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Our quest for our target species has continued over the past couple of days, but seemingly, only with partial success.
Mist-netting has again been combined with flush surveys on consecutive mornings, but the Hottentot buttonquail are proving elusive. We have sighted at least two other individuals, but are yet to catch any more. It is becoming clear why no-one had done this prior to this Biosphere expedition! The work has confirmed locations of this species and enabled us to locate nest sites of Cape rockjumper – another bird species restricted to the fynbos biome.
Another part of our daily routine each morning and evening is to check the leopard trap – a large cage trap, which will hopefully tell us which of the cat species are moving through the local area. Any Cape leopard caught will be fitted with a telemetry collar so we can better understand their movements and habitat use. We’ll also get some interesting by-catch, and over the last few mornings we have trapped a grysbok – a small antelope almost entirely restricted to the fynbos vegetation; and a porcupine – the largest rodent in Africa. All are released to continue on their way.
A regular feature in our workload is camera trap servicing and deployment. This provides a great excuse to explore Blue Hill Nature Reserve to its geographic limits; ensuring cameras are deployed in all directions. Hopefully they will give up a few more secrets on our other target species (i.e. Cape leopard, Caracal and African wildcat).
Camera traps can also give you a few surprises. Our team retrieved one remote camera; that has been in the field since it was deployed by last year’s expedition group. Not only was the camera still taking pictures 12 months later (on its original set of batteries), it had also recorded black-backed jackal (another predator not frequently recorded in the area), been attacked by baboons and survived a wildfire! Well done both teams.
And our work is not just limited to the daytime. We have also been deploying bat detectors and using them on transect walks, to better understand what species are present in the area. The detectors are a bit like camera traps, but are triggered by ultrasonic sound, recording a sonogram, which can then be used to identify bat species. This also provides opportunities for face-to-face encounters with other larger wildlife which tends to be more active at night!
Expeditions are often about learning by doing. Our work in South Africa is no different. Tuesday morning saw us head south on a mist-netting quest to catch a Hottentot buttonquail – an endangered, range-restricted fynbos endemic bird, urgently in need of a focussed study into its conservation status.
On route to our bird survey, we took the opportunity to service a few camera traps – change memory cards and batteries, and ensure they haven’t been redistributed by baboons! Camera traps are a vital tool for the project, giving us extra eyes in multiple locations and at all hours of the day and night. On later processing the images from one of these traps, we found out that the last image taken, less than 24 hrs before we serviced the camera was a Cape leopard. It is great to know our main target species is in the vicinity.
Having served our fast-track mist-net apprenticeship on Tuesday, we returned to the same location on Wednesday, and set the nets again. The idea is to then ‘flush’ the target birds in the direction of the nets, so they can be caught, documented and released. So four short flush transects walks later, what did we have in our nets – a Hottentot buttonquail! When your scientist starts dancing around, high-fiving everyone, you pretty much know you have achieved something special!
This was history. This species has never been caught before, ever. Our team had achieved a world first. The individual in question had her biometrics taken, was ringed, photographed and released. The information is vital on many levels, but importantly we now know its weight. So when another individual is caught the correct radio collar could be fitted so the bird can be ‘followed’ and we can learn much more about its ecology, which is vital to inform conservation efforts.
Our achievements have not just been limited to the Blue Hill area. Every day at least one of our volunteers has been helping Matt Macray (our resident Masters student) survey tortoises across the wider fynbos area (also helped by the kind loan of a vehicle from Ford). This not only helps advance knowledge of the distribution of at least four tortoise species, but the study will principally assess the impact of electric fences. These are the scourge of this mixed use landscape, and kill tortoises and other wildlife in unknown and un-necessary numbers. Data are vital to address this problem.
This year’s expedition may be in its early days, but the achievements are beginning to role in. Fingers crossed it continues…
After all the preparation of the past few months, weeks and days, we could finally get the expedition underway. Our team of volunteers arrived not only with bags of energy, enthusiasm and kit, but also boxes of wine! You sometimes get an instant feeling that you have a good group 😉
With initial introductions, orientations and risk assessments completed, we could get down to the real business of field research. This was kicked off by Matt Macray (a Masters student) who is working on the impact of electric fences on leopard tortoises. This was followed by our project scientist (Alan) giving an overview of field research to date at Blue Hill, and outlining the targets for this years expedition.
One of these is to trap a Cape leopard, so it can be fitted with a tracking collar, to better understand its movement patterns within the fynbos environment. Cue a field briefing on the cage traps used to trap leopards.
We were also joined by Harry Lewes of the Landmark Foundation, who are working to protect leopards across much of this region of South Africa. Not only was he able to brief our team on leopard capture, but also give an overview on the plight they face in South Africa and the great work that is being undertaken to conserve them across their range. Much of this is reliant on current data, such as the information from Blue Hill.
With some additional practical sessions on field equipment and survey techniques completed, our group are now almost ready to begin the vital data collection, and we are hopeful of some positive early results!
Sorry for the late entry; the internet has been down at base!
Touch Down. Four flights later and I finally made it to George. It is great to be back. My first afternoon was spent collecting our second 4WD (thank you Ford South Africa for the loan), picking up our cooks (Melda and Gurli), who have just got in from Cape Town, and doing a supply run – I can’t remember the last time I bought so many vegetables!
We could then enjoy the two hour drive north to Blue Hill; our expedition base for the next two weeks. As George disappears into the distance, the roads deteriorate from tarmac to dirt, whilst the views become ever more expansive, and so the sense of anticipation increases. You know you are heading somewhere special, away from much of the world.
It has been great to catch up with Alan (and his family) and meet Matt (a Masters student who will be working with us – all will be revealed). The research plans are prepared, the equipment is tested and ready to go, and our expedition base is ready to welcome our volunteers.
And the good news is that many of our target species are also beginning to make an appearance. On checking a couple of the camera traps along the east road from our base camp, there have been recent records of leopard, caracal and African wildcat. Some of the latter from just two days ago!
We look forward to meeting you all and hope you bring the good weather and lucky cat charms!
Bleaching and crown of thorns wreak havoc on Maldives reefs – but is this a temporary blip?
Coral reefs have existed for around 300 million years. Today they are under severe threat and the island nation of the Maldives, whose economy and very existence is based on corals, is no exception. Biosphere Expeditions and the Marine Conservation Society report.
Both coral bleaching (where hot water stresses corals) and Crown of Thorns starfish can be considered ‘natural’ events. But when these events happen often and with increased severity, reef survival is threatened, and therefore the very survival of coral reef nations such as the Maldives.
Recent dive surveys by an international and Maldivian team of divers (Biosphere Expeditions, the Marine Conservation Society and Maldivian partners) have revealed a worrying reduction in the amount of Maldivian live coral over the past year. Healthy coral cover has been reduced to below 10% in more sheltered inner atoll reefs by bhe recent El Niño that has also devastated much of the Great Barrier Reef. El Niño hit the Maldives in May this year with two weeks of 32 degrees centigrade waters – at least 2 degrees above the ‘normal’ upper limit of 30 degrees. Outer reefs that are flushed with deeper, cooler water on a more regular basis have fared better (with an average of 25% live coral cover).
Dr Jean-Luc Solandt the Biosphere Expeditions programme scientist from the Marine Conservation Society says: “Our surveys showed a clear pattern, with reefs inside atolls being the worst affected.” Some of the reefs denuded by the warming have also been hit hard by Crown of Thorns starfish, which eat corals. Solandt continues: “Sadly, one of the reefs that was beautiful with upwards of 70% hard coral some four years ago have their remnant corals now being eaten by Crown of Thorns starfish. These coral-eating starfish have decimated the Great Barrier Reef through geological time, and have been affecting the Maldives for over two years now.”
Shaha Hashim, a Maldivian conservationist and linchpin for community-based survey and reef conservation efforts, took part in the expedition to and adds: “More stringent efforts to conserve and build up the resilience of these marine ecosystems are crucial for our survival as an island nation. Development planning and policies need to put a higher value on environmental impacts, which is the prerequisite for any social or economic harmony.”
Dr. Matthias Hammer, founder and executive director of Biosphere Expeditions, concludes: “We are very concerned for the people of the Maldives. Almost everything depends on healthy reefs: The economy, food, welfare, tourism income. If reefs are threatened, so is the very existence of the country and its social cohesion. We hope the reefs will recover, and whilst coral bleaching cannot be locally managed, fisheries, litter and pollution can be. We urge the government to use some of the income from the heavily consumptive tourism industry to pay back – to invest in the very survival of their islands and nation. Without investment from this sector, we believe the reefs will struggle to return.”
But there is a silver lining: “What gives us hope is that the last big bleaching even in 1998 was hotter, longer and more severe, and many reefs recovered good coral growth within seven years”, says Solandt. Hammer adds: “It is not all doom and gloom. Where officialdom is failing, civil society and committed Maldivians are stepping in. Ever since Biosphere Expeditions started running its annual research trip to the Maldives in 2011, it has educated and trained Maldivians in reef survey techniques as part of the Biosphere Expeditions’ placement programme. This culminated in the first-ever all-Maldivian reef survey in November 2014 and other community-based conservation initiatives since then, the latest in March 2016. Shaha Hasihim, for example, has taken part in several expeditions and is now training her compatriots in reef survey techniques and setting up community-based conservation programmes. So there is hope yet!”.
Biosphere Expeditions and the Marine Conservation Society have published a recommendations and action plan. They recommend – at a national scale:
1. Minimum and maximum landing sizes of reef fish within commercial fisheries (as recommended by the Darwin Grouper project).
2. Ensure that resorts only buy fish above breeding age (much of the data of the size of maturity of reef fish is available from http://www.fishbase.org). Any fish below the size of maturity should be refused by resort marine biologists and catering staff.
3. Enforce protection of grouper spawning grounds, as recommended by scientists under the Darwin Grouper project, and gazetted under Maldivian law.
4. Employ marine enforcement officers at resorts to patrol house reefs, and to make them ‘no take zones’.
5. Only allow ‘catch and release’ fishing for resort guests as a matter of Maldivian law, enforced by resorts themselves with their own marine enforcement officers.
6. Use the economic returns from the tourism sector, and fisheries sector to invest in a proper waste recycling system to avoid the dumping and burning of waste.
7. Ensure that each resort uses tertiary sewage systems to treat waste water.
8. Where possible, use renewable technologies to harness the power of the sun, tide and wind to support the large energy demands of the tourist sector.
9. Use national incentives, such as ‘greenest resort award’ and ‘best reef award’ for those resorts who manage their reefs and environmental impact well. Provide tax breaks for such resorts.
Here is a selection of pictures from this year’s expedition. Thank you to everyone who contributed.
The El Niño effect this year has devastated coral reefs around the world, but the reefs of one island in Malaysia are fighting back.
Citizen scientists from Biosphere Expeditions have teamed up with Reef Check Malaysia to survey the coral reefs around the island of Tioman, off the east coast of peninsular Malaysia. The group was assessing the health of the reefs following the devastating rise in sea temperatures that happened in May this year. A temporary rise of 2 or 3 degrees Celcius, caused by this year’s El Niño event, has been causing corals all around the tropics to do something called ‘bleaching’, which can lead to the death of corals and then entire reefs. A coral bleaches when it expels the symbiotic algae that usually live within it. These algae give the coral its colour, without these algae the transparent coral appears white (or bleached) as we see through the animal to its white calcium carbonate structure. Without the algae the animal also loses around 80% of its energy which is usually supplied by the algae photosynthesising sugars. This eventually leads to the death of the coral through starvation.
But the reefs around Tioman island have been taking algae back, and in the months since the reefs were 30 to 40% bleached, they have largely recovered, as the Biosphere Expeditions team has found. The team, comprising citizen scientists from all over the world, also found reefs that were almost back to pre-bleaching states and which were generally healthy. So for these reefs the danger of bleaching has passed for now, but the threats of overfishing and pollution are still there. Very few larger predator fish were found during the surveys, indicating that fishing is still happening, despite Tioman being a Marine Protected Area. The amounts of nutrient indicator algae growing on some of the reefs led the team’s scientist, Alvin Chelliah of Reef Check Malaysia, to speculate on the amount of sewage that may be ending up on the reefs from some of the island resorts. It is through working with the communities on the island, as Reef Check Malaysia does, that the threats to these reefs will be tackled sustainability can be secured.
‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ (so went that infamous song), and when they begin under the cold clear skies of northern Scotland at 4.15 a.m., I’m inclined to agree.
However, this Monday is different, as I begin my migration to South Africa. By means of introduction, I am Craig Turner and I’ll be your expedition leader of the South Africa expedition this year. It is fantastic to be going back to this part of the world to work on this great project in a wonderful location. Below are some pictures of the location I took last year.
I am already on route, having packed my gear and left our croft in the sunny Highlands of northern Scotland. The serious travel continues on Wednesday. It will be great to be working with our project scientist, Dr. Alan Lee, again and it sounds like he has some exciting field work planned.
The signs are already good, as Alan has noticed scratch marks on a tree on the Baboon trail (not far from the guest house). At the end of August he decided to place a camera trap to try and identify the culprit. He presumed a bushpig or porcupine, but just a few days ago two incidents were captured on camera of a young male leopard, which we hope to catch and collar during this expedition!
We arrive a few days before you volunteers in order to set up the expedition. I say ‘we’, since I am also travelling from George with Melda and Gurli – our cooks. Melda was part of the team last year, so I know we will be well nourished. I’ll send around another message once I get on the ground in South Africa.
This reminds me to mention communications on the expedition. There’s very limited cellphone reception on the project base (a 10 min walk up a hill) via Vodacom, and equally limited internet connectivity. Hopefully you can resist the need for frequent international comms, and why not go off the grid for the expedition, and soak up the remote field experience.
I know you’ve all been eagerly reading your expedition materials and know to bring many layers of clothing and good boots! The weather can be a bit like four seasons in one day, so prepare for warm, cold, possibly wet and hopefully dry. Just like the weather in Scotland!
So with the local team in place, and other staff en route, all we are missing is you. It will be great to meet you all and soon we’ll be humming a very different tune, ‘Under African Skies’.
11 Sep – With the first team safely on their way home, and team two experiencing a smooth passage to the research station, all seemed to be going without a hitch, but when we arrived, we were shocked to hear the news that there had been a shooting!
The target had escaped unharmed, but the macaw colpa team were outraged!. A ‘peke peke’ (local boat) with four men on board, (later identified as being members of a semi-indigenous community one hour upstream), seeing a bountiful display of macaws on the colpa (claylick), took a shot at one of them. Alan and Dana stepped out of the hide and screamed at them to leave, and surprised by the unexpected audience, the boat made haste. What is unclear is whether they were hunting, or merely shooting for ‘sport’.
Macaw hunters?
So Sunday saw the new team, Sandra, Jurgen and Etienne (all from Germany), complete their safety, navigation and transect training, whilst Rick, Pauline, Dana and Anh continued to monitor the macaw colpa and transects. With sightings of spider monkeys, howler monkeys, guans and red squirrels, plus a textbook morning at the colpa and some humming bird magic in the afternoon, it was a very satisfying day for all.
Monday (12 Sep) started at dawn with full colpa emersion for Jurgen, Etienne and Sandra with a seven-hour shift watching and recording the behaviour of the macaws. With multiple boats passing downriver and disturbing the already agitated birds, macaw numbers fluctuated from 70 to 0 and back again, and they did not regain the confidence to actually come onto the exposed colpa and feed on the mineral rich clay that makes up an essential part of their diet.
Macaws flying off the colpa
The other teams fared well, with sightings of collared peccary, a family of saddleback tamarin monkeys, black spider monkeys, and a troop of red howler monkeys with two babies on their backs.
The night transect for Jurgen and Etienne was most dramatic with the territorial call of a nearby jaguar echoing through the forest around them, not 100 m away! They scanned the area with high beam torches as the hairs on the backs of their necks bristled, but although it was most certainly watching them, they could see only darkness.
Tuesday (13 Sep) held another spectacular display at the macaw colpa, this time with over 50 birds feeding, perhaps because they had been deprived the day before. There were over 80 birds at the site, and trying to record the squawking, flapping melee in scientific terms, was not an easy task for Sandra and Catherine. With the friaje (cold front), definitely over, temperatures are now rocketing up into the high thirties. Despite this, there were many sightings on the transects, but the most interesting was spotted by Anh and Aldo on the B transect, with juveniles of two different species of monkey (red howler and black spider monkey) playing together in the same tree whilst the adults sat and observed. With it being so hot, we decided to conduct our night survey on the river. In 2005 our scientist Alan Lee and the team had conducted caiman population surveys from the boat, so we thought it would be interesting to see how the data compared to current populations. We calculated that on average they had seen 10-14 caiman on a nightly basis, and were hoping, (though doubting), to see as many. As it turned out, we surpassed it four-fold, seeing over 40 caiman on the same stretch of river. Admittedly about 25 of them were juveniles, but we were delighted to see the population faring so well.
On Wednesday (14 Sep) the teams began to bring in some of the camera traps, and we all enjoyed the sneak preview into the colpa, watching macaws and parrots eating copious amounts of mineral rich clay. It was a sweltering day in the jungle, but this only slowed down the humans, the animals were still very much in play – even the night monkeys were still out! Rick and Pauline took a wander off B transect onto the intersecting logging track and spotted two fresh cat prints in the mud. One was small, possibly an ocelot, but one bore all the hallmarks of a large jaguar!
At last the rains came and with it the frogs, so Etienne, Anh and Harry went out to the swamps on C transect to see what they could find, and came back with tales of seven different species of frog, three lizards, one green vine snake and a mouse opossum.
Thurs (15th Sept) The early morning colpa shift witnessed over 100 macaws, though they were kept from their feast of clay by a cheeky red howler monkey. This was fortuitous for the second colpa team as it meant they also got to watch a spectacular feeding event (something that is often done and dusted by the time they get there), and took some excellent photos. The weather had turned cold again, and apparently the mammals, like us, sought warmth, so there was not much action on the transects, although, as Alan said, “If you walk for long enough, you will always see monkeys and a red squirrel,” which they did!
On Friday (16 Sep) the sun came out again on our last day at Las Piedras. With the last transects completed, it was now time to collect the camera traps and process the data. With 74 km walked on transect (and many more on trail clearing and camera trap setting missions), there were 153 target species sighted, and again many more off transect including 16 groups of spider monkey, 11 groups of brown capuchin, 21 registered howler monkey events, 4 sightings of white-fronted capuchin monkey, 5 troops of squirrel monkey, 8 collared peccary, 1 puma on transect, but 11 tracks registered including ocelot, tapir, and of course, our jaguar tracks and calls. The data from the colpa show that in comparison with past expeditions, the macaw population is thriving, despite the worrying signs of extensive logging of their nesting trees occurring on the north side of the river. The reality may be somewhat masked though by the fact that macaws can live for up to 70 years, and the breeding stage does not begin until the birds have reached at least five years old, so continued monitoring is imperative to watch for any unusual patterns.
It has been an amazing week, and everyone has worked extremely hard, but if there were medals to give out (which there aren’t), Pauline and Rick would win an award for the most dedicated data enterers ever!
On Saturday (17 Sep), with the kit and equipment packed and ready to go and all the transport links planned and agreed in advance, what could possibly go wrong? The station has a boat, but due to our extensive luggage we needed another one, but it didn’t arrive. Chito did a sterling job ferrying us in two groups, avoiding sandbanks and rocking us off the ones we almost ran aground on, and we only left Lucerna an hour and a half late! Thank you all for a fantastic expedition, for working so well as a team and for your willingness to tackle any task. Thanks also to our fantastic chef Roy with his wonderful jungle recipies, for Brandy’s attention to detail, and Chito’s smiling face and excellent boat skills. Also to Pico and all the other staff who came and went doing their bit. And of course a big thank you to Juan Julio (JJ), the owner of Las Piedras. Until next time! Hasta luego!
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