Searching the Elusive Bonobo in Congo

Category: Places, bonobo, people, wildlife | Date: Jul 31 2007 | By: admin

A bongo in the fore ground and forest in the background

Twelve days walking through forest and savanna and more forest and more savanna. It is a circuit I will never forget. I have always read that forest/savanna borders are particularly rich with species because you get both forest and savanna animals coming together.

First time on the savanna for many of the porters

This circuit certainly was my best ever for observing animals. In the savannah we saw buffalo, bongo, a jackal, and quite possible a black fronted duiker. Lots of buffalo.

In the forest we saw a dead fully grown male sitatunga (pictured here). It had only recently died. No gun shot wounds so we think it was a snake bite. Blood coming out of its mouth and ears was the only clue. A beautiful huge magnificent beast.

A few monkeys were seen but not many. A few snakes also that caused the usual panic by everybody. But the best by far was Bonobo nests. Over 300!! Four locations were exceptional. One had about 100 in just a few kilometres and another had about 80 over four kms. Never seen places like this before. Salonga national park has no corner of forest this rich with bonobo.

One of many bonobo nests that we found. This one was old.

Sadly no sign of elephants or okapi. Hunted out?

The downside, this was physically very demanding. Marching 5 hours in burning sunshine across savanna is a killer and then to arrive at the other end into forest and find no water is demoralizing. It is the dry season and most of the rivers have dried up. We ended up drinking red stagnant water from the few pools we found for 4 days and one day of no water! Luckily no one got sick from this. Not sure how. Back in UK, I’m definitely going to visit the doctor!
A much needed and much appreciated drink on the savanna.

Getting “water” from a liana for a much needed drink in the forest.

We are all back at the base camp along the Lomami now and it is sort of like a Red Cross camp. A lot of walking wounded, me included. One of my feet is a little swollen with a patch of bites from I think some insect that had a field day when I fell asleep one night in my forest chair (see below).

Right after this great supper I fell asleep and some creature made his supper of my foot

One of the porters got a cut on his leg, from a liana, just above his foot. His foot has swollen up like a balloon. He has started on an anti-biotic and we are hoping to see a change soon. He probably cannot carry on but his village is 300km away. What do you do?

Weary team at the end of the 12-day forest-savanna exploration circuit

Have just heard from a few locals of a location a few days march from here where there are Bonobo and Okapi. Going to have to go there and check it out. It will also mean that we can check out a bit further south of the rapids where the locals say there are hippos and crocs.

Better put those shoes back on, swollen feet or not…

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Category: Places, Threats, people | Date: Jul 23 2007 | By: admin

Fisherman appearing in the Lomami’s morning mist

Here are a few notes from five days of pushing up-river in our massive motorized dugout.

11 July
Second day out of Obenge, on the “pirogue” and heading south. I am sitting on the prow swatting flies. These “mouches” are nasty; as I hit one, another stabs. Saw a fisherman today. That was unexpected. The fisherman had hiked across from the Lualaba River (at least 60 km). He said that there were too many fishermen on the Lualaba. It must be fished out.
Thousands of millions of tiny insects were swarming over the river this morning and millions more dead in the water. Very odd. Couldn’t get a good photo, too misty.

The Lomami is changing a little. Sometimes narrower and occasionally it develops a strong current and we slow right down. Normally we are going 8km/hr, but then we slow to 3km/hr. Just tried to take a picture of all these dead insects in the water but no luck. You cannot see anything. They are white and really tiny.

12 July
A couple hunters we met along the river explained that there is a path across the forest to the Lualaba and it is clear enough for a bicycle. That means bushmeat from here is feeding the big markets on the other side. You can carry a lot more on a bicycle than on your back.

Just went past a patch of rapids. Not difficult to pass but the first we’ve seen so far. About 5 people have diarrhea at the moment, which is making the boat trip interesting! The fisherman we brought along from Opala shat his pants. Poor guy! Not sure what has caused it but think it is probably bad water. When we are in the forest there are streams or even springs – it is much healthier.

13 July
There’s a little village, we can just see it up river. This is the first for a couple of days. The few people we have seen (mainly hunters) are just here briefly and live at least a day’s walk to the east.
Developing a good team now. We got the camp ready in 30 minutes last night. That is from bush to tents up and fire going. Not bad!

Every night we play a CD of all the monkey calls. Most of the guys knew a lot of calls but not all that we might hear. Apart from Chryso who has done animal inventories in the eastern parks, all the Congolese guys freak out when they hear the gorillas on the CD. Chryso and I tell them they are actually very gentle animals but they don’t believe us.

14 July
We are staying in a hunting camp. The hunters said that there are patches of savanna an hour or so walk from here. But, so far, the forest looks and sounds the same. They also said that a bit further downriver is a waterfall. They probably mean rapids.

Mainly they hunt with snares here but also some use caliber-12. They get the shotgun shells from Kindu.
Today we went past a couple tiny villages and a few old hunting camps.

15 July
The rapids are really beautiful. Katopa is the village we are staying at just downriver from the rapids. The settlement is real small, probably twenty houses at most but it is on the google earth map. Maybe once, it was bigger?

During the night we came to within a few kilometers of Katopa. They heard the outboard motor coming up river and fled into the forest. How odd! Anyway we came on in the morning and all is calm now. When we arrived and they realized we were “safe” the women broke into song. Apparently they were singing “papa has arrived the famine is over”. Expectations are a bit high, I’d say.

The villagers were eventually brave enough to try a photo

No school here or medical. The nearest village is 15km away, and it doesn’t have a school or dispensary either. Savanna is only 4 km from here. The chief explained that he has seen Bonobo right out in the grass. Like all the villages, they hunt bushmeat and hardly fish at all. And, like in Obenge, traders arrive with goods and depart with bushmeat. I’ve seen one transaction already today!

Lots of hunting dogs here and lots of children. I always forget, in these isolated places there are hardly any old people. People die young.

Have to add this: Just turned on the generator and all the children ran away. They looked really scared. They are still nervous about the lightbulb that came on. Katopa has been isolated for a long time!

The Lomami River rapids are pretty impressive

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Category: Equipment, people | Date: Jul 17 2007 | By: admin

You can’t hear them, but the forest insects are singing Happy Birthday

This is a picture of my birthday party. On the banks of the Lomami, we all raised our plastic mugs to toast me, but hey, it’s me that’s proud of them. Two teams were more than two weeks in the forest with no guide except GPS waypoints. So they deserved what was in that empty bottle on the ground!

After the first 11 days two porters came out with rotten feet. They had been with Bernard’s team, on the east bank forest toward the Lualaba River. The team was slogging through swamp day after day. The porters basically sat with their bare feet in the air for two days and are now a lot better.

Bernard came back with his full team after 15 days, but Maurice’s team was gone a day longer. They were to the west, towards the Tshuapa River, and apparently were three days without water! This is rain forest!..,but moist forest and running water are different. There are lianas that we can cut and drink from – but NOT the same as a mug of water. And no water to cook rice or make bugali!

We have to try to improve the interpretation of our satellite images, used to set the routes through the forest. Some people in the USA and Canada are helping us with that right now.

The picture below is of the porters warming up to the party music. A good use of AA batteries and ipod mini-speakers – right?

They hear Papa Wemba not forest insects !

Maurice’s team took the picture below, mighty pleased to have water.

It’s early afternoon but let’s camp here

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Category: Threats, bonobo, people | Date: Jul 11 2007 | By: admin

Adult female shot near Obenge, on the Lomami River. Lack of fishing is a sign that the locals aren’t originally from here. Did they come with the Belgians or the Arab slave traders?

When I asked where he had killed her, Jafari, the hunter, waved in a general sort of way to the northeast, across the Lomami (see it in Google Maps). I did not say much else. He was proud and let me take a picture.

Jafari killed this adult female with his old Belgian gun. Over the last few days I have heard other shots from the village. I have also seen monkey snares in the forest nearby. These, too, could catch bonobo.

There is much more hunting than I recognized at first. Yesterday a pirogue came back with an elephant chopped into hunks. There are war guns, lots of them, left in this country after the long rebellion. An AK47 is just 300 dollars in Kisangani. That is the weapon that was used to kill the elephant.

There are many more animals killed than are needed to feed this small village. Apparently a few women-traders travel across the forest from villages on the Lualaba. They bring salt, sugar, cloth and probably shotgun shells. Then they carry back bushmeat.

How often are Bonobo Killed? I don’t know. How far away do Jafari and his friends hunt? I don’t know.

Strange that they can be so poor here and yet they can empty the forest of what the world considers its greatest riches. And still they stay so poor. The kids in this village don’t go to school – there is none – and, of course, there is no health center at all.

Is it possible to make a difference – for the bonobo and the people? I am sure it is.

Jafari with his gun

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Category: bonobo, wildlife | Date: Jul 08 2007 | By: admin

This Blue is not “supposed” to be here, but he looks like he thinks I am not supposed to be here.

Just back from a four day circuit in the forest on the west side of the Lomami and I am real excited - I mean EUPHORIC. If any of you were here we would be toasting with mugs of coffee and Nido milk! And hey, I could offer you tea if you prefer that.

First off – the forests are different here from the low-lying forests of the Salonga national park where we did bonobo surveys a year and a half ago. There is a lot of red clay soil rather than the sandy soil of Salonga. It is more like the high forests I know from the east (Ituri) and the north (Cameroon).

Also different: there is lots of fruit and, therefore, -no surprise- lots of monkeys. In fact this is going to be a monkey-fest post because there is just so much to say about monkeys.

For instance:
Just two kilometers out of Obenge, yep, you guessed it, Bonobos again. And a mother and her baby just sat and stared at us… This is the third time I’ve seen them and, I’m not bored yet.

And then there is the more unexpected, for example, this:
The photo posted at the top here looks like a blue monkey, right? But, there’s not supposed to be any blue monkey on the west side of the Lomami River, or at least not according to the best information available anywhere and that is in the African monkey-bible: Histoire Naturelle des Primates d’Afrique Centrale. This Blue does look rather like the monkey that is supposed to be on the east side of the Lomami, Cercopithecus mitis heymansi, but wouldn’t you say that the Blue in the photo above has an awful light-colored back?

And get this: We not only saw the “expected” Black Mangabey (Lophocebus a. aterrimus) and the spectacular mona monkey (Cercopithecus wolfi wolfi) - alas we saw it being eaten by an eagle - and the expected De Brazza’s monkey (Cercopithecus neglectus), but I am hearing rumors of several other monkeys.

The local guide that was with me and is from this area insisted that they have the owl-faced monkey here. He pointed it out in the book (that same monkey-bible). If that is true it is a first.

And then there is a monkey that I only glimpsed this morning and did not recognize. Unfortunately I wasn’t quick enough to get a photo, nor did I see it long enough to really describe its characteristics. Just wait, though, I’ll get a good look real soon.

And then there is the “unknown” monkey that we found in captivity in Opala - John will write about that one, right? Because I did get pictures of it and he sent them around to several primatologists who have commented on it (without agreement).

This is getting ridiculous and I love it. I’ll be wondering around near Obenge tomorrow with my camera. Who knows, maybe I’ll see a mountain gorilla or an orang-utan… well ok, that’s a wee bit excessive.

Here is the majestic center of Obenge and its only “road”. This is the last village until the savanna, five days steady motoring in the dug-out.

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Category: Threats, bonobo | Date: Jul 01 2007 | By: admin

My best photo of the first bonobo I ever saw — just a couple days ago

Amazingly yesterday evening about 6pm we heard bonobo screaming and chattering across the river as they settled in for the night. It was unreal. So of course this morning very early we crossed the river to search for them. Nothing. But then it got a little lighter and one of them took a piss. We found them. We followed the sound of piss falling through the leaves. Great sound.

Then for about 15 minutes we had sporadic but clear sightings of them. I got a few photos; nothing really exciting. The forest is dark and they are against a light sky which makes it very hard to get a good photo. Good fun though.

My best photo of the second bonobo I ever saw — ok, zoo pictures ARE better

We are now camped in Obenge, the final final village. When we leave here it is at least five days south without a single settlement. And here in Obenge the villagers have not seen a white person since before independence (1960) so you can imagine I caused a lot of interest!! The last white person was looking for diamonds!!! Diamonds are going to be a real problem here.

I have just done a 2 day short trip into the forest. Here are some notes, and a few notes from the short circuits that the other teams made as well. I am now waiting for both teams to come back from their longer 15 day explorations, one team is on each side of the Lomami.

TRIP REPORTS

MONKEYS :

Seen more red tailed monkeys, black mangabey and red colobus.
Red colobus is always on the west bank of the Lomami. The locals say that
is where it is and never on the right bank, or Lualaba side.

Have twice seen a monkey with a blue tail but cannot say much more than that as it always disappears quickly. That is on the east or Lualaba side. A few other people have seen it as well so it is not just me and local drink or a malaria delirium.

Maga and I heard a monkey call in the west forest that neither of us
recognised. Maga knows the monkeys in Salonga really well and did not recognize it at all. The local porter we had with us says they are common in the forest there. He described a distinct mask on its face so maybe it is Dent’s monkey. We obviously need to confirm this as Dent’s is certainly not expected here. Will go on another short trip into that area of forest to see what I can find.

However monkey viewing will not be easy. They are all nervous at the first sound of people because of really heavy hunting around here. Have already seen a pirogue come back with a bushpig in it. All this village does is hunt: no fishing, no domestic animals.

Other MAMMALS

In the east forest there is a huge swamp. Absolutely massive. They say
it goes from this river, Lomami, all the way to the Lualaba. Apparently full of elephants and buffalo. However with the amount of elephant poaching that seems to be going on, these have got to be very threatened. Anyway the swamp looks like an interesting area.

All for now. Need a bath, going to jump in that giant brown water.

Maurice (on left) and his team in the swamp. Read more about the team members here.

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