GorillaSound

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 31 2009 | By: gorillasound

We want to thank Victoria for her support to our trackers!

Just few days ago we received the notice that one of our best trackers, Mamandele, has been classified 2nd Best trackers and part of the Master level of tracking (the highest).

We are very lucky to have the chance to work with the best trackers in the world! I can’t stop to say it! Unfortunately their salaries are the lowest among all people working here and in other research sites in Noubale-Ndoki Park (Congo).
I hope this blog and your support for this year will have as a consequence a long-term salary increase, which they merit!

This week we have problems with the energy at the camp. I’m keeping the little energy I have for potential emergencies for everyone at the camp. We don’t have a radio, and the only way to communicate with Bomassa it’s a satellite phone who depend on energy and the emails that need a computer….and the computer of Mondika doesn’t work if not plugged.
Fortunately the generator I bought will arrive very soon, it’s already at Bomassa. As soon as we have more energy, we will start again working on the computer entering the data and writing the posts!

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 28 2009 | By: gorillasound

During the first two weeks we have being going in the forest in the morning or in the afternoon. We wake up at 5:40, have breakfast, and then go in the forest to start the training of Aylin on the data collection and the vocalizations of gorillas. At 12 we were coming back to the camp. We take a shower and then talk a little about the day, comparing our data. If we go in the afternoon we leave camp at 11/11:30 with two trackers to meet the other team in the forest. Then we continue with the group while the other team comes back to the camp. We stay with Kingo group until 5 p.m., and then come back to the camp. The dinner is around 6:30/7 p.m. The dinner is rice with some can vegetables, or gozo (a kind of bread done with manioc) and coco (forest liana leaves cut really tiny) cooked in peanut butter. Fortunately in the camp there is also a oven where Buba, the cook, makes bread mostly every day.

For breakfast we have fresh bread, chocolate spread, margarine, and coffee or tea. Unfortunately many things always finish before the end of the month, and it’s already a week, that we finished the oil to cook, yeast to make bread, anything to put on the bread as well as the sugar!!

We are now waiting anxiously the food to come. It will come with the porters and 4 new trackers. It’s already more than a week than the 6 trackers in the camp are walking all day to follow the two group of gorillas, and since with Kingo there is a limit of 4 people is a week than me and Aylin , when we go to follow Kingo we stayed from morning until afternoon.

This is Kenga, one of the trackers cutting the coco leaves!

Here are Matthieu (volunteer), Max and Arnaud (two Congolese assistants) sitting in the kitchen!

And this is Mkpeta holding wonderful mushrooms of the forest

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 27 2009 | By: gorillasound

Kusu and Ekendi . The two little sons of the forest. You can never get bored while your eyes are on them. While others do their adult things, these two little seeds play almost nonstop. They are the best rustlers I have ever seen. When the game is on, their hands are trying to grasp the neck, their mouths are half open and their eyes are full with joy and excitement. They shake the branches, beating their chests, beating the trees around and gently biting each others. Physically, Kusu is a little bit bigger than Ekendi. But Ekendi never gives up. Kusu can put Ekendi down easily and hold him down there for a little time, probably for showing of his power. Ekendi always try so hard to get rid of his grip. And most of the time he does or Kusu lets his little brother win, who knows. You can see one or the other trying to stand on their heads instead of on their legs before running to each other to get a hold. One time, Kusu was trying to catch Ekendi but at the last moment Ekendi managed to run away from him. Oh my god, his happiness filled the air and he started to clap his hands to celebrate his winning. Another time; Kusu and Ekendi were on their game once again. And suddenly a fruit fall from the tree right between them. Both started to run to the fruit. Kusu got it. Ekendi didn’t give up though. Ekendi was on his brother, trying to get it. But Kusu, as smart as he is, use the advantage of his height and standing so high, the hand with the fruit is up on the sky. Ekendi was trying so hard to reach it. When Ekendi understood he can’t reach that point as he is shorter, tried to gently bite Kusu that he might fall to the ground. Kusu should have seen Ekendi’s trick, he put the fruit to his mouth quickly and run around like that, I bet on the knowledge on his winning. Ekendi had to give up. When they play, they make so much noise around the sleeping adults. But the adults never seem annoyed from their game. Ekendi is on the habit of playing so close to Kingo when he sleeps. Once, Kingo was sleeping on his back; Ekendi was playing on the tree which is right above Kingo’s head. Ekendi was hanging upside down, his hands were moving crazily. Kingo opened his calm eyes, looked at his son and touched him softly and went back to sleep again. It looks like the juveniles of the group have the right to do what others can’t. Everyone is more patient with them, especially, as you assumed, the mothers. Mekome is always taking care of Ekendi. You can find them looking directly deep in to each other’s eyes. When Mekome feeds Ekendi, she holds his boy’s neck and grooms him time to time. You can find them sitting so close and Mekome’s arm is around Ekendi, holding him firmly. When a fruit or branches fall from a tree, Mekome covers her own and Ekendi’s head with her gentle hands. Mama might look irresponsible towards his son. At least that’s what I thought. Roberta thinks the opposite. And she might be right. Yesterday we followed Mama and I discovered something that I couldn’t know before. Mama is a good mother as well but like I said has an independent spirit. Kusu was around her all the time and begging her for the milk. And almost all the time, she stopped to feed him. Not only that, when it was the time for their beauty sleep, Kusu came next to her and the relaxing feeding period were started. Mama and Kusu were half asleep during the process. Then they lie down, Mama’s arm around Kusu. Mama was sleeping while her son under her touch and Kusu, his playful eyes still wide open. No sign of sleep on those eyes but a content happiness.

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 23 2009 | By: gorillasound

During the last few days we were very lucky!!
On Wednesday we (me and Aylin) went to work all day with Kingo family. Since it was a rainy day we went in the forest a little late. We reached the group at 7:50. It was a lot of time that I wasn’t hearing from Kingo a specific vocalization….the copulatory grunt!!
After he went down from a tree, I heard him making this kind of low and fast grunts…me and the trackers knew what was going to happen, we went a little closer to see better, and the copulation started. One of the new females, Emilie was very close, looking to any move of Kingo, just waiting for his invitation!
For the first time in my life I was watching a face to face copulation in gorillas! As the trackers told me Emilie brought in the group this new way to make sex!
She went close to him and embraces him! We could see her hands on his shoulder, her feet right above his legs! The copulation last for 40 seconds, a good amount of time for gorillas!
After that Kingo slept for an hour. After getting up and a short feeding session, he made again the same noise and Emilie, that wasn’t eating and was just waiting to have sex again, came closer and they did for the second time. This time the little Ekendi (son of Mekome) went just right in the middle of the couple, climbed on Emilie chest and stay there observing what was going on!
Kingo ended the copulation biting softly Ekendi! Then Ekendi and Kusu went to smell and watch closely Emilie, who was resting close by.
The male slept again, while the other females start to feed on the ground and on the trees nearby. We saw other tree copulations with the same female, always face to face!! The first one was very interesting because as soon Kingo made the noise, Ekendi, who was this time sleeping with her mum, ran to see it again. He was very curious and tried to imitate the movement of the father with the leg of Kingo. It was very funny and me, Aylin, Kpeta and Kete Mokonjo couldn’t stop to laugh! The second copulation was very rapid and Emilie left him right after, walking fast away. If you permit a non scientific interpretation she seemed annoyed and angry!
Late in the afternoon after the group eat some bambu (Sango name for the big tree Chrysofphyllum lacourtiana) fruits, Kingo asked again to copulate, always with the same female. This time they tried to do it from behind, but things were not working properly (Kingo was missing the spot!) and suddenly he took Emilie put her on a liana nearby and they did it face to face again!
The day after no copulations were observed, but Friday, we could observe Kingo copulating twice with the other new female, Fini wali (in Sango new female). She entered the group recently and is still quite afraid of us. We didn’t want to disturb them, so we observed the two copulations, one in the morning and the second one in the afternoon from a little far away. This time Kingo copulated normally, not face to face.

I’m now very curious to see if he will try in the future the new position learned from Emilie with Mama and Mekome. We have to wait a little while though, since they still are lactating. We have to wait for Kusu (4 years) and Ekendi (3.5 years) becoming a little older!
I had a nice video of one of the copulation face to face with Emilie. Unfortunately the connection I have here in the forest doesn’t allow me to upload the video (if I try it will cost more than $800, I cannot afford it!), but in one month I will go to Bomassa, from where I will be able to upload it on the blog. Just be patient!!

6 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 21 2009 | By: gorillasound

To reply to Branton comment: Bahaka is a pygmy word that means people of the forest and includes all pygmy communities. In Central Africa there are several pygmy communities, Cameroon, Congo, and Democratic Republic of Congo, all of them have different names.
As I told you before they know the forest as anyone else. For example, yesterday we were in the forest with Kingo and family with two trackers, Kete (little) Mokonjo and Mkpete (another young guy), and suddenly they started to talk in Bahaka language, and since I can understand few words, I immediately understood that they were talking of Ekule. Ekule is a wonderful liana with spines that have tubers like our potatoes.
When the gorillas went a little further we started to dig them. When we arrived at the camp they cooked them and offered some to us, sooooo good. In the forest there are several plants that have eatable tubers and are sweet and good as potatoes. I’m sure there are more than 10 species, until now I just tried 4 types, all very good.
Traditionally Bahaka are gathers and hunters, they live of all products of the forest, fruits, nuts, leaves, caterpillars, insects and so on. They also hunt several animals; normally they hunt using nets. In this type of hunting techniques everyone collaborate: women or men can stay close to the net while others make noise in the forest to direct animals right in the net. Then children and adults kill the animals trapped in the net. They also hunt with spears, and other techniques, sometimes using poisoned arrows.
Another product of the forest for which they get completely crazy is honey!! They climb high trees, using lianas to ensure themselves, build a small basket where they put part of the bee nest which they take with the help of smoke, to make the bees leave and not get bitten, then they pull down the basket and enjoy the sweetness!
They use several parts of plants to cure themselves from several diseases, as well to become stronger or protect themselves from dangerous animals. There are medicines for men and other for women, like a natural Viagra, herbs to avoid getting pregnant, to increase fertility and so on!
There are several books and scientific papers on their culture, but the old book of Turnbill People of the Forest is a nice way to start to know them.

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 21 2009 | By: gorillasound

OK I have seen them with my own eyes for the first time of my life. More amazing than i could have ever imagined. The reality is more impressive than what you have seen in the documentary movies, the pictures in this bloc or even any website. Gorillas, another perfect part of the forest. When you bear in mind the huge body mass they possess, especially Kingo who is the only male of the group, their calmness and genteelness on their moves are unexpected. They move with a rhythm that we forgot a long while ago. No clumsiness on their movement, nothing like me:) Kingo is totally huge but calm. He is a good father of three young gorillas, Kusu, Ekendi and an unnamed one month infant. Kusu and Ekendi are like his shadows. As far as I seen, they spent most of their time with Kingo. They love playing as every kid you know. But differently, they are the sons of the forest. I love them the most. Especially Ekendi. He is so adorable and funny. I think he can’t go on one direct line. He always turn and jump around himself during his walks. He doesn’t afraid from us that much but always watching us with one eye. He plays nonstop. Even the way he feed himself is a game for him. Kusu is an older brother and his playmate. Kusu is the independent one so much like his mom. I can see the wonder from their eyes. When the adults are feeding, traveling or even sleeping, you can hear the cute hand clapping sounds of them. I have to tell you this story that I took a part. Once Kingo seemed really annoyed and his females from his harem weren’t on sight. He was trying to find them by using all his senses. You can see that little ears in that huge head searching for signs of his females present. Oh he was really anxious. With ignoring the signs, we went a little bit closer to him than what we should have. And as it is expected, he charged on us after telling us to stay away from him in his own way. Kusu was nearby when the charged took its place. He didn’t move when Kingo was being aggressive to us. But right after that, Kusu started to clap hands and jump happily on his way. Like he was having fun when he was watching his dad’s power on us. It was so amazing to see his fun and Kingo’s power. As far as I observed, every individual in Kingo’s group have their own individual behaviour. For example, Mama has a free spirit that she can’t follow the rules all the time. She doesn’t sleep when the group does, she is always on her own way to find her food, always the best ones, and she loves spending her times on the trees. LITTLE Kusu has LITTLE time with Mama because Mama can’t bear to feed her boy anymore. You should hear Kusu when he cant get the attention he wants. Ugly is not really ugly but she doesn’t like the mankind. She is a good mother with her infant under her arms. Mekome is the calm one and with the motherhood inside. I feel like she is taking care of both Kusu and Ekendi. You can find them playing around Mekome. She is a responsible lady and likes to hang around close to Kingo. I think she is in love with him:) Emily is shy but cool one. And i think she is an observer too. Also, I am almost sure that she has a power on becoming invisible. She could be right under your nose but you still can’t see her. So silent. When we are talking about their behaviour, I can’t pass it without mentioning their gestures. The gestures which may remember you someone that you know so well. When Kingo sits, he crosses his legs like a lady and put his hands on his knees while holding a fruit, lazily swinging it and time to time eating it with pleasure. What you do if you are annoyed by the flies? Try to catch them with your hand unconsciously. They do the same. Or another example, don’t we start to scratch our head when we are confuse. They do the same gesture but the reason behind that gesture..i don’t know that. I feel like I have much to learn and remember from them. They are totally wonderful creatures as us only more hairy, calm and gentle:)

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 21 2009 | By: gorillasound

We left the camp, walked on the familiar trails present in the home range of Kingo to find the gorillas. We arrived to the panjee (are signs the trackers leave the day before in the forest when they leave the group to easily find them the morning after).
And here he was, eating terrestrial herbaceus vegetations, the most common gorilla food, abundant and yearly present in the forest. During the last two months gorillas are eating mostly only THV and bark and new leaves of few species of trees, since no fruits can be found. Immediately we looked for the positions of his females while the young male infant, Kusu, came closer to see us. It always amazed me how calm they are.
We started to take simple data as the activity and the food he was eating, while I showed to Aylin how to follow him. The trackers became the professors of Sango for Aylin! They explain her what kingo was eating, speaking very slowly to help her to understand.
Unfortunately, Kingo stayed all day in an area close to a Banga tree, a huge tree with small fruits (not eaten by gorillas) where a big nest of small flies is. Those small flies can just cover your face and body to get your transpiration. They can bacome very annoying, they get in your eyes, ears, mouth, cloths, making very difficult to watch the gorillas.
But this was our welcome in the forest!! Patrice uses to say…if you love the forest, you love everything of it, good and bad! And I agree!!!

During the last days rained a lot, almost everyday. We went a little later in the forest to contact the gorillas because with the noise of the rain for the trackers is very difficult to hear the noise of elephants. elephants are the most dangerous animal in the forest here. Yes, there are also leopards, but normally they see you and you never see them. Contrarily, elephants if the smell you they can charge and run towards you.
The trackers are very experienced and can hear them much before they can hear or smell you, and they can lead the entire team away from them safely. With the rain it’s impossible to hear any noise. When we arrived to KIngo all group was on the trees eating leaves. As soon as the rain stopped, Kingo came down to get a looong nap, while his females remained on the trees to get some warmer air. Under the vegetation where we were we continued to get wet from the water coming from the tres and leaves, it was quite cold!

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 15 2009 | By: gorillasound

Finally!

As Aylin told you we arrived at Mondika.

You can’t imagine how I felt. Mondika has this power on me….just makes me feel at home.

I met instantly Patrice. Patrice is the director of Mondika, he worked here for 8 years.

In 2004-6 he came to USA to do his Master thesis. From the hot Congo he stayed in the cold Long Island!

I was very happy to see him again. Anytime I came to Mondika we spent a lot of time together speaking of Mondika gorillas, data protocol especially changing it with the help of course of Diane Doran.

Diane Doran is a professor of Stony Brook University, who started Mondika in 1995 and habituated two groups of gorillas (one male died in 2003) and now she is my advisor for my vocal communication project.

Patrice now is working on the habituation of a second group, he is the only person (except Diane) that knows how to habituate gorillas here.

A part of Patrice I met all the other guys that are working here as field assistants, but more importantly I ran to say hallo to the trackers! The best trackers of the world. And I’m not joking, some of them went recently in other sites to train the trackers of other places. They have an experience of 14 years, 14 years!! They are my best friends here, and they were waiting for me to come. As I came in 2007 they told me that they thought I was not coming back again, since they waited for me for more than 4 years.

This time they wait just 2 and they knew I was coming soon or later. But we all were very happy to see each other. We started to talk in Sango about our life, I asked about their family and they asked about my boyfriend and my study! Then long talks about gorillas, Kingo’s adventures, the new females and the new group.

Our bond is very strong I will always be grateful to them for all my life. They saved me sooo many times in the forest, from elephants, snakes and gorillas.

I learnt and I’m still learning about their amazing culture. They know the forest as any other, hunt, collect fruits, honey, bark, seeds, they sing, play and dance in harmony with the forest.

We already start the training of Aylin in the forest. She saw already all members of Kingo, and she started to collect simple data.

In the next week she will start to be alone with a tracker and follow the male, while I will start to follow females. Since research has been absent at the site for 3 years already, I have to make females again used to have someone always with them.

At the same time I will train the young trackers to how follow females. Follow females is a little more difficult than follow the male. They travel more and rest less than the male. In addition they often are in front of Kingo, and to have the male behind you, who can arrive suddenly while you are in a thicket with a female can be a little scary. You need to know how not to block the way to the male without loose the female. IN addition, trackers that would be with me have to learn how to use the microphone and the recorder.

Since trackers with Kingo need to learn new things I would like to increase the salary of all the trackers (remember that Bahaka are one of the most egalitarian society, you can’t raise the salary of some, also everyone alternate between Kingo’s and the new group!!!). Their salary is, in my opinion too low for the wonderful work they do here.

There are 10 trackers at the camp. I would like to give them at least 10 dollars more each month! In total it would be 100 dollars each month.

Please help us to increase their salary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s a small amount that in Central Africa can make a big difference for their family!

Tags: Help for the trackers!!!

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 11 2009 | By: gorillasound

Finally, we are in the MONDIKA camp. It is more amazing and bigger than I have imagined. Oh I should tell you all the story about our arrival before describing our beautiful camp for a year. In Bomassa, early in the morning 11 porters came to help us to carry our enormously huge bags. You should see how gentle they were with the bags. In their movement, there is this slowness. No need to hurry for anything but so gentle. Porters have their waterproof bags (with holes though:). As we need to cross the river, our huge bags should fit in to their waterproof bags. During the process, Roberta helped them a lot to try to fit our bigger bags in to their smaller waterproof bags:) After we were all good with the bags, porters have placed them in to the car. Here is the difficult part: many bags plus 15 people and only one car to get in. The surprising part is No Problem. We got in and our driver slowly start the engine with a nice African music in the radio. However after 5 minutes of driving when we were in the village, everyone of us get out of the car and search for food. We had a little bit of problem here. In the village they had only rice but porters were insisting on having Gazo which is their local food. They started to protest to go to Mondika unless they eat Gazo. So here is Roberta, trying to find the food they want in all over the village with a money on hand. Luckily she found the GAZO. So in the end Roberta, me and the porters have started our trip to the camp which we are going to live for a year. For the first hour of our trip was easy, we were all comfortably sitting in our car and going slowly right in to the forest, talking about gorillas and which kind of vegetation they like the most. Due to the logging, there wasn’t many big old trees for the beginning of our first hour. After an hour, our car stopped, for us to continue our way by walking. It was beautiful and all green. The smell of the forest was so refreshing. The porters were running in the forest like they weren’t carrying that huge bags on their backs and Roberta and me were following them. We came across with the river, colored in red. When I have seen the river, I tried to jump from one island to the other for not to get wet like a little spoiled girl:) And one of the porter who was walking bare foot in the forest looked at me and laughed for awhile. Then he hold me from my hand and pulled me to the river:) Finally I was wet too:) We walked in the river for almost half an hour. After walking more than an hour, we took a break in the foot of a huge tree. When we sit, all the porters turned their eyes to Roberta and she understood what was in their mind. When they seen the tobacco, I swear that their eyes started to shine with their happy screams. Anyway we continued to walk after a 10 min break almost an hour more. It was a nice and refreshing walk. In my opinion, being in the forest and walking with nothing in the mind is a type of meditation. There is no tiredness in it. It is like being a curious baby again and have the eyes to wonder on everything. If you look carefully, you can see the tracks of animals before you showed up. And when you look where you have just walked, you can see your own tracks next to your relatives. There are no superiors or inferiors here anymore. All the same.
When we arrived to the camp, Roberta got so happy as she seen her friends after 2 years. They all started to speak in Sango with the excitement on their voice. I couldn’t understood any word of it but I knew what they were talking. In the end, body language is the same in all around the world. Oh and thats one thing I am good at. I met with the trackers and Patrice who is the manager of Mondika. And I liked each of them for being really friendly, helpful and funny. Everyone looks really happy in this little part of the world that I am in now. Oh also, I am trying to learn how to speak in Sango. It is more difficult than I thought. But still it sounds so good in my ears. In an hour, we will be out in the forest to encounter my first gorilla friend in my life. What else I can want or need more…

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Mar 11 2009 | By: gorillasound

Since 2005 WCS started ecotourism at Mondika. At the same time the health protocol with gorillas has been improved to prevent any transmission of diseases. This has been an important step to protect Kingo’s family, especially when they started to be visited by several different people. Great apes are so closely related to humans that they are susceptible to many of our diseases.
As well as for the researchers and assistants, everyone that go to see gorillas need to have several vaccinations: polio, measles, yellow fever (mandatory for entering Congo). In addition they have to provide a negative tuberculosis test. Other vaccinations strongly recommended are tetanus, and hepatitis A and B.
No babies are allowed to see gorillas for several reasons: general safety and also because male gorillas are known to kill the infants that are not theirs. It never happened anything with babies but to not risk, the minimum age to see gorillas has been set at 15 years.
The Kingo family is composed by, as you already know, one male five females and three infants. To not stress the gorillas the number of visitors at all time has been set at 4, so that the adult gorillas in the group are always more than humans.
Others basic rules help to prevent transmission of diseases to the gorillas, like not defecating or urinating in the forest, no eating, no sneezing, coughing, spitting, touching fruits or other items they can touch after you.
The idea is to be completely ignored by them to be able to observe their natural behavior and reduce at minimum any kind of danger for them from our presence.
Gorillas are very susceptible to our respiratory diseases and a simple cold of ours can be mortal for them. For this reason we check routinely the health of the trackers, ours and prevent tourist to go if we think they are not healthy enough. In addition we use masks to reduce any risk.
During the first week I will collect dung from each adult individual for the veterinarian WCS protocol, in order to check if this family has developed antibodies against ebola virus.
During 1995-2001 several outbreaks of ebola have reduced dramatically western gorilla populations (up to 95%). A recent survey in the areas more affected showed that the survival apes have ebola antibodies. Until now researchers couldn’t distinguish different antibodies for the different ebola viruses, but the next step is to develop a test that can discriminate different antibodies.
We hope it will be developed as soon as possible!

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