Hello every one,I have a great pleasure to introduce the O.A.N monitoring team to you so that you know them. These people must make a long walk in the thick mountainous equatorial forest of Ruwenzori, climbing up steep slopes through thick greenish forest ever vigilant, hoping for a glimpse,at a very least of the the chimps. The hike is strenuous, so frequent stops are needed to catch one’s breath . But I do appreciate the great job these people are doing and go through every day.
One of the aspects of the environment on which the monitoring team carry out their daily activities The first one to introduce will be Mr Philemon,he is within the bush tracking chimps in the mountainous area tracking the chimps ,as we were not likely to meet them , as usually as far as they still wild. He is showing me one of the fruits on which the great apes were foraging on. Mr Philemon and his team are used to meet these great apes during his daily routine activities, the problem is he does not have any camera, otherwise he could be providing all of you with a lot of pictures of the great apes.
Such good initiatives of having local people involved in conservation will ultimately lead to the effective conservation of one of the world’s most incredible habitat.
Me with all the monitoring team tracking chimps,they are used to the mountainous zone and have got high speed,they do fascinate me by their speed at which they climb the sloping area but unfortunately we saw another more indirect evidence testifying the presence of the great ape in the area, the fresh chimp’s dung as shown below on the picture:
I have a great pleasure to introduce my children to each and every one of you, of course i am married an d i have got 4 children: 2 daugthers and 2 sons.
The first one is a girl and she is called Sophia Wambale, 11 years old, she is in 6th grade primary school in Beni village ,she is performing very well and got 68% on the fist term.
The second one is called Lucie Wambale 10 years old, she is taking her 5th grade in Kilewe Primary school , she is performing very well. Got 79%, and her dream is to become a wildlife manager as her father and to protect all the wildlife in DR Congo.
The third one is Trésor Wambale, 8 years old, he is a boy and he is 3rd grade, his dream is to be a lion researcher, but he is weak at school and did not perform very well, he got 48% which is a poor performance, but anyway I am encouraging him in order to improve and get good results next time.
The fourth one is Bienvenue Wambale, he is in Nursery, he is 5 years old
This particular species is called SERVAL , and it scientifique name is Leptailurus serval, mostly nocturnal and solitary
This wild cat has been found dead during one of my field observation which I am used to do in the Mutsora environment .I t is a sub-adult Serval, the cause of it death might be a natural one.This particular species do feed on variety of small mammals such as rodents, birds,reptiles and invertebrates as well and do like area with water and tall grass lands, reeds, or forest fringes. Thank you Marlis B. for your recent donation of $60
Hot springs of Mutsora in the It is a natural hot spring which take it source in a rocky area on the slope of the Ruwenzori mountain. Local people do call it Maji ya moto,it is a Kiswahili name meaning hot water and you can think that it has been boiled , it is so hot, the hot spring is located at 2 km from the Mutsora station in a public land out of the protected area 500 meter from the boundary of the national Park
As the hot water flow down, local villagers do use this part of the stream for soaking their cassava , for the being moment local villagers use the hot springs for soaking their cassava in order to produce cassava flour.
Above is the ranger Syaira MUhindo is the in charge of tourism activities in Mutsora I t has got also a medicine value, when some one is suffering from scabies, local villagers advise him to wash on this water several time so that he can get recovered.
Godefroid with the in charge of administration Mr Katsongo of Mutsora visiting the hot spring Altough maji ya moto is abandoned , I am working on it and sensitize local people so that we make it one of the tourism attraction in the area, remember that the aim of the Ruwenzori project is to assure long term conservation of the Ruwenzori mountain. It is translated by environmentalist as a fate of volcanic forces,so the hot spring is associated with the faulting in the area and slight area earth tremors are occasionally encountered. On my side I see it as a source of revenue to local communities instead of being used the way it is used nowadays, it should be used in a sustainable way. It is an attraction which holds distinction in both tourism and research values . The site is the best place , using rationally and in a sustainable way can enable students to get field knowledge on what they are tought in school about the earth crust being very hot, earth fissures , molten lava and earth quakes and what goes with them, About 10 million year ago during the Miocene period the Ruwenzori region was part of the great plain extending and draining westward from Uganda to the Atlantic.Tectonic movement then resulted in major rifting with associated faulting ,volcanic activity and in the case of the Ruwenzori mountain , considerable uplifting of the underlying pre-cambrian rocks.
The mountainous area is full of millepede, probably because of a lot of leaf litter found in the area. I am not sure if you have millipedes where you live, which is why I want to show you this photo.
A big thank you to each and every one of you who read my blog and are
I would like to assure you that you have had a huge impact on my life. Without you i am sure 2007 would have been extremely boring. From my side, I wish you a wonderful festive season filled with loving wishes and bautifull thougths. May 2008 mark the beginning of a tidal wave of love, happiness and bright futures full of hope, productive and prosperous new year. And I do promise this year to provide my reader with a picture from the field of the Ruwenzori chimps. Merry christmas and happy new year 2008!
To locate chimps during the night time, we listen to screams from the mountain.
In the area where I have not yet surveyed, Rangers have been there for patrol in the Kasindi area bordering with the Republic of Uganda. Rangers have reported to me that during their stays in the mountain they have heard screams of chimpanzee from the mountain. Unfortunately for them they could not go further because a Ugandan army the U.P.D.F invaded the area. More than 200 soldiers crossed the border and entered in D.R.C in the mountainous area, and the Rangers patrol was not able to progress in the area. So they went back to their patrol post in Lubiliha. SO a Monitoring Team should be sent quickly. It is more like an emergency. Their main duty will be to track the chimps everyday and keep a record about their movement, their location and feeding pattern including a food record. The team also needs to record about the population size of the group they meet with in the forest and their structure, also to identify the threats.
Friends of Nature (OAN - Organization des Amis de la Nature) people have got a nice monitoring team. They are mountainous people. They know very well the Ruwenzori mountain. Myself I do admire these characters. Even if it rains while excursion in the mountainous forest, with cold breeze and cloudy atmosphere, they are ready to go ahead.
What is so unfortunate for these Friends of Nature, they do not have any adequate equipment to work with in such rough environment, even rations to eat before going for monitoring duty they do not have it. Every one have to eat from his home, and thus reduce their efficiency on the field. Dear brothers in Conservation. The last 3 posts are some of the evidences what I have recorded during my 3 days field visit in the mountainous area. On these pictures you have seen the pristine mountainous forest of Ruwenzori which is the home of chimps. I hope you enjoy your reading.
The DR Congo flag is behind me
The Ruwenzori area has so much potential and there is plenty of food for these primates. Everywhere you go there is ripe fruits which are a source of food for chimps, as you can see this tree loaded with ripe fruits.
Food for chimps
They like to stay around and eat their fill. They enjoy to drink the content of these particular fruits mostly as nowadays we are facing a rain season in this particular area, so chimps are harvesting, Near these trees overloaded with ripe fruit you will found many nests.
Another tree loaded with fruits, this constitutes one of the vivid evidences showing that there is availability of food in the area
During the dry season generally there is scarcity of food in the mountainous area. Chimps then move to the villagers’ farms in a fragmented group of 3 or 4 to raid bananas or local brew from villagers. This can create human wildlife conflict. Dry season here is going to take place in February up to 15th of March.
So many illegal activities are taking place in the area of the Ruwenzori mountains, as we realise it in my previous post. During my recent field visit in the area it was impossible to cover all the Ruwenzori area - it is120km long I have been only Mwenda area under control of O.A.N as sample, where we encountered so many illegal activities - activities which are not compatible with conservation because they disturb the habitat and the chimpanzees themselves inside their natural environment. That’s why it has been so difficult for my team to see and to meet these great apes, but so many evidences have been observed in the field such as Nest of chimpanzees.
As you know chimpanzees build nests in which they spend their night or when taking rest during the day time.
This is the environment in which chimps live. The two white houses you see on this picture are a ranger post and an entrance gate for people who climb the mountain. Note the pristine forest. Please we are not allowed to leave this beautiful and unique ecosystem with a lot of potentiality under threat. We tracked chimpanzees for about 5 hours. We were tired, sweating and hungry with our legs unable to carry us any further. At some point we had to use our hands to prevent us rolling down hill.
It is not easy to track down chimpanzees, in a mountainous area. You should have to behave like a chimps, to follow their tracks. I do not know if you are getting the clear picture of the situation. Imagine what its look like in a mountainous area with steep hills. It was difficult to meet with chimps!
More than twenty nest of chimpanzee were seen in the sampled area, but if we investigate in deep really i believe we must found many nest. As I said the chimps have been frustrated. This particular area has been used for more than 20 years since 1986 for military operational purposes conducted by the Ugandan army when they were tracking A.D.F /NALU rebels who are hostile to the actual Ugandan regime. Once upon a time they were taking refuge in this chimpanzee habitat- poaching, timber harvesting, land clearing and the like, so when human beings approach they run away and take refuge in patches of a riverine forest found in an inaccessible gorge. It is a kind of defense mechanism that they have developed in order to survive from different threats of different kinds.
As you can realise on this picture, the team working with me in the monitoring department. Observe the picture carefully, some of them are wearing sandals. Also the monitoring team should be putting on clothes which blend with the environment, the best one is green color, because the whitish or reddish one scare the animals. So on this visit we only saw foot prints. Nests were observed, which is a good indicator showing that really they are in the area.
I will post more about the availability of food and the vocal communication of chimpanzees in a few days!
The Ruwenzori mountain chimpanzees are facing a lot of threats, because so many illegal activities are taking place in the area,and you should know that people face considerable challenges that are triggered by poverty,political instability so in order to satisfy their basic day to day needs, people don’t have other alternatives,most of the people do get their daily bread using hand hoe farming activities,burning agriculture, so imagine what can be their life standard, some people with bad will in order to make quick money they prefer to conduct illegals activities which are not so friendly to the environment,during my preliminary field survey in the area the following illegal activities were identified: -logging activities
-illegal and unplanned fire caused by burning agriculture
-Poaching activities both with guns and dogs,snare
-Deforestation -Timber harvesting During my visit in the area one of the local chief whom i found full involved in timber harvesting activities told me that, some months back he was an activist in the O.A.N association, then after he did not get any benefit from protecting chimpanzees in Mwenda that why in order to survive , he has been oblige to leave the association and to start logging and harvesting timber in the area,unfortunately different activities which are taking place in the area are not compatible with the conservation of fauna and Flora.
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