GVI Kenya

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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Category: Colobus, Primate Research, yellow baboon | Date: Nov 03 2009 | By: gvikenya

Greetings all

Just a quickie tonight I’m afraid as things are all go here and time is a precious commodity at the moment!

Us GVI folk here in Shimoni have had a busy weekend – we’ve moved into a new house!  This is good news for several reasons…

Firstly, we are now slap bang in the middle of the community, whereas before we were somewhat isolated in the grounds of a hotel.  We feel this is going to have big impacts on the way we are viewed by the community, and hopefully this will help with the many community projects we are currently working on.  It will also help us feel more part of Shimoni, help us to get to know people better, and will strengthen our existing relationships.  

Secondly, we are right on the edge of the forest!  From our back yard, we can look out into the canopy, and just today, Adam (our community officer) was taking out the compost only to be confronted by a very large, male yellow baboon!  We are now considering moving our compost pile slightly further away from the house…
We have also seen colobus monkeys hanging out in the trees – we could do behavioural surveys from our back garden!

It’s a very exciting move, and despite the inevitable teething problems associated with moving house, things are looking up.  Today we got a new water pump fitted, so we can now shower!  Happy days.

I will be back tomorrow with some more exciting blog action from the south coast of Kenya!

Best wishes

Tags: behavioural survey, canopy, colobus monkey, community projects, compost, Kenyan coast, shimoni, south coast, yellow baboon

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Category: Kenya Wildlife Service, Shimoni Forest, yellow baboon | Date: Oct 20 2009 | By: gvikenya

Yesterday saw an interesting discovery for us GVI folk here in Shimoni forest.  We were at the end of the negative sections of transect 5, innocently conducting a butterfly sweep net survey, when we were stuck with a very intense smell of decay.  We spent a good few minutes trying to establish the source, but soon discovered where it was coming from.  Tucked away right at the foot of an impressively sized baobab tree, lay the semi-decayed corpse of a yellow baboon!

Baboons are a very widespread and successful group, who can be found in most places across sub-Saharan Africa.  They are certainly abundant in Kenya, and there is a lively population here in Shimoni.  In many places in Africa, they are a bothersome crop pest, and are even listed as vermin in some countries.  Here in Shimoni however, the yellow baboon (Papio cynocephalus) are found in the actual forest itself, and are still wild and shy, avoiding humans at all costs and surviving on the fruits of the forest alone.  This makes them a fantastic animal to see when in the forest, and a relatively rare one. 

This photo shows the whole body in the foetal position, with the left arm out behind its back

So you can imagine our surprise when we stumbled across this poor fellow!  Its very difficult to say exactly what happened to it, especially as none of us here are experts in dead bodies or establishing causes of death!  There were no obvious injuries or wounds that gave it away (we did look quite closely), although there was a lot of dry blood around the body.  It was at the foot of a big baobab, so perhaps it fell out of the tree?  It was also right on the edge of a shamba (farm), so the idea of it being killed by a vengeful farmer is not impossible either.

This shot is from the other side, again of most of the body

What did strike us as strange was the apparent lack of scavenging of the body.  Almost all the skin was in tact, with none of it appearing to have been eaten.  Perhaps it was the location of the body – in the shadow of a big tree – that has allowed it to remain invisible and untouched by the many scavengers in the area.

 A closer look at the head

It was a very interesting find; never before have we been allowed such a detailed look at the anatomy of a baboon, yet I fear the mystery of its death will remain unsolved.  We will be informing the Kenya Wildlife Service of our find.  I am however, going to ask their permission to bury it, and then to keep the skeleton (once it has fully decomposed), as it would be really interesting to have a full baboon skeleton to use as an educational tool.  I’m not sure what protocols they have regarding dead animals, so this may not be allowed, but there’s no harm in asking!

If we come to any conclusions about the cause of death, we’ll let you all know!  

Tags: abundant, anatomy, baboons, baobab tree, butterfly sweep net survey, cause of death, crop pest, decomposed, dry blood, educational tool, farm, farmer, foetal position, injuries, Kenya, Kenya Wildlife Service, Papio cynocephalus, protocols, scavenging, shamba, shimoni, shy, skeleton, skin, sub_Saharan Africa, vermin, wild, wounds, yellow baboon

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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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