great. I’m terrified of parasites; I’ve been wearing sandals in the shower just to be safe. Now my foot is practically crawling with them, I’m sure. At this point, I might as well bathe in the stuff; maybe have some for lunch?

After 2 hours, Davy and Arbon start to question if Kobo knows where the bai is. We should have been there by now. They talk with Kobo and decide it’s better if we head back. A toe on my right foot begins to sting…. awesome. We make a new trail back as Kobo hacks away. Suddenly he stops, we all pause. There’s a loud, low grumbling creature no more than 7 yards ahead, but we don’t see it yet. Kobo inches closer to the source and suddenly leaves start rustling as whatever it is moves away. Arbon sends Kobo after it. A minute later, Kobo sends us a signal that it’s OK to proceed, then tells us to stop. There are five wild pigs eating no too far from us. I barely see the rear-end and flicking tail of one. They spook when they hear us again, and bolt away. I blame my MC Hammer pants again, because it’s so easy. Though the mud is certainly camouflaging the bright yellow. We also encounter two bongo in the same manner, and they sprint away after I catch a glimpse of an ear. We make our way back to Monbongo Village three hours after we set out into the forest, then hop in the pirogue and make our way back to Bomassa camp. I immediately shower the dried elephant dung/mud off my foot.

On the bright side, I got my luggage back today!! :-)

Greetings from Brazzaville, Congo!

It is day 5 of my travels and I am adjusting to the time shift surprisingly well (5hr's ahead of EST), probably because I was so exhausted from traveling that my whole sleep schedule (if there ever was one) has been reset. Things are going well so far, mostly. My luggage did not make it with me to Brazzaville on Saturday, which unfortunately means that I will have to wait until Thursday before going to my next destination (Ouesso) because flights are only two days a week, and I had to miss Sunday’s flight to get my bags. Luckily they arrived yesterday, yay! Finally I can wear some clean clothes after three days of flying and staying in hot places. Casablanca, Morocco was paralyzingly hot, and the airport was even worse! Needless to say, with no clean clothes, no toiletries, and a lot of heat, I became pretty nasty. You wanted to know that, right?

Anyway, I am spending the next several days hanging out in Brazzaville before flying to Ouesso on Thursday. From there I will immediately take a pirogue up the Sangha River for several hours before making it to Bomassa, the main camp. I will spend a day or two in Bomassa arranging the final logistics for the trip and finally head to Mbeli camp where I will stay for about thirty-five days. From the camp, it is a short (4km) hike to the observation platform. That’s the plan so far, so we’ll see what happens.

Final destination: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Nouabal%C3%A9-Ndoki+National+Park,+Sangha,+Congo&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=41.903538,71.630859&t=h&z=10

This trip has already been delayed by nearly two weeks, so at this point, anything can still happen. Fingers crossed that it gets somewhat smoother from here on out!

Best,
Bobbi


View from the case de passage, where I am staying in Brazzaville

Tags: bioacoustic, brazzaville, congo, cornell, elephant, mbeli

Bonjour!

My name is Bobbi Estabrook. I work on behalf of the Elephant Listening Project (ELP) in the Cornell University Bioacoustics Research Program. Over the next couple of months, I will be in the Republic of Congo and will monitor Africa forest elephants. The research will take place at a forest clearing, Mbeli bai, located within Nouabale-Ndoki National Park in northern Congo. From there, I will monitor elephants during the day and night using both acoustic recording devices and thermal imaging technology.

Here is a brief synopsis of how this project should work: Eight acoustic recorders will be set up around the perimeter of the bai (the “acoustic array”) and will record continuously for thirty days. Those recordings will eventually allow us to locate the source of a vocalizing individual within the array, at which point we hope to ID the individual and determine if it is a male, female, juvenile, adult, etc, using thermal imaging technology. A thermal camera will be used during the study to capture both day and, more importantly, nighttime activity of the elephants in the bai. With this technology, we will hopefully be able to count the number of elephants in the bai at a given time and ID individuals based on physical features picked up by the thermal camera. Overall, this information will give us a better understanding of how the elephants use forest clearing, when they tend to visit the clearing, and who within their subpopulation, tend to frequent the bai most often. This study will also allow us to strengthen our use of acoustic monitoring as well as explore the potential benefits of thermal imaging in a conservation context.

I hope to see a lot of elephants and gorillas at Mbeli Bai. Mbeli bai is monitored by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and I am lucky enough to be collaborating with them on this project. The acoustic recordings collected during this study will contain the recorded vocalizations of nearly any vocalizing species in the area, including western lowland gorillas; a keystone species that WCS-Congo focuses most of their conservation efforts on. I will train some of their members on sound analysis during my stay at Mbeli, so I’m pretty excited to be able to help them out.

I will try and keep you posted as much as possible as things progress. I will surely take many photographs and a few videos during my travels and observation shifts, so I look forward to sharing those with you. I hope you are all well!

Bonne continuation,
-Bobbi

It’s the FOREST, stupid!

Dateline: 29 April 2011 – Bambadie

Finally into the forest again – elephants, duikers, gorillas, birds, and lots of trees. This trip has had too much teaching and meetings to plan the future and sitting in various modes of transportation and not enough elephants! While all is important, and I knew it would be this way ahead of time, still it is rejuvenating for me to hike in the forest and connect with the environment we are working to save.

Today we deployed an ARU in the 5km wide buffer zone where the Precious Woods forestry concession shares a boundary with Ivindo National Park. I’m not entirely sure what this means in terms of logging activity (and Precious Woods might have logged this area before the designation of a buffer zone) but the Wildlife Conservation Society wants to monitor hunting activity here. The ‘cascade bai’, where we recorded elephants in 2007-2009, and where two elephants were recently shot, is only a few kilometers from this buffer.

Certainly there are plenty of old logging roads penetrating into the buffer zone, nearly all now closed off with huge tree-trunks pulled into place as they finished work here. Fortunately we had an employee from the company with us, with his huge chain saw, because at least three times our access road would have been impassable because of tree-falls. After several hours of stop and go driving we reached the place just outside of the buffer zone where the road was permanently blocked because a bridge had been destroyed. From here we walked about six kilometers to where we put the ARU.

The same path we walked was used recently by not only elephants, but lots of red river forest hogs, duikers of a couple of species, and a young leopard. Although we did see one old poacher camp there were no recent footsteps in the road (but lots of recent rain would have washed away anything more than a few days old). We had one wonderful encounter with an elephant along the edge of the old road.

Delays getting to the jump-off point and some pretty steep topography made me decide to put the ARU less far into the buffer zone than I had hoped. But we will get good information one way or the other.

Night on the town

Dateline: 23 April – Port Gentil

She had a real presence. You could feel her command as head of the household but very much a mother as well. Her mostly grey hair was straight, short, and swept back giving a hint of the leonine, and smallish straight teeth that flashed with her frequent smiles and dimpled cheek.

We were somewhere on the edges of Port Gentil (‘pour jauntee’) visiting the family of a friend of Ghislain, the new acoustics intern that I am training. The friend is in university in England but clearly Ghislain was special to the whole family. The ‘establishment’ was very much in process, with some rooms finished, but we sat in a large unfinished (mostly unroofed) area that was to become a restaurant I think. Smelled of fresh concrete – block walls without doors but the holes framed in. A wide shuttered window let onto what would be the kitchen area and seeming a bit maze-like, multiple unfinished walls running off into the dimness out one door opening.

Someone went out for a beer for me and Ghislain and he chatted about whatever, including a bit about his recent experiences in Loango with me. It was very pleasant even without understanding more than 60% of what was said. It is fun to listen to the cadences of conversation and the way that Gabonese, especially men it seems, give a sort of high exclamation of emphasis or surprised response.

We were there for quite some time and with only something for breakfast the beer had maximum relaxing effect on me. We waited for another friend, America, who, in the end, never arrived. Eventually we left to meet him elsewhere. This accomplished, we went to a bar for another beer. Gabonese seem intent on many repeat drinks, which I was not interested in. But another Regab happened and I was thinking about the fashionably late dining typical in French-influenced societies.

Amazingly, a man who used to tend bar at the Loango Lodge (one of the only tourist destinations in Gabon – at the north end of Loango National Park) a couple of years ago came over to say ‘hello’ – I guess I was an easy one to recognize. I sort of thought he was soliciting something, certainly I did not recognize him until he said something to Ghislain about knowing me and from where, then I did recall his face.

Yet another friend of Ghislain joined us (this was going to repeat everywhere we went on this trip) and we were at the bar for another hour or so. Finally we left to get something to eat at America’s house. The second friend had a car and we started out with him. He spoke English quite well and asked if I liked Gabonese women and that he had a sort of ‘business’. Too bad for him I am so boring! He dropped us off in a rather abandoned-looking part of the city and we snaked our way back through an empty lot to America’s house. His lovely wife welcomed us in and set us down in a small cozy sitting area mostly filled with chairs and sofas around all walls with a coffee table in center and an entertainment system on one wall. Traditional music played.

A couple more Regabs showed up and I suggested America and I share one. Again fun conversation mostly to listen to, some talk of music and the languages of Gabon and whether we have dialects in the U.S. Finally we had a lovely dinner with a much appreciated salad to start (in the last week I had not seen much green except from a can). Brise, a friend of America’s, joined us for dinner. He was learning English for his job so we talked some about music and his aspirations for the future.

By now it was 11:30 pm and I was long past ready to go to bed. That was not to be. We threaded our way again to the road and took a taxi to the center of Port Gentil to a night club, of all places. It was a place for ‘young women’, I was told as we went in. Mirrored walls, strobe lights and disco-ball, raised platforms with poles – OMG. Not many clients and these mostly middle-aged (and older) white males. Every second song or so, four or five young Gabonese women come out to dance, one typically gyrating suggestively on a raised platform with a pole. After a few minutes, presumably because of lack of response from the clientele, they stop and sit down to sip their drinks.

We ordered drinks – a coke for me, beers and a scotch for the others. The tab was $35! My coke was $8. What a waste. I don’t know how much this venue was for me. Brise, the friend at dinner, urged me to dance: ‘one of the women will immediately join you. They like white men because you have money.’ Well, I don’t and have no interest anyway. Finally, after forty minutes or so, we left and Ghislain and I took a taxi to the hotel.

As soon as we walked into the room Ghislain turned on the TV and started ethnic music playing again from his laptop (I didn’t realize this until much, much later). By the time I brushed my teeth Ghislain was asleep next to the laptop. I turned off the TV and the lights and wondered how long I would have to ignore the music before it ended for the night. I couldn’t sleep with the music and finally, who knows when, I went into the bathroom and realized the music was not outside but right there next to Ghislain! But by now it was nearly 4am and we had to get up at 5:30 to go to the airport.

So much for a night in Port Gentil.

Oh Yes I Can See’um

Dateline: 20 April 2011 – Rabi Banane

The no-see’ums are so thick you can clearly see-um! Where there is flesh it is like having a second moving skin that bites! Horrible!

We are camping along the Rabi River forming the north boundary of the eastern portion of Loango National Park. We are actually at the end of a track from the village of Rabi Banane, so the ground is flat and gravelly. We arrive around 5pm very hot, sweaty, I’m filthy, and it is raining off and on. Very uncomfortable indeed and nowhere to escape to. I have to cover up my arms with a raincoat to keep the see’ums off some of me, but then I drip. It seems almost suffocating. A soggy fire eventually makes the usual field cuisine of a kilo of rice cooked with at least ½ cup of oil and sardines (with all the oil from the can) mixed with a bit of tomato paste and a can of green beans. After a wash in the river I am clean but dripping like I never had the bath, and the hot food is not helping.

After darkness the see-um’s are replaced by mosquitoes, although not as bad as they might be. But everything about me itches – I go into my tent to lie all night without sleep. Is this supposed to be fun?

Next morning we did the last and longest hike of this mission – about 7 km each way. Everything went fine and it felt good to have the mission complete and headed for a real bath and indoor room for the night.

Miles and Miles

[sporadic internet access is doing wonders for the order of my blog entries! A few short ones were posted where the upload speed was glacial, and the last week has been very busy with work. But even out of order they can give you a glimpse into my current expedition.]

Dateline: 16-17 April 2011 - Gabon

Gabon slid by for hours, or bounced, or oozed, threaded by constant AfroPop liberally mixed with something like House Music and the occasional Bob Marley or Papa Wemba. It was pleasant to me, a bit surprisingly. Somehow it threw me into the process and the brand new Land Cruizer had A/C so although crowded with six others and a little boy, the sun-saturated landscape remained interesting. At times the combination threw my thoughts back 22 years to Peru and the minibus we used to traverse the Andes into the Amazon – music all the time then too.

Iguela, my destination, is on the coast of Gabon north of Loango National Park. But to drive there we had to go far to the east in order to cross the Ogooue River, the 2^nd or 3^rd largest river in Central Africa, and the huge maze of a delta that normally I thread by boat. Although Gabon has a very low population density overall, I was surprised at how constant were the houses and tiny villages for dozens of kilometers east of Libreville. And the forest that once covered this region is now only low-stature second growth – not even the occasional giant of pre-independence times. It has been well logged and now an even population that keeps the cutting going for fuel and the construction of simple houses. It took nearly five hours of driving before the forest began to return in parts and the human presence became more patchy- at least in terms of houses.

Along this road I was more aware than anywhere else I have driven of the slanted poles along the road with bits of wire or cord hanging at the tip for displaying bushmeat to passers-by. Thank god the vast majority were empty, but I saw enough monkeys, a crocodile, and horrifically a live duiker hanging upside down in the sun – struggling against the bonds. Everyone groaned and exclaimed but they insisted there was nothing we could do. But now I am ashamed that I didn’t try to force a stop and at least ensure that the poor animal was put out of its misery. I think the others were concerned about being WCS employees and what the repercussions could be if we got embroiled in some mess. But still I should have tried.

Most of the two day trip was otherwise unremarkable excepting a couple of adjacent villages where I have never seen so many people wearing such deeply crimson clothing – head scarves, dresses, shirts, and shawls. Striking impressions on the mind’s eye against the verdant green forest.

Return of Miura

The bai continues to attract high numbers of elephants, mostly adult females and their young with only a few sizeable bulls. A few days ago we encountered a big bull in the river below camp upon our return after the daily observations. He calmly backed off and awaited our passage. I could clearly see that both ears were distinctly marked, the right ear with a big circular notch and the left ear with a noticeable hole. He was stocky in stature and with massive tusks which pointed straight with little curve. Small round ears whose lobes didn’t reach beyond his jaw. I kept this mental picture in my head not knowing if I had seen him before. Returning home I composed a line drawing and then made a search for a matching identity card. There he was, “Miura,” named by some Spanish tourists who told me that his name signified a race of bulls of the bovine type.

Miura was first identified in August 2007 when he was seen in musth and observed for a series of days between the 7 – 14th of August in the clearing. He wasn’t successful at finding a female but spent most of those days in the clearing. Since 2007 he hasn’t been observed so we wonder where he has been spending his time.

Miura, April 2011

Yesterday he entered the bai from the direction of the river where we had identified him. He spent a few hours in the bai and then headed back to the river where we again encountered him and two other younger bulls. They all walked up river in front of us clearing the way for us to return home.

Miura, August 2007

Mosquitos Evolve Silent Attack!

17 April 2011
Attention: Mosquitos Evolve Silent Attack!
Not that I ever liked that whining sound of a female mosquito zeroing in on a landing spot. It was nonetheless reassuring to me that I was afforded a last defense, especially at night. With a sheet or other covering for the lower body, exposed head, shoulders, and arms were close enough to the ears to hear a hovering blood-sucker and aim a swat in the general direction.

Last night in a lodging near Fougamou there was no sound. Whether based on sound science I’m not sure, but I believe that the whine is produced with the wings, and only by female mosquitoes, functioning to attract males. Silence could spell evolutionary death if you can get food but not sex, but that made little difference to me in the night.

All of this will need verification. A research project awaits. Of course, it is possible that my sixty-year-old eardrums no longer have an empathetic resonance to match the love song of Gabonese blood-suckers.

On the Ogooue

17 April 2011
The late afternoon light emphasized the dark expanse of the Ogooue River with reflections of golden-tinged cumulus clouds. Here at Lambarene I look across what must be a kilometer or more of flowing river to the hospital grounds that Albert Schweitzer started well over a century ago. Expanses of lawn fall down a slope to the river’s edge and huge trees shade the buildings. What an amazing thing to have done when most serious medicine was witch medicine in these parts. As his reputation for curing spread there must have been such a flow of people arriving and departing by this river highway.

Systems Approach

Dateline: 15 April 2011 - Libreville, Gabon

While in Libreville I went to see Mike Fay of Megatransect fame to talk about whether an automatic gunshot detection and communication system would help with anti-poaching efforts. He is working for the Gabonese government as chief logistician for the National Parks. Mike is an incredibly committed conservationist who has sometimes managed to get things done in a big way, to the benefit of people the world over who want to see the world's natural gems preserved. In fact, the 13 national parks in Gabon were created by the former president in large part because of the 'Megatransect'.

This was the first time I had met Mike, and perhaps my timing could have been better in terms of receptivity to any idea short of practically closing down the country! Mike was fired up - on a mission - pissed off. It was Mike (of course) who flew over Wonga-Wongué a few weeks ago and found elephant carcasses strewn across the savannah (see previous entry). Then earlier in the week he was in a meeting with the president, Ali Bongo Ondimba, who was genuinely incensed about the poaching – a great sign since this was not a public meeting and so probably not a show. The government already has been providing significant funding, especially in logistics support, for anti-poaching efforts and now might see a role for the military.

As for real-time gunshot detection, sure, Mike could use something like that, but not for $7000 each unit. Where would he get money for something like that?

“It’s such a rip-off! No competition. Look at elephant satellite collars – they were $15k when first used, now they are $3k.”

Yes, but the first to use a new technology always pay a premium. Would we have $3k collars today if Ian Douglas-Hamilton had not stumped for $15k ones a decade ago? What about the cost of the plane Mike is flying around Gabon? That was purchased by someone and shipped to Gabon for anti-poaching, and it didn't cost a few thousand dollars.

Basically Mike does not see any value in anything anyone else is doing to tackle the poaching problem. NGOs contribute nothing. He feels the incremental, some would say more sustainable, approach is just not fast enough. For example, ELP provided data proving that road barriers in one concession were porous (including one manned by National Parks ecoguards – their guys).

“This is useless! We already know they don't work. We need to throw out logging companies in critical areas and tell the others that if a poacher is caught in their concession, they are out.”

I’m sure he is right that such all or none methods would make a difference - but they are not the law now and what are the chances they ever will be? At least our 'in your face' data has started a cascade of pressure to do something more effective. The government makes big money through the logging concessions and mineral extraction leases so it seems improbable that they would kick them all out. And at least some of these companies, including one that ELP works with, are at least trying to do the right thing (if perhaps not hard enough) and there are many others that don't care a bit about how they rape the environment.

Anyway, an interesting “discussion”. However, interest was a bit more positive when I mentioned that I didn’t really care if he was interested or not – I was not trying to sell him a product, only willing to help make a system happen if they wanted it. “I’m an elephant guy, trying to figure out where they are, when they are there, and how they use the landscape. We do what we can, a step at a time.” His response was “send me some documents about the system, links to information, and yes, a short layout of budget would be useful”.

- Peter, in Africa

n.b. tomorrow I finally leave for the forest and elephant voices. I won't have access to the internet for awhile, but will post again with stories from Loango when I do.

Not My Favorite Pastime

Dateline: 11 April 2011 - Libreville, Gabon

Relaxing with a cold Regab on the veranda of the Case de Passage. A hot day, beginning now to moderate (and not just because of the cold beer). [nb - this is actually an ok pastime - it is the next bit, the hanging around, that is not my favorite.]

Stuck in Libreville for a few days, ostensibly to meet with people and talk about how to expand our use of acoustics to help forest elephants. News of recent slaughter in a fantastic Presidential reserve has once again highlighted the challenges of protecting wildlife in remote forested regions. The problems in Wonga-Wongué, where patches of savannah at least allow one to see, too late, the results of poaching make one fear even more what is hidden under the mantle of forest canopy that covers much of Central Africa.

Click here for a gorgeous image of the Wonga-Wongue landscape.

Wonga-Wongué Presidential Reserve, situated on the coast of Gabon is a remote and

fantastically wild landscape of savannah and rainforest bounded to the West by the

Atlantic Ocean and to the east by meandering lagoons, swamps, and mangrove forest.

Photo © Mary Moreau

Plans for my trip are beginning to come together:

First to the little village of Iguela, at the north boundary of Loango National Park. In some ways a similar landscape to Wonga-Wongué (photo above) and located to the south, ELP has worked there now for four years.

Second, after returning to Libreville by boat and then short flight, the night train through the midst of the country to Franceville in the southeast. This second-largest city in Gabon is to the north of the Batéké National Park where we have also been working for several years. Plans are afoot here to record at a little-known clearing in order to gather the first data on elephant abundance and seasonal patterns.

Third, from Franceville, I will work for a few days in a large forestry concession that borders the Ivindo National Park, home to the best known clearing in Gabon, Langoué Bai. Here we will continue intensive monitoring at a network of clearings critical to elephants from the Ivindo protected area and establish a new monitoring site to evaluate hunting pressure in the area.

Finally, to the little town of Ivindo, the gateway into Langoué Bai. From here we will begin another new monitoring project within the buffer zone of Ivindo N.P., recording hunting activity that might be coming in from a logging concession to the west.

Plenty to do - just would like to get out in the field and do it!

- Peter, in africa

From Africa

Dateline: 8 April 2011

In Morocco I walked into spring!

Grey, cold, dreary, dregs of an Ithaca winter be gone!

Early morning light and a cool breeze off the Mediterranean - with just the hint of bite - turned my thoughts (mostly) away from what I have left behind and toward Central Africa again.

Probably the main goal of this trip is to facilitate the transfer of routine acoustic monitoring to Wildlife Conservation Society staff in Gabon. Training has been slow and hampered by equipment that is a little to fussy and to accepting of human error. But this is changing and I will be working this trip with a new technician specifically hired to manage acoustic monitoring and analysis. Best of all, this will let ELP focus on pushing into new ways to apply acoustics to elephant conservation and conservation of biodiversity more generally.

As usual, Royal Air Maroc provided a day room during my transit time in Morocco. This time, however, instead of the Atlas Airport Hotel just a few kilometers from the runways, they took me and a bunch of French college women into downtown Casablanca. Not a particularly beautiful city from what I saw, but some striking homes and buildings tucked in here and there with the softened lines of Arab architecture and gorgeous filigreed ironwork on gates and across windows. I love the feeling of a hidden oasis invoked by the ubiquitous enclosing walls - mostly unadorned and forbidding to the outside, but the upper stories of enclosed buildings looking out on the world and inner gardens, with verandas and unseen alcoves catching the breeze.

- peter in Africa

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Morning Treat

posted from GABON - 10/10/2010

Although we’ve seen many elephants now at night, I’ve been keen to see them in the daylight, wihtout the greenish cast of my night-vision binoculars. Today was my chance. I was at the end of my nighttime observation shift. Dawn had broken; the mist slowly lifted, and colors gradually returned to the bai. The morning chorus of birds greeted the day. Bleary-eyed, Eugene and I started to pack up when we heard the tell-tale sound of rustling leaves on the far bank opposite us. A family group of eight elephants appeared on “south stage.” They seemed nervous but gradually came to the pond in front of us.

We saw one large adult female with small tusks, along with a smaller adult female, sub-adults and juveniles—all different colors, depending on what mud they’d been washing with or wallowing in. They still seemed nervous as they milled about the pond. Then a young adult male elephant approached with apparently one thing on his mind—females. The big adult female seemed to be having none of it, though, and kept chasing him off. The rest of the group climbed the bank and headed out of the bai, as if the female had told them to leave. She followed, turning back to head off the male, and to retrieve one of the group that had got left behind.

A few moments later, they were all gone. It happened very fast, but I did get to see elephants in the daytime!

Family group arrives in the Grande Saline - FINALLY, elephants by day!