All is not well in the forest… or the lagoon

I find the forests here absolutely mesmerizing. As we motor along the lagoons and rivers I am amazed at the size of the trees, with trunks that can easily reach 10 feet thick. In Evaro (inland) the roots of the trees are gnarled and look like something out of a Tolkien story; the forest seems enchanted. The water level rises and falls 3 meters or more between wet and dry seasons there. In coastal areas the forests seem positively primordial and I expect at any moment to see a dinosaur or prehistoric man peeking out of the dense growth. They are teeming with life- as we ride along rivers, birds and butterflies of incredible jewel colors flit everywhere, elephants and water buffalo wade into the river, baby crocs peek out from the shore under trees, and large fish roll at the surface.

Tree at Evaro, note water lineForest on the Rembo Rabi, Loango National Park

When I came to Gabon I knew that the national parks had only been established a few years ago and I assumed that there would still be some lingering issues, such as poaching in areas where people had hunted bushmeat forever, but that are now protected. I had heard quite a bit about the bushmeat issue and the lack of commitment and ability by the Gabonese government to enforce laws in huge remote areas. Unfortunately the EcoGuides don’t have law enforcement status here, they can only report violations to the police who often can’t or won’t do anything about it. Hopefully that situation will change, but apparently for now the president only allows the army and police to have guns, because he fears a coup.

What I did not expect, was the reality of oil concessions. A Chinese oil company, Sinopec, is currently testing for oil reserves all throughout Loango national park. This involves dynamite blasts that are set in both the forest and the lagoon and triggered remotely. It appears that they paid off a minister in the Gabonese government who gave them an oil concession with boundaries that are pretty much the same as the national park boundaries. The minister of energy did not tell the minister of the environment, and unfortunately the Chinese have been blasting here since May. It’s a complicated issue as Gabon wrestles with the temptation of oil wealth vs. its commitment 4 years ago to protect its natural treasures by establishing 13 national parks. And no one seems to know what president Bongo knows or thinks of the situation. Sinopec brought in a bulldozer and opened up an old logging road, then established a camp of 200 workers within the park. There are huge concerns about the impact to the wildlife, not just from the blasting but from poaching to feed the workers. And the blasting is the worst part. There are researchers living in the forest with the gorillas and chimps who fear for their safety and that of the apes. They hear hundreds of blasts a day and the blasts are getting closer. A tourist boat in the lagoon witnessed a blast (the tourists actually thought it was a whale, which is sort of funny, but not really). When I went to the southern end of the lagoon this week, we heard at least 25 blasts in the distance, and saw flagging tape markers known to be Sinopec’s and areas where lots of trees had been cut down. It is very disturbing to say the least.

Then as we were boating back to the lodge on Sunday, we found a fresh dead manatee in the lagoon. It was bleeding from the nose and had a shark bite out of its lower back, but I think the shark bite was likely post-mortem (there are bull sharks in the lagoon here). We towed the carcass to shore and took some photos, measurements and a genetic sample, but I didn’t have tools with me to do a proper necropsy. I plan to return to it in a couple days, but I’m not sure if I will be able to determine a cause of death. I’ve written a colleague of mine in the US who studies barotrauma in cetaceans (in layman’s terms that means he studies the effects of trauma to the auditory system of whales, for example in cases where groups of whales strand dead after Navy test bombing in the area). I’m hoping he can give me some advice about what to look for when I cut the manatee open. I hope it died of natural causes, but for now I worry that it may be the first recorded victim of blasting in the lagoon.

Click here to read more about Sinopec in Gabon

By the way, some other articles I’ve read say that Sinopec has stopped their activities here, but as I sit here in the park, I can tell you that is simply not true. Let’s hope they are pressured to do so soon. A West African manatee face, but sadly it's dead.

Animal IDs

Brian from Nat Geo looked at the snake pictures I previously posted, and thinks the first one is a forest cobra. The second one I saw last Wednesday is a Rhinoceros Viper (not Gabon viper).

Tim says the monkey is a red-capped mangabey. I saw quite a few more in the past few days, as well as more forest buffalo and elephants. Here's a nice picture of an elepant on the savannah yesterday morning:

The camping trip went pretty well despite alot of rain. I am completely covered in Tse Tse fly and mosquito bites. Tse Tse flies really are an insideously evil insect... they crawl up pant legs and sleeves and no amount of bug spray seems to deter them. It was nice to come back to the lodge and wash off all the grime... amazing how bad one can smell after only 3 days!

More soon..

Great animal sightings Wednesday!

Yesterday morning we went out to a different part of the lagoon in the drizzle and didn’t find any manatees, but I did see my first forest elephant! Infact, my first wild elephant ever! It was wonderful, he didn’t seem too disturbed by our presence. After he came out of the bushes I realized he was wearing a radio collar. The big yellow box on his neck is the tag. He was petite compared to the African or Asian elephants I’m used to seeing. I thought he was a juvenile until Pierre told me he was a full grown adult. Tomo told me later that this elephant is part of a study to look at movement patterns that’s being conducted by Steve Blake, an elephant researcher I recently met in Libreville.

We also saw a troop of 40 or so monkeys bounding through the trees. Hard to get a good picture in the rain, and they don’t exactly stay still! I need to look up the species.
And in the afternoon we encountered a Gabon Viper swimming across the lagoon. It was only about a foot long and had the most beautiful color pattern, as you can see. Apparently they have the longest fangs of any snake in the world and their bite can be deadly.
I’d like to say that the picture is blurry for artistic purposes, but its tough shooting from a rocking boat at sunset!

A night on the lagoon

As we boated out to our campsite Tuesday afternoon, we surprised a group of at least 3 manatees in an open channel. The water literally erupted around the boat, and even though I had a camera in my hand, I was so stunned (and was also trying to count any noses or tails) that I didn’t get a picture. Unfortunately there was a strong wind and we didn’t have an anchor, so the boat drifted away quickly. We tried slowly moving back to the area, but they were either gone or sitting tight on the bottom (water was 7 meters deep there). Interestingly, nearby Pierre showed me some seagrass that he says grows throughout the lagoon, and that he says manatees like. No surprise there, but the surprise is that there is seagrass at all. There is almost no scientific literature on seagrass in West Africa, mostly because there isn’t much. So I collected a sample (photo below).

Manatee salad
Sunset on the lagoon

We camped at Pierre’s family’s fishing camp (really just a cleared area in the forest) and did a night survey. We had a third sighting of a manatee in one particular small cove, which is the type of thing I’m looking for. Repeated sightings in the same place suggest frequent use, and therefore might be a good place to set nets to capture a manatee if we get funding to tag them here in the future. Which is something I really hope to do!

The net below is used for hunting manatees (called a Tangle net, because the mesh size is big and the manatee gets it’s head and flippers caught, tangles itself up and can’t escape), and is one of 5 such nets confiscated from the lagoon by the park EcoGuides here. It would be great to use it for a good cause- to catch manatees alive so that they can be GPS tagged and we can learn more about their behavior and distribution (where they go to find food, rest, day vs. night, dry vs. wet season, help us to get a baseline abundance estimate, etc).

Pierre (in the hat) and Brice (in yellow) check out the confiscated manatee net

Communication Gap

Yesterday afternoon I headed out on the lagoon with my 2 EcoGuides, Pierre and Brice. They knew I had done an interview in the morning, describing my manatee research here and showing / describing the parts of a West African manatee skull (Tim recovered a skull from a carcass here in July, it is in pristine condition). So as we’re heading out from the lodge the guys say, “So, do you want to see another carcass?” I look at them in shock and they boat me over to a manatee carcass that is literally within sight of the lodge! Granted it wasn’t fresh, infact it had been recovered last Christmas Day, 2005. It has baked in the sun for all these months and is now basically dried hide over a complete skeleton. I had been given a brief report about this carcass shortly after I arrived at Iguela (basically 2 pictures and GPS coordinates), but no one had ever mentioned that they actually still HAD the carcass! When the guys saw that the other skull was important enough for me to describe to a camera crew, they realized I might be interested in other bones as well. Previously they had assumed I was only interested in live manatees. So now I wonder what else they will show me!

And so now there’s a second carcass to collect samples from- dried skin for genetics, earbones for aging, pelvic bones which are differently shaped in males vs. females. I’ll take some measurements (total length won’t be completely accurate, but it’s better than nothing), and see if we can store the bones out of the sun. It would be great to find a way for the skeleton to be re-articulated somewhere here where Gabonese people can see it.

This may not look exciting to many of you, but given how few complete West African manatee skeletons there are for education and scientific study, this is a gold mine!

By the way, I know my manatee friends in FL will laugh because it seems that no matter how hard I try to work with live animals, I always seem to end up dealing with the dead stuff!

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If you want to go back to the beginning and see earlier posts, click on Septmber 2006 on the right side of this webpage. Posts are archived each month.

This morning I was interviewed by National Geographic for a documentary they're doing on Gabon's national parks. They hope to come out to the field with me later in the week. This was my view of Gil and Brian as I described the parts of a West African manatee skull. They are great fun!


I'm heading out to camp on the lagoon so I'll post more in a few days!

Some Iguela pictures

The main building. Guest dining room is on the left, salon area on the right. The bar and staff dining area (convienently near the bar!) is below. The gazebo out on the lagoon. The scientist's quarters, very comfortable!
Snake swimming on the lagoon. It was about 3 feet long. I am not sure of the species, it wasn't in the reptile book here. Anyone have any ideas? Click on the photo to enlarge it and see the markings on it's head.