GVI Kenya

Category: Dugongs, Kisite Mpunguti MPA | Date: Jan 30 2009 | By: gvikenya

This week has undoubtedly belonged to our marine research crew aboard ‘Lampard’… and they saved the best to last. A few blogs back I wrote about our highlight of 2008, possibly of our entire research programme that begun in January 2006, our first observation of the endangered dugong, and the first confirmed sighting on Kenya’s south coast in, we believe, a decade.The excitement at the time was incredible, an exceptionally rare experience that we didn’t think we’d ever have - well I’m only too happy to report that the excitement is no less the second time around. This morning as the research boat travelled from Kisite Island to Lower Mpunguti Island, within the marine protected area, a large mammal surfaced just metres in front of the boat. Just like the first time, everyone on board remained cautious and scanned the ocean for confirmation. It came as a tourist dhow approached, again causing the large brown mammal to surface quickly in front of its bow, but clear enough for a confirmed sighting of a dugong, this time inside the marine protected area. The chart below indicates the two sightings:

There wasn’t time to get photos and we have no way of knowing whether it was the same individual that we sighted in November last year, but this does not diminish the significance of today’s events. What is almost certainly Kenya’s rarest mammal may well be returning to the south coast; clearly one individual is a long way from indicating a recovery, but it’s reason enough for now not to give up hope.

Tags: Dugong, kisite mpunguti marine protected area, marine research

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Category: Cetacean research, Dolphins, Kisite Mpunguti MPA, Uncategorized, bush baby | Date: Jan 30 2009 | By: gvikenya

So the last blog was all about going out in search of the wildlife… today’s is more about the wildlife coming to us. I mentioned before that we had discovered the night time raiders of our bananas; a pair of short-eared bush babies (or short eared galagos as they should be referred to).

Provisionally named ‘Bushy’ and ‘Fishy’ - I know it doesn’t seem overly original but we’re not being quite as obvious as it seems… they’re named in honour of Ekens, our former national scholarship programme student from Kenya Wildlife Service Training Institute, and then intern, who has been battling to recovery from an accident four months ago. He loves the bush… and fish! We know he’ll be as excited as we are to have the forest wildlife sharing our office and home…

Tags: bottlenose dolphin, bush baby, code of conduct, dolphin calf, dolphin tourism, galago, kisite mpunguti marine protected area

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Category: Cetacean research, Dolphins, Kisite Mpunguti MPA, Turtles | Date: Jan 29 2009 | By: gvikenya

It doesn’t happen as often as I’d like with so much else going on but yesterday I joined the marine research team, 6.30am departure aboard our research vessel ‘Lampard’, on calm waters with the rising sun to warm us…

I take the tiller, captaining the boat east out of the Wasini channel, the rest of the team assume positions for dedicated watch. Passing the coastal forest of Shimoni I spot a colobus in the canopy and an African Fish Eagle… but today is the marine research programme, and it’s dolphins and turtles that we search for.

Rounding the south-east corner of Shimoni peninsula we enter Funzi bay, hoping to spot Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins that favour these near-shore habitats. No sign of them today. We pass a green turtle, but sadly a recently dead one floating at the water’s surface. No obvious cause of death, but this time of the year, during the kaskazi winds (the NE monsoon winds), seems to bring a peak of turtle mortalities each year.  Much of Funzi bay is shallow and doesn’t leave us much room to manouvre so we turn the boat around and head south, towards the continental shelf and open water. A flock of terns dives persistently at the water’s surface but the fish shoal they target has gone unoticed by any dolphin.

A more distant splash and a suspected dolphin sigthing, something dark and rounded surfacing. Half-way there before it becomes evident it’s another dead turtle bobbing at the surface. A huge one this time, a hawksbill, it’s been dead for longer and given the size it reached, somehow a sadder loss as we circle around it and continue our route south.

Sergi, our marine research officer takes over from me at the stern as I join the rotation of observers up front, each with our 45 degree field of view to patrol. Tom calls out a potential dolphin far ahead, an apparent leap and splash, Sergi steers us toward the point on the horizon and we keep scanning the surface. We rotate positions, both Tom and I looking forward, he sees something again, but is disappointed when there’s no following dorsal fins or repeat splashes.

Still we head further south, further from the shore and are rewarded 15 minutes later by 4 dorsal fins breaking the water’s surface ahead. They approach the boat to ride the bow and a further 3 dorsal fins join them. We expect them to be Indian Ocean bottlenose dolphins out here, but the small triangular fins, the smaller torpedo-like bodies and the long narrow beaks all point to something different. Three tone body colouration as they surface confirms we have found a small group of spinner dolphins.

Sergi hands me the camera, I try to get photos of the dorsal fins of each one as they sruface to breathe. It’s not as easy as it seems it should be. Unpredicatable quite where and when they will surface as they dart across the bow just below the surface, the angle has to be right, the sun behind, sharp focus… and you have to be quick. Sergi uses the time to talk the team of observers through the dolphins’ behaviour. Close to the surface, regular slow shallow surfacing, no obvious directional travel; they were probably resting. We leave the small group and within minutes an apparent lone individual further away leaps from the water, an acrobatic spin that gives them their name. Then 10 dorsal fins surface to our right. We barely get through counting them when at least 20 fins appear on the right. Our group of 7 was actually part of a larger group, in the end we estimate 40 to 50 individuals.

Spinner dolphins are thought to be seasonal visitors to this part of the Kenyan coast, possibly crossing the channel from Pemba, following the food with the kaskazi. In previous years we have recorded them between mid-February to mid-March, in large active groups (up to and over 200) off the shelf, south of the MPA. This kaskazi we had one sighting in December, and then last week. We do not think that this season represents any ‘break from the routine’ but more likely that our new research vessel gives us a higher, clearer viewing platform, and survey routes take us further from shore so we simply see more. The real exctitement is that we are now understanding more about these seasonal visitors; their ’season’ is longer than we first thoguht, and they are using habitats east of the MPA for resting suggesting they may be here for more than just quick foraging forays. Ironically, the fact that they are consistenly recorded outside of the marine protected area is not of too great concern. They are free from disturbance by the dolphin-watching tourist boats and in the absence of commercial fishing activities are not threatened here by high levels of accidental deaths from by-catch that plague some of their open-ocean counter-parts through industries such as tuna fisheries which are yet to be quite as ‘dolphin-friendly’ as we might be lead to believe.

I’ll keep you posted throughout our ’spinner season’…

Tags: African Fish Eagle, Colobus, dolphin research, green turtle, hawksbill turtle, Kisite Mpunguti MPA, spinner dolphin

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Category: Cetacean research, Dolphins, Turtles, Uncategorized | Date: Jan 27 2009 | By: gvikenya

Tom O’Dell travelled from the UK to assist us with our marine research programme so we thought we’d share is perspectives on the work and the life out here in Kenya… 

I think I am a little different to the others here, everyone else is involved in some type of conservation work, or has spent, or is spending months travelling. Not me!

I am a so-called IT professional who was owed a couple of week’s holiday and can’t stand the idea of sitting on a beach reading and sunning myself for days on end. I had two weeks, no plans, a hatred of being bored and fancied something different , so I packed my bags and headed off to Kenya to do a couple of weeks marine conservation work. That was two weeks ago, and I am sitting here, on my last day wondering how I can wangle more time off work.

To say the conditions here are rustic is a small understatement, there’s no fresh water except that which is collected when it rains, the shower facilities consist of a bucket and jug on the floor and the toilet is, literally, a hole in the floor. And with all this “rusticness” comes probably the greatest sense of community and togetherness I have ever experienced.

You are never alone here, unless you want to be. If you are feeling under the weather, everyone does whatever they can to help you out (I have had my fair share of acclimatization problems); if you are feeling down, they will do whatever it takes to cheer you up and if you do want some time to yourself, then they will leave you to it.

Despite my intentions, being here is not a holiday, you work most days, cooking, cleaning, building, but everyone has their jobs and everyone helps out each other where they can, adding to the sense of community.

Working on marine conservation is quite simply amazing. The best way to describe it is probably to quote a text I sent a friend of mine back home; “Typical day, up just before sunrise, have breakfast and traipsed down to the boat. Watched the sun come up across the water then started “work”. 7am, watching a pod of bottlenose dolphins feeding about 20 meters away from the boat; 10am snorkeling on a reef looking for turtles, managed to photo a green before it swam away; 11.30am back on the boat heading home for lunch, took a slight detour to watch some humpback dolphins socializing. Back at base to learn about the dolphins and turtles we saw, relax in a hammock, do a little computer work, then dinner and drink in Paradise. Wednesday tomorrow, more of the same”. Let’s just say the response I received was blunt (she was a little envious).

Were it possible, I would stay out here longer, and I definitely heading back to explore further. Unfortunately, the “modern world” beckons. I’ve been two weeks without television, internet access, cars, running water, microwave and have only sent and received 10 texts in total which for a so called IT professional borders on heresy, and I’ve loved every minute of it.

Tags: bottlenose dolphin, dolphin research, green turtle, humpback dolphin, Kenya, volunteer

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Category: Charcoal Burning, Coastal Forest, Community Conservation, Environmental Education, Friends of Shimoni Forest, Kaya, Kenya Wildlife Service, Logging, Shimoni Forest, Uncategorized | Date: Jan 26 2009 | By: gvikenya

Friends of Shimoni Forest here again and still were working hard on our goals. I mentioned once that the local assistant area chief, Mr. Adini Mgeni, was devoted to helping us in our efforts to conserve the coastal forest. Well, for the first time in history a local politician has personally patrolled the forest in search of charcoal burners and illegal logging.

Athumani and I had a meeting with Mr. Mgeni the other day and talked to him about his efforts and plans for the future. Mr. Mgeni has been into the forest twice since coming into office, this month, and has had a firsthand look at the destruction in the forest. As he is very busy, he created a volunteer community policing group, mostly youth, to do patrols more frequently. Twice now this group has brought in charcoal burners. After talking with the charcoal burners, Mr. Mgeni discovered some interesting things. The charcoal burners are fully aware what they’re doing is wrong and would be happy to stop. The issue is that the unemployment rate in Kenya, especially among youth, is extremely high. This is why finding alternative sources of income are so important, and these guys will be some of the first we train as guides when we begin our forest tours.
The assistant area chief Mr. Mgeni has been very helpful and shared with us his thoughts on some of our plans. He really wants the forest tours to get up and running soon and agrees we should include the local Kayas as well. Kayas are sacred areas of the forest which in the past were used for prayer and worship. These are still used today by local elders, and they are very concerned about the future of the Kayas. The Kayas represent the culture heritage of Shimoni and are at risk of being destroyed, one has already been lost due to destruction. We would like to include the Kayas in our forest tour, so we are arranging a meeting with the village elders to discuss their hopes and concerns.

Active charcoal pit
Mr. Mgeni has been very active in conservation throughout his career, including being chairman of Shimoni Youth Conservation group. He has a few ideas as well which he would like our help with. One of his goals is to raise enough money to plant 5,000 saplings in local schools and public areas. This will be a way Shimoni can support environmental education, as well as the villages own way of fighting global warming. We think this is a great idea and we will help raise as much money as possible.
As always we appreciate you taking the time with us today and on behalf of Friends of Shimoni Forest, and our new partners, this is Drew saying thanks and talk to you soon.

Tags: , Charcoal Burning, Coastal Forest, Community Conservation, Environmental Education, Friends of Shimoni Forest, Kaya, Kenya Wildlife Service, Logging, Shimoni Forest

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Category: Cetacean research, Dolphins, Turtles, Uncategorized | Date: Jan 23 2009 | By: gvikenya

Here at GVI we are fortunate to have volunteers from around the world join us to support our research and community work and of course learn about the incredible habitats, wildlife and culture of Kenya. Olga Bloemen has joined us on the expedition for 7 weeks, coming from the Netherlands, and shares the news of our marine research programme with you…

My first week on Wasini Island in Kenya is over already. Monday was filled with training activities such as dolphin and turtle identification, data recording procedures, dolphin behaviour and how to use the radio; “Base, base, base, this is squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. Do you copy? Over?”  I learned a lot but I couldn’t wait for Tuesday as it would be our first trip out on the boat searching for dolphins!!!

My alarm rang at 5am and I took a bucket shower under the stars which was amazing, although at that early hour, a bowl of Weetabix is all my stomach could stand! At 7am we were on the boat crossing the water between Shimoni and Wasini Island, heading for the open water. We soon spotted a group of Indian Ocean bottlenose dolphins swimming just a few metres away from the boat, including a mother with her calf. The team of watchers scan the sea for hours and then someone spots a fin and the whole boat bursts into energy! How many are there? What is their behaviour? All information is recorded on the forms, but as important is to take photographs of the fins. These are used to identify the dolphins using the photo-identification catalogue and the mark re-capture programme.

A sighting is cool, but being on the watch and on the boat with the wind in my hair is what I enjoy the most. It feels a bit like riding the waves! The snorkeling, searching for turtles and all the tropical fish is also quite incredible… I can’t wait for my next marine research week!

Bye for now, Olga

Tags: cetacean, dolphin, research, survey, turtle

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Category: Charcoal Burning, Coastal Forest, Community Conservation, Environmental Education, Friends of Shimoni Forest, Shimoni Forest, Uncategorized | Date: Jan 21 2009 | By: gvikenya

Hey there it’s Drew again back with more from Friends of Shimoni Forest. The amount of destruction in the forest is reaching new and higher levels every day but we’re still pushing for protection. The importance community plays in reaching our goals is not never forgotten. Saying that, we realize that the Shimoni coastal forest does not belong to one community, other villages use the forest as well. It is just as important for these communities to get involved. When I think about it, they’re a part of our community as well. I mean why not? We share water, matatus and other resources. So we’ve decided to extend a hand to these local communities, particularly a women’s group in the nearby village Anzwani.

Yesterday, Athumani, Friends of Shimoni Forest treasurer, and I took a trip up the road to see how we could assist another community group and to ask for support for our cause. We had a meeting with about 15 women from their woman’s group. First we explained to them what are group was about and the importance of protecting the coastal forest. We told them about how there are people from outside their community coming and using their village as a passage into forest to cut down timber and burn charcoal. This really seemed to hit home.  They use the forest to collect firewood for cooking and traditional medicines, but that is for their community and is a sustainable practice. They did not appreciate the idea of others coming and destroying the forest for profit when the community is still struggling. They quickly agreed to work with us. We asked that they help spread the word of conservation. Now there will be a log kept when they see charcoal burners and power saws, and these people will no longer be welcome in Anzwani. They will no longer stand by and let this happen.

Like I was saying before the importance of community is not lost on our group. We have asked for assistance from this local group and we feel it is our responsibility to show our support for them as well. We talked about ideas they have for capacity building and other options for sustainable use of the forest. They really got on board; many of the women are anxious to get involved with bee-keeping and want to be sent for training as soon as possible. We talked about ways to raise the money to get this started and we will be putting our ideas into action soon. We also met with some of the youth from the village. They too had strong feeling about conserving the coastal forest. A few of them will be first on our list when we begin training tourist guides for the forest tour we are creating. Alternative livelihood is the best way we can encourage conservation, and the people of Anzwani village are ready and willing. We made some really great friends today and I can’t wait to start working with them.  

Tags: Charcoal Burning, Coastal Forest, Community group, conservation, Environmental Education, Friends of Shimoni Forest, Shimoni Forest

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Category: Birds, Coastal Forest, Colobus, Elephant Shrew, Shimoni Forest, Small mammals, Uncategorized, bush baby, chameleon | Date: Jan 21 2009 | By: gvikenya

It was only a matter of days after the arrival of our expedition members, before we were back in Shimoni’s coastal forest and underway with our research programme. The beginning of 2009 did not disappoint… within just the first week it felt like we’d seen an expedition’s worth of biodiversity. Heading out at 5.30am on bird surveys was made more than worthwhile with groups of colobus seemingly in every tree above. With the onset of the dry season, the leaves are falling and we were treated to clear views of colobus crashing through the branches and Syke’s monkeys scampering below.

The bird surveys delivered a hatrick of hornbills - crowned, silvery-cheeked and trumpeter. Elephant shrews were in evidence every day, hurtling over the leaf litter as were the small suni antelope. The night walk provided everyone with a clear view of a suni as it stood in our torchlight for a minute before disappearing in to the bush and bush babies too, their bright orange reflective eyes giving them away. However the most exciting ‘cameo’ of the week was a little chap that we hadn’t recorded since our first sighting nearly three years ago… an impressively cryptic species in the dry leaf litter, it seems remarkable that we should see it at all, and very satisfying to have a short-tailed (or bearded) pygmy chameleon make a reappearance on our casual observations database.

However, it seems that we didn’t need to go to all the effort of 5.30am departures and hot sweaty treks to the furthest reaches of our transects to enjoy Shimoni’s rich wildlife… we didn’t even need to leave the kitchen. Having quietly cursed rats for leaving half chewed bananas on the kitchen floor, I was proven wrong when two brown bundles of fur climbed through the window. The short-eared bush babies have returned every night since, and I can happily report that mangoes make for a suitable alternative to bananas for our uninvited dinner guests. And just when we thought our forest week was over, and we could relax with a cold beer at Smugglers, the biggest surprise of them all dropped by… a bush pig behind the bar!

Tags: biodiversity, bush baby, bush pig, chameleon, coastal forests, Colobus, Elephant Shrew, galago, hornbill, primate, sengi

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Category: Birds, Butterflies, Charcoal Burning, Coastal Forest, Colobus, Community Conservation, Elephant Shrew, Environmental Education, Friends of Shimoni Forest, Logging, Primate Research, Shimoni Forest, Uncategorized | Date: Jan 19 2009 | By: gvikenya

 Greetings from Kenya!My name is Drew; I’m an American from California currently living in Shimoni, a small village on the south coast of Kenya. Shimoni is home to a very important coastal forest and is believed to house the second largest population of Angolan Black and White Colobus monkey in Kenya. Kenyan coastal forests have a number of endemic species, including 10 birds, 34 reptiles, 75 butterflies. We also have the rare zanj elephant shrew in Shimoni an animal in which very little data has been collected.

 
 I work with a local community group called “Friends of Shimoni Forest” dedicated to conserving the forest and educating the community on its importance. Our group was created near the end of 2007 when local community members began to realize that the destruction of the forest was no longer sustainable. The forest had always been used for its natural resources, but in recent years the amount of charcoal and timber being removed has increased nearly 300%, much of which was not being consumed by local people. This inspired the community to take action in conservation to insure that the forest would be available for generations to come.

 
 2009 marks a new beginning and our group has big plans for the year to come. In January a new Area Sub Chief, Adini Miongo Mgenti, was designated to Shimoni sub location. He has shown himself to be dedicated to conservation and is committed to working with us towards our goals. His support will be critical and we are very fortunate to have him with us. With the new school year starting, we will move forward with our community education. Lesson plans are being created and soon we will be in classrooms working with the youth and creating our Friends of Shimoni Forest youth group, very exciting.  Alternative livelihoods for community members is always a priority so things like bee-keeping and creating a forest walk for tourist are also in the works. It’s amazing to see our members’ dedication and determination to protecting this beautiful environment. We invite you to come along for the ride this year and share in this incredible experience. 
Talk to you soon,   
Drew.

Tags: Charcoal Burning, Coastal Forest, colobus monkey, Community Conservation, Environmental Education, Forest, Logging, Shimoni Forest

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Category: Cetacean research, Dolphins, Dugongs, Humpback whales | Date: Jan 18 2009 | By: gvikenya

Before we move completely in to a new and exciting of year of GVI and Kenya, some of our research and community development team have put together their highlights and memories of the end of last year to share. So, from the research boat, Bardan…

Not forgetting the beautiful humpback whales, including their calves, that we saw and blogged during our first couple of weeks on the marine research programme back in October, the rest was equally exciting. On many occasions we could count ourselves lucky enough to spend time in the wake of large groups of Indian Ocean bottlenose dolphins… the coolest part though? Thanks to a lot of office time and more photographs of fins than we care to dwell on, we could recognise many of the dolphins and know them by name!  Mothers, juveniles, calves all leaped from the water demonstrating elegance and playfulness in equal measure.

Indo-pacific humpback dolphins also put in an appearance but remarkably… and for the first time ever… the cetaceans (our whales and dolphins) were upstaged by another marine mammal. And one that we never truly, honestly expected to see, however much we had hoped. On 4th November 2008, our dedicated observers on board Bardan, whilst tracking bottlenose dolphins in to Funzi bay, recorded the first confirmed sighting of a dugong on Kenya’s south coast in the three years we have been here, and to our knowledge, in over a decade; none were recorded south of Mombasa in a 1998 aerial survey, whilst Kenya’s entire population, concentrated around the Lamu archipelago, could be down to single figures by now.

Tags: cetaceans, Dolphins, Dugong, Humpback whales, Kenya, marine research

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