BBC Wildlife Camera-trap Photo of the Year 2011: The Winners

From from discoverwildlife.com

Congrats to Jojo Head for her elephant snap from Loango, Gabon!

Impact of seismic oil exploration on chimps, gorillas, elephants and other primates (Loango, Gabon)

The previous post on the oil exploration in the Virungas made me realize I never posted about Luisa Rabanal's (and colleagues) amazing paper on the impact of oil exploration in Loango National Park -MA

The impact of seismic oil exploration on rainforest wildlife
From Conservation Maven.com
by ROB GOLDSTEIN

A new study looks at the impact of seismic oil exploration on wildlife in Gabon's Loango National Park. Luisa Rabanal and fellow researchers found evidence that the loud noises generated by oil exploration activities can cause elephants to move large distances to escape the disturbance. The study findings also indicate that seismic activities can cause smaller scale disturbances for gorillas.

In threatened species like African forest elephants that have few offspring and mature slowly, disturbances that cause large scale shifts in spatial distribution may negatively affect the health of populations. According to the authors, this is the first study they know of to quantitatively assess the impact of noise from seismic activities on rainforest mammals.

Oil development activities in rainforests have raised a number of deep concerns about social and ecological impacts. During seismic oil exploration, dynamiting and other human activities can generate extremely loud noises - up to 210 decibels next to the explosion site or 10,000 times louder than a jet aircraft flying by at 300 m altitude.

The researchers surveyed elephants, gorillas, chimpanzees, duikers, and monkeys in Loango National Park over a 6-week period of dynamiting in 2007. They used modeling to detect impacts to wildlife distribution at large, intermediate, and small scales.

The researchers hypothesized that large wildlife like elephants, gorillas, and chimpanzees with expansive home ranges would experience large-scale disturbance. They also hypothesized that smaller wildlife like monkeys with limited ability to disperse large distances would experience small scale disturbance - i.e. dynamiting would just cause them to move short distances during the period of the activity.

While the study found large-scale impacts in elephants, they only found medium and small-scale effects in gorillas. The weaker than expected impacts on species distribution may have been due to the fact that the oil exploration activities were actually much less invasive then they could have been.

Environmental organizations commissioned by the Gabon government audited the activities to enforce certain agreed upon best practices to minimize disturbance to wildlife - for example, no chainsaws were permitted and dynamite had to be placed at least 6 meters deep. So seismic activities in other cases without rigorous environmental standards might cause much worse impacts.

The researchers also warn that seismic activity may cause other negative impacts to species unrelated to habitat use. They write,

"Our results may also suggest that the apes were even more disturbed by the explosions if they were unable to move larger distances and hence we stress the need for other methods of examining the seismic impact such as hormone and physiological measures. This also applies to certain species whose movements are restricted by their ranging patterns (e.g. duikers) where stronger responses may be exhibited through physiological mechanisms such as increased stress levels and/or reduced reproductive output"

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Reference:
Rabanal L, Kuehl H, Mundry R, Robbins M, Boesch C (2010) Oil prospecting and its impact on large rainforest mammals in Loango National Park, Gabon Biological Conservation 143(4): 1017-1024 DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2010.01.017

Abstract
Resource extraction is increasingly affecting protected areas worldwide. However, aside from studies on logging, limited information is available about the effect this has on wildlife, which may be of great consequence, especially when endangered species could be affected. Specifically, the effect of intense human-induced noise during oil exploration on wildlife is poorly understood. We explore the effect of seismic oil exploration on large mammal distribution in an 80 km² area of Loango National Park, Gabon. Following the ecological theory of habitat disturbance, we predicted that changes in habitat use in response to noise disturbance would scale with the body/home range size of each species examined. Our study was conducted over six months before, during and after low-impact seismic operations. We recorded counts along transects of indirect signs of elephants (Loxondota africana cyclotis), chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes troglodytes), gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla), duikers (Cephalophus spp.), and the vocalizations of five monkey species (Cercocebus torquatus, Cercopithecus cephus, C. nictitans, C. pogonias and Lophocebus albigena) and modeled seismic impact over different spatial scales (small, intermediate and large). We found that elephants avoided seismic activity on all three spatial scales, apes avoided on the intermediate and small scales, and there was no effect for duikers and monkeys. We conclude that low-impact seismic operations can cause considerable temporary habitat loss for species with large ranges and suggest that the impact on those endangered species can be minimized by adequately spacing seismic lines and activity in space and time to enable species to move away from the progressive noise disruption.

Eco-tourism in Loango National Park still ongoing!

I posted last month on how Africa's Eden had halted eco-tourism activities in Loango National Park which had been reported as if Loango NP was being totally shut down (or at least all ecotourism was). WWF posted this update on their facebook page about ecotourism, conservation and research activities in Loango NP, including a link to Gavillo Lodge that still appears to be up and running. So for anyone who wants to see surfing hippos, it seems that it is still possible.

For more, go to Ecotourism in Gamba: the place for an unfogettable adventure

Eco-tourism halted in Loango National Park, Gabon

From Africa's Eden via Africa Geographic
Africa’s Eden SA, the main tourism operator at Loango National Park – the park described as Gabon’s "jewel in the crown" – has announced today that it has been forced to abandon its ecotourism operations at the park as of September 1st 2010.

The decision has been taken despite Africa’s Eden’s shareholder having invested more than 15 million euros over the past nine years in aviation access and tourism infrastructure and nature conservation: building accommodation, eco-camps, training Gabonese staff and eco guides and supporting research and monitoring studies for the conservation of Loango’s exceptional wildlife and biodiversity wealth. It means that Loango Lodge, which since 2001 has welcomed thousands of international tourists to discover Gabon’s wildlife rich forests and unspoiled coastline, is closing its doors indefinitely.

The move is a result of the failure of negotiations following a dispute between the Gabonese civil aviation authorities (ANAC) and Africa’s Eden’s sister company SCD Aviation which ran a regional airline charter company to transport tourists from the capital Libreville to the park. Even active support of key members of Gabonese government could not prevent the severe consequence of a malfunctioning civil aviation authority (ANAC) that failed to create the conditions necessary for regular and safe aviation transportation: SCD Aviation was consistently refused the renewal of its Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC) even though all requirements were met.

Another consequence of this problematic situation is the fact that the European Union blacklisted all Gabonese airlines in 2008 when a large number of deficiencies were reported with regards to the capability of ANAC “to perform their air safety oversight responsibilities”, as states the Commission of the European Commission. “More than 93% of the ICAO standards were not implemented”. This was the lowest percentage of all audited countries, and makes ANAC in Gabon one of the poorest performing civil aviation authorities in the world.

“We have made numerous attempts to resolve this dispute amicably for over a year now,” said Rombout Swanborn, founder of Africa’s Eden and SCD Aviation. “The ongoing events and consequences of not being able to operate our aircraft have financially crippled our organisation, leaving us with no choice but to take this drastic measure.” He added: “We are highly disappointed as a solution would have benefited all parties involved. In the end, the Gabonese people. ”

Legal action against the aviation authorities in Gabon has been initiated to seek compensation for the financial losses SCD Aviation and Africa’s Eden have undergone.

The focus of the international investment group behind Africa’s Eden will now shift towards its investments in sustainable development on the island of Príncipe , a tropical island off the west African coast, and in the Dzanga-Sangha Reserve in the Central African Republic. A separate press release can be expected on August 15th 2010 on the 35 Million Euro sized project that aims to create sustainable economic development for the full island of Principe based an ecotourism. Investments are foreseen in the island logistical, tourism and national park infrastructure.

For much more information go to Africa's Eden website and click here for a recent posting on Africa's Eden and ecotourism

Cultural complexity correlated to population size

I found this interesting since I think it goes along well with what we see in wild chimpanzee populations. Recent work from the Goualougo Triangle and Loango National Park have been identifying the most complex tool kits found to date, and both of these sites occur in the rather broad, unfragmented range of the central subspecies (Pan troglodytes troglodytes). -MA

Population size predicts technological complexity in Oceania
By Bayes from the Gene Expression (gnxp.com) blog

Here is a far-reaching and crucially relevant question for those of us seeking to understand the evolution of culture: Is there any relationship between population size and tool kit diversity or complexity? This question is important because, if met with an affirmative answer, then the emergence of modern human culture may be explained by changes in population size, rather than a species-wide cognitive explosion. Some attempts at an answer have led to models which make certain predictions about what we expect to see when populations vary. For instance, Shennan (2001) argues that in smaller populations, the number of people adopting a particular cultural variant is more likely to be affected by sampling variation. So in larger populations, learners potentially have access to a greater number of experts, which means adaptive variants are less likely to be lost by chance (Henrich, 2004).

Models aside, and existing empirical evidence is limited with the results being mixed. I previously mentioned the gradual loss of complexity in Tasmanian tool kits after the population was isolated from mainland Australia. Elsewhere, Golden (2006) highlighted the case of isolated Polar Inuit, who lost kayaks, the bow and arrow and other technologies when their knowledgeable experts were wiped out during a plague.Yet two systematic studies (Collard et al., 2005; Read, 2008) of the Inuit case found no evidence for population size being a predictor of technological complexity.

To read more go to: http://www.gnxp.com/wp/human-evolution/population-size-predicts-technological-complexity-in-oceania

Chimpanzee Tool technology in the Ndoki Forest:

Shameless Self Promotion: Effective non-invasive genetic monitoring of multiple wild western gorilla groups

Photo by Josephine Head of a Loango gorilla

My collaborators and I have a paper that just came online which shows that by using scat samples, collected over a 100 square kilometer area in Loango National Park, Gabon, we could obtain individual genetic fingerprints (genotypes) from most of the gorillas there. We then used those genotypes to assess the number of gorillas living in the area, as well as the grouping patterns of the individuals, their ranging area and even some dispersal events between groups. Methods and results like these are an important first step in devising proper conservation management policies for great apes. Despite all the amazing work that has been done on chimpanzees and gorillas, we still do not have a good idea of how many are left in the wild, nor where they range and we don't have very good methods with which to obtain these measures. With repeated genetic sampling over years, we will be able to look at changes in ape number as well as track individual animals over whatever area is sampled. -MA

Arandjelovic M, Head J, Kühl H, Boesch C, Robbins MM, Maisels F, Vigilant L (2010) Effective non-invasive genetic monitoring of multiple wild western gorilla groups. Biological Conservation doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2010.04.030

Abstract
Obtaining reliable population size or abundance estimates of endangered species is critical for their conservation and management. Genotyping non-invasively collected samples is an effective way to gain insights into the number and grouping patterns of rare or elusive animals. In this study we used genetic capture–recapture estimators to obtain a precise estimate of the size of a western gorilla population inhabiting an intensely sampled 101 km2 area in Loango National Park, Gabon. Using 394 putative gorilla samples collected opportunistically over a 3 year period, we identified 83 unique genotypes. We used a rarefaction curve, Bayesian estimator and two maximum-likelihood methods to estimate that between 87 and 107 individuals used the study area between February 2005 and September 2007. The confidence interval surrounding the genetic estimate was smaller than that obtained using traditional ape survey methods. In addition, genetic analysis showed that gorilla and chimpanzee faeces were identified with 98% and 95% accuracy in the field, respectively. Patterns of co-occurrence of individual gorillas suggest that at least 11 gorilla social groups and five lone silverback males lived in the study area and that several individuals transferred between groups during the 3-year study period. When properly designed and implemented as part of a long-term biomonitoring program, genetic capture-recapture should prove an invaluable tool for evaluating, even on a large-scale, the population size and dynamics of apes and other elusive species.

For a copy of the pdf, click here

Visiting Africa’s Eden By Nicholas D. Kristof

image from AdventureAndy.com

Below is Nicholas D. Kristof's latest op-ed piece while he is visting the Gamba Complex in Gabon (which includes Loango National Park).

“The parks are for foreigners, or for rich Gabonese,” she said. “They’re not for ordinary people like me.”

- village chief, Evelyne Kinga

I wonder more and more if eco-tourism is the answer. I can't see how it would change this attitude (which I also heard echoed in Cote d'Ivoire) and is bringing these wild animals into contact with humans (and human development) across their entire range, in all national parks, what we really want for our last untouched spaces? In this sense, carbon credits make so much more sense to me, especially in light of the fact that

"Gabon set aside the parks partly in hopes of diversifying its economy ...and becoming an African version of Costa Rica, bringing in revenue from tourism. But so far the economic bet isn’t paying off."

Nevertheless, the Gabonese government , along with Mike Fay and Lee White, have my utmost respect for their commitment to protected areas, for setting up the amazing National Park system across Gabon and for protecting our wild spaces even though harvesting them could bring them short term economic gains - MA

From the NYTimes.com
Visiting Africa’s Eden
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
GAMBA, Gabon

The moment I fell in love with Gabon was when my companions and I walked along the beach at sunset: an endless strip of white sand with no one in sight as far as the eye could see in any direction. Then we spotted movement, and we realized we were sharing the beach after all.

With three elephants.

The elephants had an animated conversation among themselves, presumably about the rare sighting of human beings, then ambled off into the rain forest to tell their friends.

This is my annual win-a-trip journey, in which I take a university student with me on a reporting trip to Africa. The winner this year is Mitch Smith, a University of Nebraska student who had never been outside the United States before. (He is writing about his trip on my blog, nytimes.com/ontheground).

Readers have sometimes complained that my win-a-trip journeys focus on the wretchedness of the developing world — warlords, malnourished children, maternal mortality. Frankly, I’ve always thought these critics had a point. So Mitch and I are starting this trip by covering an African triumph: Gabon’s bold steps to preserve its natural heritage.

Gabon has plenty of problems, including corruption and misspent oil revenues, but it is also covered by dense, uninhabited forest teeming with wildlife. In 2002, the government set aside more than one-tenth of the country for national parks — in one step, making Gabon a leader in wildlife conservation.

“Gabon is definitely a special place,” said Sebastiaan Verhage, an official here with the World Wildlife Fund, which is helping Gabon preserve its parks. “Where else do you see elephants roaming on the beach, buffalo on the beach, hippos in the surf, humpback whales mating just off the coast, the most important leatherback turtle nesting site in the world, one of the few last refuges for lowland gorillas? Its name of ‘the last Eden,’ ‘the last paradise on earth’ — that’s not too far-fetched.”

The head of the national parks is Lee White, a conservation specialist of Scottish origin. And the technical director is an American, Michael Fay, who famously walked across Gabon in 2000.

President Ali Ben Bongo, who took over last year from his late father, seems enthusiastic about developing a “Green Gabon.” He told me he would like to deepen the environmental protections and build up infrastructure so that Gabon can become an eco-tourism destination.

For now, that’s a problem. Gabon set aside the parks partly in hopes of diversifying its economy (it is dependent on oil, which is slowly running out) and becoming an African version of Costa Rica, bringing in revenue from tourism. But so far the economic bet isn’t paying off.

Very few foreign tourists are coming, because of the distance and the lack of modern hotels. Mitch and I ate lunch at one of the restaurants aiming for tourists, and afterward saw the staff cleaning our plates in the lagoon.

What’s more, thick forest isn’t great terrain to spot wildlife. On one walk along an elephant trail, Mitch and I smelled elephants all around us but never actually spotted them. (Elephants here normally are curious but shy — unless they’ve been nibbling on a root prized among local humans for its hallucinogenic properties, in which case be sure to accord them right of way).

Still, following elephant footprints through an untouched forest is magical. Here in the rain forest, humans seem less the masters of the ecosystem than components of it, along with others. Like gorillas.

I ran into Chloe Cipolletta, a gorilla expert I had met in the Central African Republic in 2006 on my first win-a-trip journey. Ms. Cipolletta was advising on a plan to bring tourists to visit gorillas in Gabon, and she mentioned offhand that some primates self-medicate herbally.

Development experts have been raving in recent years about the health benefits of deworming people in poor countries — but gorillas are way ahead of us. There is a furry forest plant that gorillas occasionally eat, despite evident distaste, making faces and spitting bits of it out. So why do they eat it? Ms. Cipolletta said the plant turns out to be a natural medication that kills intestinal parasites, and the gorillas are deworming themselves.

One sobering truth is that the people who gush about gorillas or elephants usually are Americans and Europeans. For local people, many of them very poor despite the country’s oil wealth, conservation can be an inconvenience. While visiting Loango, we encountered an outspoken young village chief, Evelyne Kinga, who protested that she’d rather elephants were dead than eating her cassava plants.

“The parks are for foreigners, or for rich Gabonese,” she said. “They’re not for ordinary people like me.”

That’s a real tension, and I don’t know whether Gabon can pull this off and monetize its spectacular forest the way it could monetize timber. But for the world’s sake, I’m hoping that it will.

Shameless Self Promotion

Our paper on a Fatal Chimpanzee Attack in Loango National Park, Gabon came out today in the International Journal of primatology
You can CHECK IT OUT HERE

Fatal Chimpanzee Attack in Loango National Park, Gabon
Christophe Boesch, Josephine Head, Nikki Tagg, Mimi Arandjelovic, Linda Vigilant and Martha M. Robbins
International Journal of Primatology
Online first - Saturday, October 27, 2007


Abstract
In some populations, chimpanzees engage in lethal aggression within and between social units. We report a fatal attack on an adult male chimpanzee at a new research site in Loango National Park, Gabon. We found a fresh corpse of an adult male chimpanzee only a few hundred meters from the research camp, after noting numerous vocalizations and chimpanzee movements the previous evening. Previous contacts with chimpanzees and fresh tracks in the area around the corpse suggest that 2 communities of chimpanzees range where the attack occurred and that members of the neighboring community killed the chimpanzee. To support the conclusion, we conducted genetic analysis for 13 Y-chromosome loci and 9 microsatellite loci of fecal samples from the dead individual, 5 possible attackers, and 2 members of the other community Though we cannot exclude the possibility of an intracommunity killing, the combined observational and genetic evidence suggest an intercommunity attack. The case study adds to the growing evidence that intercommunity killings are a rare but widespread phenomenon among chimpanzees and not an artifact of human provisioning or habituation.
Keywords chimpanzees - fatal attack - gabon - intergroup conflict