West African Manatee Network Activities

Over the past few months I've received several updates from my former trainees, who are now actively starting manatee research and conservation efforts in their home countries, despite many challenges. Here are some highlights of their efforts:

Mali:

In central Mali, manatee researcher Soumaïla Berthe is starting surveys to learn about manatees in the Bani River, a 775 km long tributary of the Niger River. Berthe attended the training workshop I led in Djenné, Mali in 2010, and he was one of the most dedicated and enthusiastic members of the group. He's been fascinated with manatees for years, and had educated himself about them online since there are few other resources in Mali. I was also able to visit his study area near San when I was in Mali (see posting from November 18, 2010). With no funding for his manatee work (his official job is a regional director for the Niger River Basin Authority), Berthe goes out in his spare time to start surveys, train others, and build a local manatee sightings network that is creating and maintaining a database of known manatee use areas and year round sightings. So far Berthe has documented a new dam on the Bani that has changed the pattern of seasonal waterflow and is likely effecting manatees ability to access important feeding habitat, plus he has recorded known seasonal use locations reported by fisherman, and collected samples of manatee bone and feces for genetics and stable isotope analyses. He has 5 volunteers working with him, and I am very impressed with his energy and determination.

Berthe (with binoculars) surveys the river with his colleague Lassina Diarra. Photo courtesy of Soumaïla Berthe.

Berthe and Lassina check out a piece of manatee skull found by villagers living on the Bani River. Photo courtesy of Soumaïla Berthe.
Côte d'Ivoire:

Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast in English) has faced years of civil war, and the past two years have been especially difficult because of fighting after President Gagbo lost the last election but refused to step down and allow Ouattara (the winner) to assume the presidency. Additionally, in 2009 Dr. Akoi Kouadio, who had been leading a manatee research program in Ivory Coast for almost 30 years, passed away after an illness. The non-profit organization Akoi worked for dropped his project after his death, leaving his staff and programs with no way to continue.

Since then his former protégé, Dr. Kouame Djaha, has been trying to find a way to continue the manatee sightings network and educational outreach started by Akoi. Kouame attended the training workshop in Djenné, Mali and I was able to donate a full set of field equipment to his research efforts. Kouame reports that now that the government has settled down a bit, he and several colleagues have made contact with members of the former sightings network, and people tell them they still want to protect the manatee. Under Akoi, the project had ended all hunting in a lagoon system where 100,000 people live, which is a huge achievement! Kouame needs funds to restart their work, and for now he is working as a botanist at a university.

This is a photo I took of Kouame during the training workshop in Mali. His shirt says "Don't kill the manatees" and was one of the educational tools Akoi's group used to end hunting in Fresco Lagoon.Niger:

Manatee researcher Boureima Boubacar, who also attended training in Djenné, Mali in 2010, has now started manatee surveys in the Niger River in Niger. He's working to reactivate a manatee sighting network that was set up years ago near W National Park (so named because the Niger River literally forms a "W" in this area. Test your geographical knowledge and see if you can find it on Google Earth! Hint: it's south of the capital of Niamey and north of the border with Benin). During his surveys Boureima took environmental data and talked to people about how often they see manatees. He hopes to raise funds to continue his work.

Boureima (in orange) and a colleague discuss their data during a field survey. Photo courtesy of Boureima Boubacar.
Boureima using a depth sounder with digital thermometer donated to him by my grants that provide field equipment to African researchers. This device collects accurate water depth, as well as water and air temperature data... it's extremely useful in Africa's muddy rivers. Photo courtesy of Boureima Boubacar.
Senegal:

At Lac de Guiers, a huge lake in northern Senegal, Tomas Diagne (who is also my husband) has been working with the community and the government for many years to establish a wildlife reserve to protect manatees, an endemic species of freshwater turtle (Adanson's Mud Turtle, Pelusios adansoni) and many species of water birds. This past Fall the first signs designating the Tocc Tocc Refuge were erected, including a map of the refuge.

The local crew assembled for a group photo after putting up two signs. Bouys will soon also mark refuge boundaries from the lake side. Photo courtesy of Tomas Diagne.
A fisherman pulls up abandoned net full of aquatic plants within Tocc Tocc Reserve during a cleanup organized by Tomas and the local community. Photo courtesy of Tomas Diagne.
Tomas raised funds and has purchased a fiberglass boat for surveys and reserve monitoring, which they plan to start this year with a team of staff from local villages. He has also received equipment donations from Save the Manatee Club including a trolling motor, life jackets, a digital camera, a tent, and a desktop computer. Training, equipment and uniforms will be provided to refuge staff so that they can both enforce protection of the reserve, as well as collect scientific data on the manatees and turtles. A committee made up of chiefs and elders from each of the surrounding villages will oversee management of the reserve, ensuring that they can protect the wildlife and reap the benefits as it grows into an ecotourism site.

As I get more reports from other network members I will continue to post them to show more of the terrific efforts that are underway for West African manatees!

Persistence pays off!!

Happy news! After 13 months of working with colleagues in Mali to get an export permit for manatee samples I collected there in November 2010 (which have since been added to by my colleagues) we finally got it! It's amazing how long it can take to push simple paperwork through government bureaucracy, and I have learned that patience is definitely required. The permits are required so that I can legally ship the samples (which include bone, tissue, and even manatee feces, which will be used for genetics, age determination, and stable isotope analyses) to the lab in Florida. Once the analyses are complete, I'll share the results back to my colleagues in Mali in the hope that the results will help them make informed management and conservation decisions for manatees. Now the next step is shipping... which has it's own set of challenges from Mali!

Kamla's Florida Training Adventure

As I mentioned in my last post, Aristide Kamla from Cameroon came to Florida for 3 weeks of training this past November. Thanks to tremendous help and enthusiasm from my Florida manatee colleagues at the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission's Marine Mammal Pathobiology Lab (FWC/MMPL), the USGS Sirenia Project, Sea to Shore Alliance, Lowry Park Zoo, and Homosassa Springs State Park, Kamla was able to experience almost all aspects of manatee research in his short visit. The idea was for him to gain as much practical, hands on experience with manatees as possible. In Africa, manatees are very difficult to study and we can only rarely collect samples, but it's important for researchers to be able to know what to do when the rare opportunities arise. In his 3 weeks in Florida, Kamla was able to participate in more training activies than I would be able to provide in several years in Africa.

As an aside, I call Aristide by his last name, Kamla, because that's how he always signs his emails, so for a long time I thought that was his first name! Now it's stuck as my nickname for him and he's ok with it, so there you go.


Just after arriving in Florida, Kamla participated in wild manatee captures and health assessments led by USGS in Crystal River. USGS has been studying the manatees in Crystal River for over 30 years, and their current study is looking at baseline health parameters of the manatees that return to this natural hotspring area every winter. My husband Tomas and I also participated. Photo courtesy of Susan Butler, USGS.
Here Kamla helps to carefully roll a manatee so that USGS photo identification photos can be taken of its ventral (belly) side. He also learned how to take standardized measurements, collect genetics samples and safely pull captured manatees into shore in nets. Photo courtesy of USGS.
Once their health assessments are complete, the manatees are released back into the warm water. Photo courtesy of USGS.
This is a group shot of some of the many (almost 100!) people who took part in the captures. Another benefit of Kamla's participation was getting to meet and talk with manatee researchers from all over Florida. Photo courtesy of USGS.
After captures USGS researchers, including manatee telemetry guru Jim Reid, took Kamla snorkeling with the manatees, so he was able to swim with them and see their natural behavior. Photo courtesy of USGS.
Kamla with the manatee sanctuary sign at Crystal River. Photo courtesy of USGS.
Next, Kamla accompanied Sea to Shore Alliance manatee trackers Jessica Koelsch and Melody Fisher on two separate field outings to track tagged manatees. Sea to Shore is responsible for tracking rehabilitated Florida manatees after they have been released from captivity, to make sure they successfully re-acclimate to the wild. Here he drives the boat while listening to the VHF radio receiver for the beeps emitted by the tag. Photo courtesy of Melody Fisher.



Listening for a manatee who was feeding in the floating vegetation close by.... Photo courtesy of Melody Fisher.
Next Kamla headed back to the Marine Mammal Pathobiology Lab (MMPL) in St. Petersburg to spend several days learning how to do detailed necropsies on dead manatees. Aside from determining the cause of death, MMPL staff also conduct studies on many aspects of manatee physiology. Here Kamla examines muscle and fat layers. Photo courtesy of FWC.

Kamla with MMPL staff Trevor Gerlach, Brandon Bassett, and Anna Panike. Photo courtesy of FWC.
Kamla also went out with MMPL staff Anna to collect a manatee carcass, which is alot easier when you have a truck with a winch attached! Photo courtesy of FWC.
Another day Kamla accompanied FWC staff Kane Rigney & Andy Garrett to Lowry Park Zoo, to conduct a health assessment on a manatee that was about to be released back to the wild. By this time he was getting pretty good at rolling them over! Photo courtesy of FWC.
Kamla watches as an ultrasound reading is taken, which shows the width of the manatee's fat layer and gives a good indication of overall health. In Florida manatees need a good fat layer to help protect them through cold winters. Photo courtesy of FWC.

Finally, Kamla spent 3 days at Homosassa Springs State Park working with their captive manatees. After all his hands on training, Kamla attended the Society of Marine Mammalogy conference in Tampa (more details on that below). He was the first African researcher my project has sponsored for training in the USA and I'm really grateful to all the people who gave their time to teach him! It took alot of logistical coordination to make it happen, and I'd also like to thank Susan Kahraman of Sea to Shore Alliance for all her help setting up Kamla's flights, local transportation, and lodging. He's now back in Africa continuing his research in Cameroon and plans to apply to universities to study for his PhD. Kamla's goal is to be the first Marine Biology university professor in his country, and I'm betting he will be!

Based on the success of Kamla's training, next month I'll sponsor a second researcher, Dawda Saine of the Gambia here in Florida. And I'm already thinking about my next training work in Africa, which will take place in Guinea-Bissau in May. Stay tuned!

Fall 2011 Recap

Happy New Year! Finally I have time to catch up with myself after a whirlwind Fall. I'm happy to report I survived my toughest semester of my PhD program, which will now make studying for and taking my qualifying exams this spring seem a like piece of cake :-) I learned alot in my Phylogenetics and Biochemistry clases that will help my research, but I'm also very glad they're FINISHED!! In addition to school, there were a few other project achievements this Fall:

- My collaborator Katie Brill has aged the first 16 West African manatee earbones from samples I collected and imported from four countries. Earbones are used for aging because manatees lose and replace their teeth throughout their lives as they wear them out (think of a conveyor belt from the back of the jaw to the front... the teeth move forward as the ones in front of them wear down and fall out). This is the first time the aging technique (which requires slicing a very thin section of earbone with a diamond saw and counting the rings, just like in a tree) has been used for this species. The ages ranged from 12 to 39 years old (39 is very old for a wild manatee!) and this information will be used along with genetic samples collected from the same individuals to give us a picture of the lives of manatees in different populations. We continue to try to get more earbones from other countries, so we can expand our research; I also plan to use these and other bones to do stable isotope analyses to determine what the manatees eat. We'll publish our results in a year or two, once we have more data.

Here's a photo of a manatee earbone slice... how many rings can you count? The answer is at the bottom of this post. (Photo courtesy of Katie Brill)

- In November I sponsored Cameroonian manatee researcher Aristide Kamla for 3 weeks of training in Florida. Aristide worked for almost a year to fundraise in order to make this trip, and in addition to the stipend I gave him (thanks to the generosity of my grants for training African researchers) he received a student travel award to attend the Society of Marine Mammalogy conference in Tampa (see below), and matched both awards with several thousand dollars of his own funds. My grants also allowed me to outfit Aristide with basic field equipment he needs for his manatee surveys in Cameroon, including binoculars, a GPS unit, a depth sounder with digital thermometer, a tape measure, a drybag to safely store his equipment, and manatee posters for educational outreach in his country. He's an impressive and extremely motivated young man, and I'll write more about his experiences in Florida in a separate post shortly.

Aristide and me with some of his field equipment donated by this project

- In late November I attended the biennial Society of Marine Mammalogy conference in Tampa, FL where I gave 3 presentations (1 oral and 2 posters) on different aspects of my ongoing research. The spoken presentation, "First Satellite Tagging of the West African Manatee" was given at the Sirenian Workshop and reported manatee rescues and satellite tagging I did in the Senegal River in 2009 in collaboration with Oceanium Dakar (a Senegalese NGO) and CBD-Habitat (a Spanish NGO). The two posters reported on my work to build the researcher network for the WA manatee (see below & link in menu at right), and a poster (lead author was Jonathan Perez Rivera) on our rehabilitation of Victor, the orphan manatee in Gabon.

Aristide and I presenting our posters at the marine mammal conference

-The conference was also an excellent opportunity to meet with other researchers to discuss future collaborations, and I'm excited to report that Dr. Miriam Marmontel (who first developed the manatee earbone aging technique) will join Katie's and my earbone research. I also met with a Mexican manatee researcher to discuss collaborating on manatee tooth wear (which helps us determine the types of plants they are eating) and with others to discuss WA manatee morphometrics (the study of manatee size and shape via measurements, which will help us determine if there are differences between populations in Africa) and future fundraising efforts. So all in all, it was a very successful meeting!

- In December the Columbus Zoo Conservation Fund awarded their 5th consecutive grant to this project, and I'm honored to have them as my longest term supporter of my West African manatee research! Thank you so much for your commitment to me and to this work Columbus Zoo!

So it was a very productive 4 months! Next up: aside from studying for 3 months for my qualifying exams and taking 2 more classes, I'll sponsor Gambian manatee researcher Dawda Saine in Florida for training in February, I hope to finish and submit 2 manuscripts to scientific journals, and I'll be planning my next field season in Africa (Senegal, and hopefully Guinea-Bissau and Gambia). And I'll try to be better at posting news here more often! I wish you all a wonderful, healthy and happy 2012!!

Earbone age answer= 16 years

Coming out of the Black Hole

Sorry for the disappearing act! At the end of July I returned to the USA, and in the end of August I started more classes towards my PhD at the University of Florida. This is my toughest semester yet- I'm taking Phylogenetics, Bio Chemisty, and a Physiology seminar plus continuing my job fulltime. It's challenging to say the least, and I'm really looking forward to finishing the semester in December! This is my last semester of full classes, then in January I start studying for my qualifying exams, which I'll take next April. There are many days where it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I do think this will all help my research for West African manatees in the long run, so it's worth it. The classes I'm taking now will certainly benefit my genetics research for the species.

In other news, as of September 1 the Wildlife Conservation Society in Gabon decided they could no longer care for Victor, the orphan manatee calf there. Those of us directly involved with Victor's care decided we couldn't stand by and watch him be abandoned, so 4 of us (myself, Dr. Rich Parnell, Aimee Sanders, and Dr. Ken Cameron) took over responsibility for Victor's care and fundraising. This has been hard to do on top of everything else we're doing in ourregular jobs, but we quickly put the word out that we needed help and have had very generous responses from Save the Manatee Club, whose donors bought 100 bags of milk formula plus vitamins for Victor, and Georgia Aquarium, who recently gave a $7000 donation for his care!
We thank both organizations for their incredible generosity which is a great start in allowing us to give Victor the extra year of care he needs before he can hopefully be returned to the wild. As of last week Victor weighs 61 kg, so he is continuing to thrive. We are still fundraising because his food, shipping of his supplies to Gabon, paying his Gabonese caretaker staff, veterinary costs and other maintenance costs are over $38,000 per year. If you are able to make a donation, please click here. (Under the Program drop-down menu, please select West African Manatee Research). All donations go directly to Victor! We appreciate the help very much!

I'd also like to thank two of my project funders, the USFWS Wildlife Without Borders program and the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund, who both recently awarded my project renewal grants! This is the 4th consecutive year Disney has supported my project and the 3rd year for USFWS, so I am very grateful to be able to continue building the African researcher regional network and to continue the genetics and other research that will give us lots of important new information for the species.

The biennial Society of Marine Mammalogy conference is coming up next month, so I'm now preparing my presentations- a talk and two scientific posters, which I'll post here after the conference. I'm also preparing for the arrival in Florida of Cameroonian manatee researcher Aristide Kamla, who was awarded a travel grant to attend the conference and present his Masters research on manatees in the Douala-Edea region of Cameroon. Kamla will also receive 2 additional weeks of training while he's here in Florida- in everything from manatee capture techniques, tracking tagged manatees in the wild to necropsies. I'm grateful to my colleagues at Sea to Shore Alliance, USGS, and the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission for providing so many training opportunities for Kamla.

Congo: Lac Tchimpa and the Lukani River

After paddling down the Ngonogo we traveled to Lac Tchimpa, another tranquil lake with no permanent residents. However, this lake is closer to villages so we did see lots of signs of fishing activity (particularly large hooks set for freshwater turtles). Again the habitat was great for manatees, but none were seen. I did find a small river at the far end of the lake (later I learned it is called the Lukani) that looked promising. The photo below shows Lake Tchimpa shoreline plants that are attractive to manatees: ferns, grasses, and a taro-like plant known as Cryptosperma senegalense.
We were also lucky to get a good view of this male Finfoot duck, which is a common but shy species here. We mostly see them disappearing under bushes as we move along the edge of waterways. (Photo by T. Collins)
We returned a day later to properly kayak and survey the Lukani. It's a very narrow creek, but in places it's 8 feet deep. Numerous fallen trees and other brush blocked the river at various points (although manatees could swim underthem), so we instantly regretted that we'd forgotten a machete. It was obvious from the overgrown brush that no humans had come up this river in a long time.
I found known manatee food plant species I hadn't seen anywhere else in Conkouati (or even in Gabon) and finally I found fresh feeding sign! Fern leaves hanging in the water had been stripped off their stems and and Cryptosperma leaves had been eaten.

As we continued upriver the going got tougher.
Where's the river? Tim is cutting through brush with his small knife in this photo.
After a couple hours we reached a mini lake and heard chimps in the trees nearby. Unfortunately further progress upriver was blocked by a huge log, so we turned back. But at least I have some proof that manatees use this area.
The Lukani was the last survey I had time for before I had to leave the Congo. I'd like to thank Tim and Hilde for their hospitality and all their help with logistics for my surveys. Although I didn't see any manatees myself, my interviews provide local knowledge of where they have been seen recently, and hopefully the tapez tapez fishing can be stopped, for the benefit of all the wildlife in the national park.

I've returned to Gabon for a few days to secure my export permits for the manatee samples I'll bring back to the USA, so my fieldwork is over for the next few months. Next I'll head back to Florida and the lab for sample analysis.

Congo: Kayaking the Ngongo

Last week my friend Tim (a whale researcher who lives at Conkouati) and I took off on a 3 day trip in search of manatees to lakes and up the Ngongo River north of Conkoauti Lagoon. People on the lagoon told me manatees occur in these more remote areas, so I was eager to go look. Our Congolese boat driver, Christian, works for Conkouati national park and knows these waterways very well.

Boating up the Ngongo River towards Lac Tchibinda on the first day, we passed through raffia palm forest which is full of elephants at this time of year, then moved into more upland tropical forest in the north. It was slow going due to many fallen logs in the river.
Lac Tchibinda is enormous! It took us an entire day to slowly boat around the edges. There are only a few people who live permanently on Lac Tchibinda, although there are a number of camps and people come occasionally to fish.
Overall the habitat is very pristine. Tim saw 4 otters on his morning kayak near our camp, and I found hundreds of duiker tracks (they're like a small deer) on the shore. It's quiet and good manatee habitat, but unfortunately we didn't see any. You can see the waterline on the bottom of the trees in the photo below, which marks the water level rise in the rainy season.
Our peaceful campsite on the lake. It's dry season, so very cool at night.
Ready to kayak in the land of too many tse tse flies! The first morning we went in opposite directions in our kayaks in order to cover more area at first light.
Sunrise view of the lake from the shoreline
I found freshwater mussels and collected samples. They were quite large, about 3 inches long. Now that I've really started looking, it turns out I find shellfish everywhere manatees are reported in Africa.
After the morning kayak we loaded up our motor boat & headed off on a survey around the rest of Lac Tchibinda. At the mouth of a small river that drains into the lake, there was a large grassy area with many species of manatee food plants. A local fisherman I interviewed that day told me he often sees manatees here as well as within the river, and he described mating herds, which was the first report of them I've had at Conkouati. The river was too small to navigate in our motorized boat and we had to keep going to finish Tchibinda and get to the next site, so no time to kayak it that day.
While I checked out the river mouth, Tim caught his first fish of the trip (which was released)
At another small river that drains into the lake we saw elephant tracks... but still no manatees.
After interviewing a local fisherman I wrote up my notes before we continued. People are often less intimidated when I don't take notes as I interview them. (photo by T. Collins).
As we headed from Lac Tchibinda over to the Ngongo River we passed this Graya ornata snake sunning just above the water.
Boating quickly up the Ngongo to reach our camp by sunset. Despite the beautiful scenery, I start to get frustrated when I don't find manatees! (photo by T. Collins).
As we came around one corner, we surprised a female elephant bathing in the river. We also saw and heard many other eles feeding along the banks.
Happy campers part 2: Tim & Christian in the early morning mist of the Ngongo. Tim is just happy that he survived the night without an elephant tromping on his tent!
Early the next morning we kayaked down the Ngongo River. The current is pretty strong, so we were able to mostly drift and look for wildlife. We saw lots of monkeys & chimps, hundreds of hornbills and other birds, and we heard elephants feeding in the brush above us. (photo by T. Collins).
The banks of the river rose about 20-30 feet above the waterline, indicating how much higher the water rises during the rainy season. This whole area floods, and as in other rivers I've surveyed in Africa, it's possible that manatees swim into flooded forests on the rivers edge at that time of year. But now it's the dry season and upriver the vegetation is too far above the waterline for manatees to reach, so I wasn't surprised not to find them here. Further downriver, though, the embankments are not as high (the river gets wider & deeper) and manatees could use that area in all seasons.
This is just another photo to give a sense of the gorgeous forest habitat. (photo by T. Collins).
At least we had a beautiful kayak trip and saw some cool animals. This is a Great Blue Turaco, one of several we saw as we paddled the river. They are about the size of a hawk. It's hard to photograph them so I was lucky.
We also saw these pretty purple flowers that reminded me of wisteria.
Next we continued to Lac Tchimpa....