The Road To Destruction
Category: Coastal Forest, Colobus, Friends of Shimoni Forest, Shimoni Forest | Date: Nov 16 2009 | By: gvikenya
Today saw our forest teams heading back into the forest after a nice weekend off, and heading down to transect 2 and 4. However the optimism of the start of a new week was dampened somewhat by the devastating progress being made by the private developers who have their hands on the coastal plots that run along the southern and eastern edge of Shimoni east forest.
It was almost 9 months ago now when we first saw the plots being fenced off and cleared, and the appearance of several large roads that connected all of the plots. Since then all of the plots are getting destroyed slowly but surely, and one of the sites that was mere foundations a few months ago is almost a fully fledged hotel that can be seen by our marine teams out on the boat when they head north up to Funzi Bay.
One of the most shocking things our team noticed today though, was the progress that has been made on the roads. The original ones have become larger, wider and more cleared, and more such roads have sprung up forming large intersections and leading to new locations. If this continues at this rate then fairly soon the whole area near the coast will be flattened. And our surveys have shown that this area is widely used by colobus monkeys, yellow baboons, suni’s, Harvey’s duikers, Zanj elephant shrews and countless other species.
A section of the new road. In the distance you can see the smoke from the burning of cut vegetation
It is so sad that the people doing this cannot see what irreversible damage they are doing. I cannot believe that one can use ignorance as an excuse, as my 4 year old nephew could guess that what they are doing is ruthlessly destructive. We are going to attempt to get in contact with the owners of these plots as soon as possible. We are not going to lecture them or demand that they stop – it is their land after all. We will try and meet with them with our close partners Friends of Shimoni Forest, who can ask on behalf of the community that they at least try and do things more eco-friendly and try to minimise their impact.
There are simple measures they can take to reduce their impact, such as leaving some of the large trees standing so as to allow a consistent canopy or “corridors” of canopy over the plots. This will allow primate species to get across from one side of the plot to the other without having to go onto the ground.
We’ll let you know how it goes!
Tags: , cleared, coastal plots, colobus monkey, community, consistent canopy, corridors, eastern edge, eco-friendly, excuse, fenced off, foundations, Friends of Shimoni Forest, funzi bay, harvey's duiker, hotel, ignorance, irreversible damage, large intersections, large roads, large trees, lecture, Marine team, minimise impact, nephew, new locations, north, other species, owners, primate species, private developers, ruthlessly destructive, Shimoni east forest, southern edge, Suni, transect, yellow baboon, zanj elephant shrew
Census - The Finale
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
Census Part II
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
Close Encounters of the Small Kind
Category: Coastal Forest, Small mammals, Small-eared Galago, Suni, bush baby | Date: Mar 18 2009 | By: gvikenya
Hello again everyone
Well I hope you’ve enjoyed the last couple of blogs from some of the other members of GVI here in Kenya. I thought I’d do this one myself, to tell you about the exciting night we had.
Last night we embarked on our second night sleeping out in Shimoni East Forest. This being our second time, we were even better prepared (with spare batteries for the torches this time!) and had another awesome night.
We headed in at about 6pm, when the forest is bathed in that amazing orange light, and the temperature has fallen to a slightly more pleasant level. We headed east for about half a kilometer, approximately in the middle between transect 1 and 2. We went back to the same spot we went to last week; a rather convenient natural clearing that is (almost) devoid of coral rag. After collecting deadwood and preparing a safe spot for our cooking fire (we want to leave as little evidence of us being there as possible), we all laid out our roll mats and made ourselves comfortable.
The forest is such an amazing place to be as the sun is setting; you get the feeling all the creatures of the day are winding down, and you get that period of about 20 minutes where there is silence and calm. Then once the sun has set, all the night noises begin…
After an incredible dinner of nyama choma (BBQ’d meat!), we all gathered our torches, whistles and compasses and headed off for a night walk deeper into the forest.
A.P - A former student of the Kenya Wildlife Service Training Institute - getting ready to cook dinner
We were not to be disappointed! About 5 minutes after leaving we head a noise just to the right of us. We all spun around and shone our torches to where the sound came from, and standing right there, no more than 3.5 metres away from us, was a suni! A Suni (Neotragus moschatus) is a tiny antelope with long, slender legs, that stands no more than 30-40cm off the ground. It was immediately stunned by the torchlight, allowing us an unbelievably close view of a usually very shy antelope. It then proceeded to walk slowly around the area, foraging on nearby leaves, never going more than 6 or 7 metres away from us. We watched it in silence for at least 10 minutes. It was, hands down, the best sighting of a suni I have ever had!
The suni!
We carried on the walk, our spirits soaring, and were lucky enough to get a brief sighting of a small-eared galago (bushbaby), and another suni, although it simply didn’t compare to the first one!
Its eyes reflect the torchlight
Suni decides to start moving away
We then headed back to camp, and joined Adam (the unfortunate one who drew the short straw and had to stay back to watch the fire), where we all lay around the dying embers, and fell asleep to the sounds of the forest.
It was the second successful camp out in the forest, and I’m pretty convinced this is going to become a regular activity!
That’s all from me for now, I’ll be back soon!
Regards,
Matt
Tags: , bushbaby, night walks, Small-eared Galago, Suni
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