Archive for the ‘Hippos’ Category
Well I am quickly realizing that we face many of the same problems at Lulimbi that we used to face at Ishango. Here you can see we discovered the very same baskets used by illegal fishermen. The fishermen are also targeting the spawning grounds - totally forbidden.
People can also be quite industrious and dig entire canals to fish illegally.
Finally, very sadly, we found this dead hippo floating in the water. You can see the wound from which we believe it died. We are still not sure if it was accidental or deliberate. The fact that is was found floating means that no poachers were around when it died. But we do not know how the wound was inflicted.
I have finally had time to settle in to Lulimbi, the park station that I now head up in Virunga National Park.
This is now my new home. So far I have been very impressed with the hippo life at Lulimbi. As you can see by these photos I took, there are definitely some hippos to protect and the situation is not as bleak as I anticipated. There is still a great deal of adjusting to do, but I am making progress and getting to know my new team of Rangers.
Meanwhile Godefroid is also settling in at Ishango - please go to his blog to see how he is getting on with boat patrols and buffalos!!
I often write about the threat of poachers in Ishango - which of course applies to the whole of Virunga National Park. Poaching - after the presence of armed militias - remains the single most important threat to Ishango’s wildlife. We are all working hard to protect the animals that are here - so that they can reproduce and multiply. We also hope that more animals - especially predators - continue to come over the border from Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park. It is ironic that when Uganda was enduring its civil war, the wildlife came to Congo for protection, and Uganda relied on the animals returning to repopulate its parks. Now the situation is reversed. Virunga National Park is not an isolated protected area in Africa - it is part of a vast ecosystem that extends through to Kenya and the Albertine Rift. So it is vitally important to protect its flora and fauna to the best of our ability. Sometimes animals die naturally, or for mysterious reasons. Here are some photos below. One is an antelope that we found not far from Ishango, decomposing. The other is a hippo carcass. There was no evidence of poaching in either case (no snares etc).
Hippo snaring is still going on as you know, depressingly enough.
This is Karibu. He is from the Franco pod.
He (or she - I am not sure!) regularly follows the pirogue when we are out on the river. He leaps up into the air and starts chasing us when we are going upstream, which is quite scary because our outboard motor does not go very fast.
This is what the Franco pod usually looks like on a lazy day.
This elephant, funnily enough, actually plays with Karibu. I have not yet been able to identify whether this elephant is male or female, but one thing is certain is that Karibu chases him/her. But now - it seems as if the elephant has gotten wiser, and whenever Karibu approaches, the elephant starts chasing Karibu first!
I will try and get pictures of them together!
I wanted to share these photos with you. They are not from Ishango but from Kahuzi Biega National Park, south of Virunga National Park. This is where the Grauer’s Gorillas live, with elephants, antelope and other animals.
Paulin, a Ranger, stands next to elephant skulls - a shocking sight.
And elephant teeth.
In the background are the same elephant skulls, and in the fore you can see gorilla skulls.
Antelope skull.
Grauer’s Gorilla skull.
And the elephant leg bones - next to Paulin’s legs.
Of course all these skulls and bones have been collected over an extended period of time. But it just goes to show the devastating effect of poaching on our country’s resources. Kahuzi Biega National Park is less known that Virunga - but is equally important in the conservation of some of the world’s most precious creatures.
Last week I blogged about the elephant killed by a “jaw trap“. And I showed you a picture of the tusks that we removed from the rotting corpse.
Elephant tusks.
They are hollow.
Now you can compare an elephant tusk with the canine tooth of a hippo. Remember the hippo tooth also contains ivory, which is one of the reason for the hippos massacres in 2006.
Notice the hippo tooth, on the left, has fissures going down the side.
In my hand. The elephant was not fully grown as you can see by the size of the tusks.
I thought this comparison was very interesting.
This is Samantha. When I left Ishango recently from Beni I managed to take a few shots from the plane as I flew over Atamato’s patrol post.
This is the Semliki River, running out of Lake Edward. The village you can see is Kavinyonge, just a stones throw from Ishango and the nearest village. I just missed Ishango in the photo (the plane was moving a lot!), it is just on the other side of the river, so bottom left corner of the photo.
This is Kavinyonge again, and in the distance, further along the shore, you can see Muramba. This is the illegal settlement where the Mai Mai live. They left a letter once for Atamato after Rangers had seized one of their fishing boats. They are a big threat to the park and all the wildlife. For a map click here.
And this is now on the southern shores of Lake Edward. This whole area used to be full of hippos - you could see hundreds upon hundreds of them. In the inlet you can see a settlement, this is Vitshumbi. It is around here that the massacre took place last year by the Mai Mai.
And a close up of Vitshumbi.
And finally, nothing to do with the lake, but this is a refugee camp just outside of Goma. The war has caused thousands upon thousands of displaced people. Samantha
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