Transect | GVI Kenya

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

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A Real Welcome Back

Category: Cetacean research, Coastal Forest, Colobus, Humpback whales, Primate Research, Shimoni Forest, Southern Banded Snake Eagle | Date: Oct 09 2009 | By: gvikenya

Well hello everyone!

First of all, apologies for the lack of blog action over the last few weeks or so. We have had a month long break in research, and all of us here at GVI have had a well deserved holiday! We’re back now, for another 3 month research period that will bring us up to December.

We’ve kicked off with an amazing first week for both the marine and terrestrial research programs, with plenty of exciting sightings. I’ll begin today with a bit about the terrestrial action, and then will fill you all in tomorrow about our humpback whale sighting on marine!

Wednesday saw the first exciting sighting for one of the groups in the forest. We were on transect 6 (our northern most transect) doing a primate community survey. We had stopped to observe two troops of colobus monkeys that were having a verbal disagreement. The two dominant males were producing a barrage of croaking roars, aimed at each other. Male colobus monkeys have an enlarged larynx which allows them to produce this sound – a territorial vocalisation. It is an awesome sound to hear, and we were standing in the middle of these two going all out!

As we were watching the colobus, a huge shadow passed over us as gazing upwards we were presented with a spectacular view of a southern-banded snake eagle! It had obviously been disturbed by the noise, and flew so low over our head we got a perfect look at it, allowing for a 100% identification. We are all trained on the identification of the rare, threatened or endangered bird species in Shimoni forest, specifically for opportunities such as this.

(Stevenson, Fanshawe 2004)

The southern banded-snake eagle is a threatened species, and we have only sighted it a few times over the last year. It is a stunning eagle, and we were all gibbering with excitement for hours afterwards!

(Stevenson, Fanshawe 2004)

We have a bunch more exciting sightings from the rest of the week, but these shall have to wait until we’ve told you about the whale tomorrow! We are very glad to be back, and look forward to getting into our blog again, to keep you all up to date with the progress, sightings and happenings on the beautiful south coast of Kenya.

Until tomorrow!

(Stevenson, Fanshawe 2004)

Tags: angolan black and white colobus, coast, dominant male, endangered, Forest, humpback whale, Kenya, larynx, marine research, primate community, rare, research period, Southern Banded Snake Eagle, terrestrial research, terretorial, threatened, transect, troop, verbal disagreement, vocalisation

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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!