GVI Kenya

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: 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, 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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