Boa Maria

In late May, we took a great "sundowner" trip to the nearby Boa Maria, the former "headquarters" for a plantation in this area many years ago, located high on a rocky ridge above the Pungue river. The old buildings are nearly gone, but the view is marvelous, as are the sights and sounds of the nearby communities.

The view was great, but the photo-op of Theo was not to be missed!

Post from Rich: Rare antelopes at Gorongosa!

Last month we were thrilled to spot 5 wildebeest at Gorongosa – these are the lone survivers of a population of more than 5,500 that was here in the 1970s before large scale hunting during and after the war nearly eliminated them. The last time we observed wildebeest was in September 2005.

We observed a herd of more than 100 sable antelope in the same area. Our sable population is one of the great success stories at Gorongosa -- the population is growing steadily and we have several times more sable here than at Kruger National Park.

We also observed a small herd of 12 Lichtenstein's hartebeests, a beautiful and amazingly fast antelope that is very localized to this region.

Another success story is our waterbuck population, which has grown to more than 5000 animals. We will be providing some of our waterbuck to Limpopo National Park in southern Mozambique later this year to help them establish a viable founder population.

Gorongosa is also probably the best place in Africa to see oribi, a smallish antelope of the grassy plains that is also recovering rapidly in recent years. Oribi are one of several species that will benefit from the reestablishment of large herbivores that graze down the rank grasses on the plains.

Post from Rich: Wild Buffalo Operation

In August we undertook one of our most exciting operations this year—testing our wild African buffalo for bovine tuberculosis. Thirty years ago, when Gorongosa had more than 14,000 buffalo roaming the plains, TB was fairly widespread in the population. Our hope was that the catastrophic loss of buffalo from the Park (we now have only 70 in the wild) would have led to the eradication of TB in the population through a sort of “survival of the fittest” process, so that we could rebuild a “clean” population in the Park for the future. Under the leadership of our Head Veterinarian Carlos Lopes Pereira and with the tremendous support of the Veterinary team from Kruger National Park and their skilled helicopter pilot Grant, we managed to test 50 buffalo for TB. To our great relief and excitement, all tested negative.

The operation involved rounding up and darting small groups of about 8-12 buffalo at a time from the air by helicopter; followed by a team of us racing in on the ground to blindfold each sedated buffalo, determine their sex and age (based on tooth development and wear), collect blood samples and parasites, photograph and number them (using temporary paint), and attach tracking collars on selected individuals. Each operation was done in about 25 minutes, after which a counteracting drug was administered to revive the animals before they experienced too much heat or other stresses.

Our Gorongosa buffalo are absolutely massive (we call them “gordissimo” in Portuguese —obese). The largest male we darted weighed nearly a metric tonne (more than 2000 lbs). Gorongosa has some of the most productive grasslands in all of Africa, and relatively few herbivores, so those that survived here are feasting. In other words, you might say that Gorongosa is a buffalo restaurant built to serve 14,000 but is currently seating about 70!

We will be using the GSM/GPS tracking collars, which are now sending us the location of each collared buffalo 4x a day through the cell phone network, to study the reestablishment of buffalo at Gorongosa in detail. My colleague Carlos Bento, whom I have worked with for more than 12 years in Mozambique, will be undertaking this work for his PhD. We will be able to track buffalo movements and understand where, when, why, and how they are selecting their feeding, watering, wallowing, resting, and sleeping areas in the Park. We will also be placing collars on the new buffalo we introduce to the Park, as well as zebra, wildebeest, and other species. Collectively, we will gain a great understanding about how the “grazing succession” of Gorongosa is recreated overtime as these wildlife populations recover, how different species (especially rare herbivores) are affected by the recovery of the big “bulk grazers” like buffalo and zebra, how our carnivores (especially the famous Gorongosa lions) respond to the recovery of these large prey species, and so on. We hope to gain invaluable new insights into restoration ecology and wildlife management that we will share throughout the world.

Crocodile!

While out on a drive in the park we found this crocodile carcas -- stinky stinky stinky! But very interesting. We tried to sleuth how this croc had ended up here dead, as it didn't look like a struggle had occurred. Possibly the croc was moving from one water hole to another via this channel, as it looked like it had dragged itself along the channel for some distance, so perhaps it died from dehydration (unlikely) or some disease.

Rich managed to pull out a tooth of this croc -- it was more than an inch long, and hollow!

Ian Beilfuss, Helicopter Boy

Greg Carr was in Chitengo for the past couple of weeks, affording us the opportunity to see more of the Park by helicopter! Greg always arrives here by helicopter, and keeps it here during his stay in order that he can get around the Park and the region for his work.
Happily, he also invites others to use the helicopter to accomplish goals, whether they be looking for the lone small herd of zebra in this vast park, conducting anti-poaching raids, escorting important visitors, or checking out the status of cutting and burning on the Mountain.
We were the lucky beneficiares of Greg's generosity last week, making two family helicopter flights, one to look for the zebra (didn't find them, alas), and one to visit the top of Gorongosa Mountain.

Ian is a terrific flyer, whether facing forwards or backwards in the 7-seater helicopter, and is often even the spotter of wildlife. We saw crocodiles, hippo, tons of waterbuck, sable, elephant, warthogs, and many other kinds of animals during our trip round the Park in the helicopter.
Alas even flying on a helicopter becomes old hat for this small boy after a short time. Ian snoozed on the return trip home...