Searching the Elusive Bonobo in Congo

Category: Places, Threats, bonobo, people | Date: Aug 31 2007 | By: admin

On the return trip the dugout turned into a disco as it approached Opala, home of the porters. That’s Maga on the pot turned tomtom on the right.

This note is from Terese. Ashley is closing down our little depot in Kisangani where we have stored all of our tents, outboards, cooking pots, and remaining fuel. He’ll follow me today to Kinshasa.

This past week in Kisangani was very successful, but that is not what I am going to write about here. Next post.

Here I want to underline the urgency that Ashley and I both feel about this “forgotten landscape” to the south of Kisangani.

Obenge, little village four days by motorized dugout south of Opala (about 300 river km), is THE hunting outpost for two big, bustling commercial centers : both Kisangani, much farther to the north, and Kindu to the southeast. Although they seem on the map to be a mere 200 to 300 km away, this is by winding river and forever meandering footpath.

Neither Ashley nor I is opposed to locally controlled hunting of small antelope, even primates, but that is not what is being staged from Obenge. Hunting with weapons of war and hunting that targets rare species such as the rapidly disappearing forest elephant and the endemic bonobo, our closest animal relative, is something else. Bonobo live ONLY in the forests south and west of the Congo/Lualaba River, they are social, curious, communicative and vulnerable.

Ashley did not send me the two pictures below of a freshly killed pregnant bonobo. He found them too depressing, but I did appreciate seeing them. It helps me understand what we are up against. And for that reason, I am posting them.

Female bonobo, just killed and brought into Obenge by the dugout in the background.


She was pregnant, they later removed a nearly grown fetus.

I want to emphasize that there is no sadism in the hunting of these animals. Greed of the few that really profit – yes. But these few are not the ones who handle the guns and “own” the forest. What is needed: community outreach, information and alternative sources of income.

We will keep you posted.

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Category: Threats, wildlife | Date: Aug 25 2007 | By: admin

Our giant dug-out moored at a hunting camp just south of Obenge

I saw Terese’s footnote to the elephant post. She says that here along the Lomami there is one area with fairly good elephant sign but the area is in more danger than we had guessed. You bet it is. We got back to Obenge a couple of days ago. This is where we stopped at the end of June, beginning of July. We saw lots of elephant sign then. Just 9 km from the village we saw tracks and fresh dung piles. There were tracks of baby elephants as well.

What is frightening is that Obenge is a real center for bushmeat trade – and big bushmeat – I mean elephants. Elephants have been decimated in the north where there have been big settlements for a long time. In the south rebel soldiers eliminated them with AK 47s just during the last decade. What is left is sandwiched here in the middle. And of course it is good hunting for everything else as well. There are no scruples . Elephant and Bonobo are killed as easily as a genet or a duiker and – hey – they bring more money as well – especially elephant.

This time we put our tents up in an empty hunting camp along the river, just south of Obenge. Then the hunter showed up. A friendly guy. He says he has killed over 20 bonobo and 2 elephants in the last month. Pretty depressing , even if he exaggerated and it was really all last year – but I don’t think he did.

We have got to do something about this now!!

Get this : On our way south, as we were leaving Obenge we met an army Major who had come down from Kisangani. That Major is right now in the forest hunting elephants near here. The hunter we talked to said that the Major lashed him with an elephant hide whip, to make him hand over the ivory from the two elephants. I believe him – he showed us the scars on his back and they are recent.

What’s more: when I complained to the “chef de village” in Obenge he shrugged his shoulders and said that the General in Kisangani gives arms and ammunition to “his men” – ie this major – to hunt elephants down here.

We have got to do something. In Kisangani – ok, Terese?

The only elephant “crotte” that Bernard found down south was over near the Tshuapa River and there are certainly none near the Lomami River, nor did Maurice’s team, that went east, find any sign of elephant.

ANOTHER NOTE FROM TERESE :

Ashley sent the message above a few days ago. Even as I post it and write this he is drawing near to Kisangani. Tomorrow I leave Kinshasa for Kisangani myself – except I fly on Bravo Airlines!

In Kisangani, we will follow-up on the elephant poaching. With our friends at the Congolese Conservation Institute, Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN) , we will track down the General and try to meet with him. If the connection is fast enough at the cyber-café in Kisangani you will get a post from there, otherwise I will update you as soon as I am back in Kinshasa.

Ashley collecting dung on a forest reconnaissance (in this case bonobo) — all part of the job

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Category: About the project | Date: Aug 19 2007 | By: admin

They look like they are trumpeting thanks, but this is really a thirsty team drinking liana water.

Many thanks. Just got an update from our friends at Wildlife Direct telling us that we do indeed have a generous readership. Particular thanks to :

George L., Jeanette M., Denise S., Erin M., Sue S., and Brett F. as well as, of course, our very first donor, Faye.

That thanks is heartfelt from Ashley (mid-Lomami) and Terese (Kinshasa).

Here is a plan: All contributions will be used to equip an expedition to the most southern forested part of watershed-Lomami where we could not get on this first dug-out trip because rapids barred our way (see photo).

Here is why: In the south, at the village of Katopa, locals said abundant bonobo and okapi continue right down to the forest-savanna border. If so, this is an incredible extension on the known distributional range of both these special DR Congo forest mammals. Also, we must find out if there are still elephant in the southern-most forest. From the beginning our plan has been to go as far south (up-river) as possible and then start north stopping for exploratory circuits along the way. We are on the way back north now, but left a seemingly extraordinary area unexplored.

Here is how: We will go overland, starting in the administrative center of Maniema at Kindu and then crossing the Lualaba and working from the old colonial track towards the Lomami. John Hart will be joining the teams by November. He oversaw the early work in the Salonga National Park and has done extensive exploration and inventory in the Ituri Forest and the Itombwe Forest (among other places). If we get the money he will take on this southern frontier. Definitely, his experience will be critical!

What do you think? Do leave us a “comment” on this blog.

The rapids were as far upstream as we could get — just south of Katopa

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Category: Threats, wildlife | Date: Aug 11 2007 | By: admin

Red Colobus are common, elephant are rare

It certainly is not drought that has chased the elephants away. The forest is plenty wet even though it is dry season. So where are the elephants?

Between the Lomami and the Lualaba Rivers, there is a load of swamp forest. The teams come back with foot rot every time. During the rainy season, starting end September, large areas are just impenetrable.

In the Ituri forest Okapi Reserve a few months ago, I saw the wide trails where elephants trudge again and again through swamp forest. But here, between the Lomami and Lualaba, no “elephant roads” at all.

A one -tusk forest elephant in the Okapi Reserve,
a camera trap photo. ©Reto Kuster

Further south there is less swamp forest. There are even rivers that are empty or nearly empty, even though many rivers will become impassable once the rains get underway. But still no elephants.

So what is going on?

Although there is almost no elephant sign between the Lomami and the Lualaba there are lots of forest buffalo. Why one and not the other? The only reason that makes sense to me is poachers looking for ivory.

On the west side of the Lomami, between the Lomami and the Tshuapa, there is more elephant sign but even here very little in the south near the savanna.

At the last camp, our most southern base, I talked to elders and the local administrator about elephants. All told me that they had been wiped out in 1997 and 1998. These were the years when civil war swept through Congo. War did not reach the mid-stretches of the forested Lomami, but rebel soldiers ran over the savanna border in the south. They came through with automatic rifles; the AK 47 is a popular elephant-killing gun in Congo.

The administrator at Katopa told me that the elephants had been chased north. Maybe, but maybe the soldiers just wiped them out.

It is strange because in so many other ways this forest seems hardly hunted at all: There are hundreds of red colobus between the Tshuapa and the Lomami and they are usually one of the first primates hunted out because they are so large and slow to flee.

Yesterday I walked just a couple of kilometers to an area I had spotted on the satellite image. When there were elephants here, it must have been a mineral lick or baie. Now it is all overgrown. But on the short walk there and back I saw three troupes of monkeys, heard heaps of others and saw an unbelievable quantity of antelope dung heaps. And also lots of sign of bonobo eating. This is really amazing forest. It is just the elephant that is missing, — but still present like the memory of someone who has only just left.

Ok, my hot bucket bath is ready. Luxury!!

This is another photo taken with a camera trap in the Ituri. ©Reto Kuster

A NOTE FROM TERESE IN KINSHASA:

Take a look at this map of elephant distribution in DR Congo. The estimate for Tshuapa-Lualaba (6), including right where Ashley is now, was “unknown” but it was assumed that at least one good population existed. Ashley did see fairly good elephant sign in one area but these populations have been more depleted and are in more danger than we had guessed.

Where elephants are thought to still exist in DR Congo

For more information look at the African Elephant database — the status report, starting on page 26.

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