Pleasant Surprises in a Familiar Place
August 01, 2010
Written by Peter Clay, Senior Advisor to GACP
This morning Rwamucyo and I left the Kinihira field station with a young British guy named Ben to walk the forest trail. He has just finished two years working in Tanzania, most recently with “Nopc.org,” an innovative organization that sets up schools with computers. Except there’s a twist- only the keyboards and monitors are in the schools, the CPUs are in a central location and the whole system uses the cell phone networks. Ben had ridden (mostly pushed) a Rwandan wooden bike all the way from Goma to Kinihira! As this includes a final 28 kilometers of pretty awful rough and rocky roads, he no doubt he attracted quite a lot of attention, especially from children along the way. Ben is one of a number of travelers who we are leading on the forest trail to learn what people like as we complete the development of our ecotourism program.
Having recently traveled through Nyungwe National Park in the south of Rwanda, Ben’s perceptions of Gishwati are particularly helpful. Others have told us that our forest has scenic beauty with moderate trails, affording visitors a bit of exercise while experiencing a diverse and intriguing environment. Ben agreed. He was also incredibly lucky! We encountered mountain monkeys (Cercopithecus l’hoesti) twice, including once virtually right next to us as we hiked above the Pfunda River toward Kazaneza Falls. With their striking white “ruff” on their neck and shoulders, these monkeys are dramatic and handsome. They also seem to spend a fair amount of time on the ground and, more and more, are not too bothered by the appearance of human visitors.
As we approached the falls we heard something moving nearby in the trees. Was it another monkey? No, it was a squirrel, called agahuna in Kinyarwanda, leaping between trees and darting along branches draped with moss and epiphytes. There are at least two kinds of squirrels living in Gishwati. Continuing along the trail, we passed through a tunnel of giant tree ferns, dark and mysterious. Plant-eating dinosaurs may have eaten relatives of these amazing tree ferns or similar non-flowering plants that date from millions of years ago, before the evolution of flowering plants. How many different ways can you experience a forest? How many times can a familiar place still surprise you?
Then, suddenly, we heard the unmistakable hooting of chimpanzees from not too far ahead, seeming to come from the vicinity of the waterfall. Where exactly were they? Which direction were they moving? A few minutes later we arrived at the top of the waterfall, named “Welcome” or Kazeneza Falls by Thomas Safari, one of our Rwandan Field Assistants. Sitting on the wide rocks at the top of the falls we began to eat our lunch. Shortly afterward, hooting and excited screaming exploded above and around us. The chimpanzees had indeed come to the waterfall! Just at midday, when we were stopping for lunch. Who could possibly have planned that? Quickly putting our food away to avoid any possible problems with primates taking interest in our lunch, we grabbed binoculars and tried to observe the individual chimpanzees that were in the trees above the river. Kajorite was not hard to find. He is missing some toes and seems so often to stay lower in the trees and closer to us than the other chimpanzees. I spotted another male. He appeared to have a pinkish face, craning to look at me, as I was doing the same in reverse. This was probably Mabara, whom I had seen only a couple of times before. What about the females with infants? Eventually I saw Nyiramatwi with her young infant, moving across the river, high up in the trees. Cautiously I slowly moved up the river to just below the “Zen” spot. From here, with my back leaning against a mossy rock wet with spray I peered almost straight up to see who else I might find looking down at me.
Eventually the chimpanzees moved off and we were able to resume our lunch. Later, after lunch, amazingly, we encountered them once again! This time they were feeding on the abundant fruits of the Umwufe trees, or Myrianthus holstii, along the trail. There was Kajorite again, stuffing three big yellow Umwufe fruits into his mouth all at once! We watched him spit out some seeds and pulp as he continued to enjoy the bounty of an extravagant season of fruit production.
The next phase of our scientific research at Gishwati will involve habituation, getting the chimpanzees to tolerate us watching them from 20 meters (60 feet) away. We don’t want to feed them, as that would distort their natural lives. We simply want to continue to earn their trust, which will lead to detailed observations of chimpanzee behavior, including how foods are collected and processed. Social behavior will also be a major research focus. After nearly two years of painstaking indirect study of the Gishwati chimpanzee community the advent of really observing them is truly exciting.
Our day was incredibly lucky and I suggested to Ben that perhaps he was a “chimpanzee magnet!” As we climbed up the final section of the waterfall or tourist trail we passed a tree with an active nest of wild bees. This nest has been active for months now. I wonder how long it will remain so? I wonder if the chimpanzees ever use sticks to try to extract honey from tree cavities as they do elsewhere in Africa? Gishwati is a small forest with many unanswered and intriguing questions!
