GVI Kenya

Category: Coastal Forest, Colobus, Primate Research, Shimoni Forest | Date: Oct 22 2009 | By: gvikenya

Well my arms are aching and my hands are blistered, yet I feel the need to let everyone know about why…

We have been doing primate and biodiversity research on Shimoni east forest for almost 4 years now, and are getting some robust data.  Yet just across the road on the other side of Shimoni village lies the uncharted, and mysterious realm of Shimoni west, ever beckoning us to it.  We have been planning to expand our research into Shimoni west for a while now, and have finally begun the adventure. 

The girls ready for the day

The western forest is almost twice the size of its counterpart, and teaming with flora and fauna that are crying out for recognition.  There is definitely a viable population of our beloved colobus monkey, as highlighted by the censuses conducted in 2001 by Julie Anderson and in 2007 by GVI.  That is the only time GVI have officially done research in West, and Anderson’s census is the only other event. 

We have on occasion, ventured into Shimoni west on fact finding missions and with the intention of making preliminary assessments into the possibility of starting research in there, and one thing we have noticed is the high level of disturbance ranging from charcoal pits, pit saws and snares.  This only increased our sense of urgency.

 Katie getting stuck in

So as of last week, we have officially begun our preparations.  By preparations, we mean donning work gloves, sharpening our pangas (machetes) and practicing our angry faces and heading into West to begin the long and tiresome process of cutting transects.  Transects are an essential part of research (specifically for distance sampling – the method of survey we use for the primates), which involves cutting paths in a grid system that allow us to pass relatively easily through the research area.  We do try and minimize the damage we cause, so there is always plenty of crawling and climbing! 

Matt’s panga face

We’ve started cutting our north / south spine, which will run approximately 1 – 1.2 km through the centre of the forest, off which our research transects (that run east-west) can cross.  We have done two days so far, and have gone approximately 600 metres!  That may not sound like much, but trust me on this – it’s not bad!  This endeavor will take many months to complete (as we still have to carry on our surveys in East), but we’ll keep you updated on our progress. 

Once more into the breach dear friends!

Tags: , adventure, angolan black and white colobus, biodiversity research, census, Charcoal Pit, climbing, colobus monkey, crawling, distance sampling, disturbance, fauna, flora, grid system, Julie Anderson, machete, panga, pitsaws, preparations, Primate Research, research area, Shimoni east forest, Shimoni village, Shimoni west forest, snare, snese of urgency, transects, western forest, work gloves

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Category: Charcoal Burning, Coastal Forest, Colobus, Primate Research, Primate census, Shimoni Forest | Date: Aug 07 2009 | By: gvikenya

Well hello again folks!

Apologies for not getting this blog up yesterday, we had issues with our elecricity…by which we mean we had none! But we’re back on line this morning so I can fill you all in.

So yesterday saw the conclusion to our colobus census in Shimoni forest! It has taken three days of long, hard transect traversing. We’ve tackled thorn bushes, impenetrable thickets and swarms of safari ants, but have come out at the end with some awesome data. Everyone is tired and covered in scratches, but we all had an absolute blast and got to see some fantastic sightings.

 A colobus on the move

It was quite sad for a portion of yesterday however, as the destruction that has happened and is still going on up on the northern edge of the forest is awful. There are huge sections that can hardly be called forest anymore. And both teams observed charcoal pits in various stages of completion. My team actually stumbled across two men that were in the process of digging one, but they bolted as soon as they heard us coming.

On a better note, both teams had great sightings of primates. Between us, we saw 5 colobus troops and 6 sykes troops, plus the usual collection of beautiful birds, sunis, eagles and the back end of a very large snake! So in total over the three days, we have seen 19 groups of colobus and 24 groups of sykes!

We have also come to the conclusion that we shouldn’t really be calling what we’e done a census. Because a census is when you do a total sweep of the area in one day, so the number of primates you see is, in theory, all the primates in the area. But because we’ve had to do it over three days (due to man power), we will still be using distance sampling techniques to get population density estimates.

Some of the victorious team members

Unfortunately due to the power situation, we have not had a chance to run the data through the distance sampling program so don’t have any results for you yet, but as soon as we do I shall let you all know!

Tags: , Charcoal Burning, charcoal pits, colobus census, colobus monkey, Primate Research, Suni, sykes monkey

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Category: Coastal Forest, Colobus, Primate Research, Primate census, Shimoni Forest | Date: Aug 05 2009 | By: gvikenya

Hello again,

Today was a continuation of the colobus survey we started yesterday in Shimoni forest. Yesterday we tackled transects 1, 2 and 3, plus two routes that fell between the main transects. Yesterday saw some tricky traveling, especially on the routes between the transects as they are not cut or marked. We were navigating through very dense bush and thicket using nothing but a compass (our GPS’s don’t work in the forest!), and keeping five groups at the same pace by literally counting paces. We worked out each one of the nominated pacers counted 21,000 of their paces!

 Having a quick rest…

So today we embarked on the top half of the forest; surveying transects 4 and 5, including the unmarked transects between 3, 4, 5 and 6. We thought we would be able to do transect 6 and one above it today as well, but unfortunately due to numbers we are going to have to finish it off tomorrow.

 Walking the transect (past an amazing tree!)

Today saw more sightings than yesterday, with nine groups of colobus! There were also nine groups of sykes recorded, unfortunately no baboons today though. The causal observations kept coming throughout the day, with a plethora of creatures great and small. There were multiple suni sightings (very small antelope), four zanj elephant shrews, red-capped robin chats, sunbirds and black kites. Having so many eyes in the forest at once is awesome!

 One of the many sykes monkeys

So I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait until tomorrow for any results, but as soon as we’ve processed the data we’ll get straight back to you.

Until tomorrow…

Tags: , census, Colobus, Primate Research, Shimoni Forest, Suni, sykes, transect, znaj elephant shrew

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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: Coastal Forest, Colobus, Primate Research, Shimoni Forest | Date: Jul 06 2009 | By: gvikenya

This week our research teams were back in Shimoni forest after a few weeks break. We were aware of the intensely thick canopy and vegetation that has literally sprung into life since the onset of the rainy season, and were concerned about how this was going to affect our primate community surveys. The density of the vegetation makes spotting primates significantly more challenging than in the dry season, and the very strong winds that are present at the moment reduce the chances of hearing the primates; a vital tool in the search! The rains and winds also regularly bring down trees in the shallow soils of the coral rag forest which can make it near impossible to find let alone follow our transects!

We headed out optimistic nonetheless, and made our way to the furthest transect away; transect 6. The last time we had been back to re-survey transect 6 we had been confronted by swathes of destruction from fire and on-going logging and charcoal burning.

Our fears of not seeing the primates melted away steadily throughout the day however, after we got sighting after sighting of the Angolan black and white colobus monkey, and several good sightings of sykes monkeys.

The day ended up with seven colobus sightings and two sykes sightings. The average group size of the colobus seen on that day was just over 4, with the largest group including seven individuals. What was particularly exciting to see was the number of young colobus in the groups; two very young infants who still had all white pelts and very cute pink faces, two juveniles that had developed grey pelts, and 3 sub-adults. Sub-adults are often hard to distinguish accurately as they have developed their adult colouration, but by watching their behaviour and interaction with adult females in the group it is possible to observe their on-going attachment to their mothers.

The rainy season is the peak birth time for colobus, so it should be expected to see young ones, but it was a huge sense of relief that the disturbance we were confronted with the last time we working in this part of the forest has not displaced the troops of colobus or interupted their breeding cycles.

Tags: angolan black and white colobus, Primate Research, Shimoni Forest, sykes monkey

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