GVI Kenya

Category: African Fish Eagle, Coastal Forest, Colobus, Primate Research, Primate census, Shimoni Forest | Date: Aug 04 2009 | By: gvikenya

Today will be the first of a two part update on some exciting research going on in Shimoni Forest.  We are attempting to build on work previously done in 2001 by Julie Anderson and then in 2007 by GVI.  We are doing a colobus census of the whole forest!

Marta is a volunteer here with us for three months and is currently working towards her masters in environmental modeling, monitoring and reconstruction.  She contacted us asking if she could use her time here to do the field-work for her project in the forest, consisting mainly of a colobus census – we welcomed her with open arms!

 Preparing to synchronise watches

We timed the census for when we had the most number of people on the mainland, and managed to get a keen group of 15 people fired up and ready.  To do the census we require groups to conduct what is essentially a primate community survey along all of our regular transects, plus groups moving through the forest in between the transects following compass bearings, so a group every 100 metres.  Unfortunately our GPS’s do not work in the forest due to poor satellite coverage, so we had to devise a cunning system of counting paces and regular check points coordinated using mobile phones (on silent of course!), to ensure we were all moving through the forest at a similar pace. 

 The team heading in

In an ideal world, you would have enough people to do the entire forest in a single day, leaving you with a ‘snapshot’ population count.  We don’t have enough people so are having to do it over two days.  For those groups traveling between our regular marked and cut transects, it was pretty rough going – there was plenty of crawling through thickets and fighting through thorns.  However our sense of adventure and the belief in the value of the work prevailed, and lots of smiling faces headed back to base.

 Getting through one of the many thickets!

During the day five groups of colobus, ten groups of sykes and one group of yellow baboon were sighted.  Some of the other casual observations included a pair of zanj elephant shrews, hornbills, African fish eagles and lots of red bellied coastal squirrels!

One of the sighted colobus 

We’re all tired, but looking forward a second day out in the forest.  We really can’t wait to see the results and compare them with the previous years.  I’ll hopefully get a post out letting you all know how it went!

Tags: African Fish Eagle, colobus monkey, hornbill, Primate census, Primate Research, sykes monkey, yellow baboon, zanj elephant shrew

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Category: African Fish Eagle, Birds, Cetacean research, Community Conservation, Dolphins, Mangroves, bottlenose dolphins | Date: Aug 03 2009 | By: gvikenya

As part of GVI’s marine research programme here in Mkwiro, we conduct interviews with the local fishermen on the island.  The people here have been fishing for generations, and spend more time out on the water than anyone.  They can provide invaluable information about sightings (of dolphins, whales, turtles, dugongs etc), catches, pollution and illegal activities. A GVI volunteer Hooi Ling, tells us about her day conducting interviews.

The villagers on the island are Muslim so we made sure we had our head, shoulders and knees covered before we set off for our excursion. As usual, the children greeted us with loud, enthusiastic “Jambo! What is your name?” as we walked through Mkwiro village. Some of the faces were familiar because we were working with the community last week teaching them English and Creative Arts, and playing sports and singing songs with the children. A few of the children had learnt Mandarin phrases and it warmed my heart to hear them greet me with “Ni hao” (how are you) and “Huan yin” ( welcome).

 A sacred ibis, seen from the mangroves

After about 15 minutes, we reached the mangroves. Felicity explained the importance of mangroves for preventing soil erosion and creating a breeding and feeding ground for fishes and birds. We learnt how mangrove trees survive in salt water by growing roots, which protrude above ground for oxygen and shed leaves to discard excess salt. The trees also grow long, green seed pods which float around at high tide before setting itself in the ground at low tide. She pointed out tiny gastropods (snails and sea slugs).

Fiddler crabs fascinated me!!! The male crabs have one very enlarged chela which they use to wave in a circle to establish territory and to attract females. When lots of fiddler crabs waved together, they looked like they were doing a Mexican wave; quite comical to watch.  And the number of amazing birds you see from the mangroves is just incredible!  We saw herons, african fish eagles, a sacred ibis and a knigfisher! 

When we arrived in Wasini village, we looked for the local fishermen and found a few young men who could speak English and were willing to translate Kiswahili for us. I interviewed a 55 year old fisherman who had been fishing for over 20 years. GVI had a comprehensive interview to find out from local fishermen such things as the types of fish they had caught, fishing equipment, whether their catch had increased/decreased over the years and which fishing grounds they used. We also asked them about the dolphin and turtle population and the level of damage caused to their nets. After the interview, fishermen informed us that the local villagers had set up a committee since 2003 to protect the Wasini reef from fishing and coastal pollution.

Another beautiful sight - a western reef heron 

Annica and I ate some local food (chapatis with a nice cup of hot ginger tea) while the others (Flick, Kirsty and Mila) visited the coral gardens. The coral gardens consisted of dead corals surrounded by mangrove trees and the local women’s group has built boardwalks around the corals. My highlight of the day was when I saw four bottlenose dolphins jumping and travelling with the tourist dhows.

Although I was not out on a boat today, it has been an enjoyable day learning about the mangroves and seeing the dolphins. Asante sana Flick!

Tags: bottlenose dolphin, Dugong, fisherman, humpback whale, interviews, Mangroves, marine research, sacred ibis, turtle, western reef heron

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Category: African Fish Eagle, Colobus, Primate Research, Shimoni Forest, Tortoise | Date: Nov 27 2007 | By: admin

GVI’s research team headed back in to Shimoni Forest today, to survey the primates along our Transect 1, which runs parallel within 100m of the coastline - the area of forest at most risk of development. We survey Shimoni East forest on a regular basis to keep track of the presence of the Colobus, including ‘Burundi’ troop who have shown remarkable resilience in maintaining their home range over the last two years in the face of the felling of trees in a plot of land being cleared for development at the beginning of Transect 1.

So it was good to hear that Burundi troop were still present with two adult males, three adult females and the sub-adult that we had first recorded as a juvenile three months ago. The team recorded two further troops within 500m along the transect, with the excitng news that one small group of an adult male with two adult females also had an infant present - clearly identifiable as being within 3 months of age by its all-white fur colouration. From 3 months their fur becomes grey with the characteristic black and white pelt colouration showing up after 6 months. The third group, observed in an area where we have often seen an unusual troop of predominantly adult males, contained 3 males, 3 adult females and another sub-adult.

However the exciting news from the field today was the presence of an African Fish Eagle nest on the transect… the adult eagles were seen and the chicks heard calling in the trees above although the team couldn’t quite see where the nest was today! We will be keeping our eyes and ears open in future to see how they fare. The African Fish Eagle is a beautiful raptor and, for me, its haunting cries are one of the most evocative sounds of my time in East Africa.

Fortunately the team weren’t looking up in to the trees the whole time or they would have missed the hinged tortoise along the transect. We are still uncertain of which species we find here in Shimoni, with the both Bell’s and Speke’s Hinged Tortoises potentially in the area, and to confuse matters more, they may also have the potential to interbreed!

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