Ian the Snarkler Video

We are in Maputo where we finally have a fast enough internet connection to upload this video! Enjoy.

Tofo Beach, Part Two

Our days in Tofo were gloriously lazy. The mornings were cool but the afternoons warm and sunny, although on one or two days the wind was strong enough to nearly blow Ian down the beach.






The shore in front of our lodge had a great rocky bit that made for some great tide-pooling when the tide was low. The rocks (old coral?) also protected a shallow little lagoon, complete with little fish, that provided a great place for Ian to venture into the wonderful world of snorkeling. (Ian calls snorkeling “snarkeling,” a pronunciation Rich and I have adopted as well because it is just so cute!) The combination of the buoyant water and his concentration on breathing through the tube made him forget entirely about floating and his swimming improved markedly over the course of the week.

But the high point of our time in Tofo was our experience swimming with whale sharks. As Ian can tell you (he knows all the factoids about whale sharks, and recited them all to our guide during the trip), whale sharks are the largest fish in the world, but only eat plankton so won’t go munching you if you swim with them. Tofo boasts one of the largest and most accessible whale shark populations in the world. The large grey giants swim lazily in the shallow waters just off shore.

We spent about 3 hours on our expedition, which involved a motorized inflatable raft piloted by experienced local guys who managed to find at least five of the big sharks for us. They’d carefully position the boat and then we’d all jump into the water with our masks and snorkels and go swimming after the shark. It was an amazing experience, one Rich calls among the most spiritual of his life. Even Ian got brave enough, after watching us visit two or three sharks, to jump into the (for him) very deep water (with his life jacket) for long enough to be able to catch a glimpse of the great grey beast himself! Our guide and the folks back at the dive shop said he was the youngest kid they’d ever had hop in the water to swim with whale sharks. Very impressive! Ian was quite proud of himself, as were we of him.

Tofo Beach, Part One

We had a magnificent week away on the beaches of southern Mozambique at the end of August. It was our first real time off (including weekends) since early July, so we were all much in need of a break!

We spent the first part of our week at Tofo beach, on the Inhambane peninsula. Inhambane is one of the oldest cities in Mozambique, having been home to Indian Ocean trade routes centuries ago. Tofo was about a 20 minute drive from the town of Inhambane, right along the Indian Ocean, with gorgeous sand dunes and plenty of surf.

Although Tofo has a bit of a reputation as a party town for young travelers, we found an isolated lodge, Mango Beach, away from the ruckus and just perfect for a family getaway.

We stayed in a rustic 4-person reed chalet with a communal kitchen area and bathroom, although we shared these with maybe only one or two other couples whom we rarely saw. We only bothered “self-catering” our breakfast, taking our lunch where we could and enjoying sumptuous seafood – prawns, crab, clams, or whatever was freshest that day – prepared by our lodge hosts in the evenings for dinner.

We loved going to sleep to the roar of the ocean and rustle of the wind through the palms.

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.

More Introductions...

We celebrated our friend Cheryl's 40th birthday in early August with great fanfare -- and lots of frosting! Hendrik arranged for a beautiful and heavily frosted cake, some of which was enjoyed the traditional way and the rest of which was thrown, smeared, and otherwise blasphemed in a great food fight. (Never fear, this debauchery occurred after the young impressionables had left for bed.) I was a big chicken and fled the scene before I got besmirched by frosting, but I still had my wits about me as one of only a small few non drinkers! So let me introduce the birthday girl, Cheryl (in the red shirt with the pineapple, which was filled throughout the evening with either gin and tonic or champagne). Cheryl is Chitengo's gardener, responsible for the lovely grass around the pool and native plantings spring up around the camp. She is also the camp hairdresser (hooray!) and all around supportive friend. Another introduction is our friend Raquel (brown Gorongosa polo), conservation planner and wonderful friend. Oh, and then there's Ian in his Tigger suit, his special dress up clothes in honor of the party.

Isla da Inhaca

We had our annual senior staff strategic planning meeting at Inhaca Island off the coast of Maputo in Southern Mozambique. We highly recommend tropical islands for all staff retreats! Seriously, despite the beautiful surrounds (because of?), we had a very productive five days of meetings to discuss many of the "big picture" issues facing the Gorongosa Restoration Project that are difficult to find time and space to discuss when people are in the midst of their day-to-day work at the Park. It was also a terrific opportunity to get to know four incoming staff: Pedro, who will head tourism at Chitengo (hospitality, including restaurant, housekeeping, etc.); Francisco, who will head the staff training program; Patricia, who will head the health outreach program, and Monica, who will head the conservation education program.

Francisco, Patricia, and Monica will all be heavily involved in implementing our Family Goals Program in which junior Park staff (from the communities adjacent to the Park, where housing, health, and education standards are extremely low) will set a series of goals they wish to achieve for their families and comunities (e.g., use of mosquito nets in homes, investment in better housing, improved educational opportunities, etc.) and monitor themselves in achieving those goals with Park support.