Showing posts with label wildlife. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wildlife. Show all posts
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Independence of South Sudan
January 11, 2011 - In our euphoria over the emerging independence of South Sudan, we should not forget that European countries caused Sudan’s grief to begin with; and that southern Sudan has many natural resources besides oil that, if well managed, can help the people recover. The roots of this crisis are in the Ottoman, French, Belgian and British colonial enslavement in the 19th Century, and in misguided international aid efforts that began in the 1960s. Prior to these western interventions, the northern nomads moved their flocks with the seasons in a relationship with their dry environment that had been stable for at least five millennia. They herded sheep and goats and used camels for transport, since their semi-desert environment would not support the cattle and farming economy of the southern tribes, who lived in a moister environment of grassland and shrub forest. The colonial masters forced southern farmers to move north and to settle around water sources that had formerly been the seasonal domain of the nomads. Their livestock overgrazed the land around these oases forcing the nomads into more marginal environments. After independence in 1956, mis-guided aid agencies drilled wells to ease poverty and encourage farming, further disrupting the pastoral patterns and causing large-scale desertification and loss of wildlife habitat. This resulted in repeated famines in various parts of the Sahel since 1968. The famines of 1973–1975 and 1984 were especially severe and burned into our minds the plight of starving people in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Biafra (now returned to Nigeria) and other Sahelian countries. Climate change that began to be felt in the 1980s made it worse. The connection with climate change has been known for more than two decades and was discovered by Canadian wildlife biologists. But Southern Sudan still has its grasslands, shrub forests, swamplands and water sources to support the tribal societies that are still largely intact. After the peace treaty in 2005, wildlife biologists re-discovered massive wildlife migrations rivalling anything anywhere else in the world, including over 753,000 white-eared kobs, over 278,600 Mongalla gazelles and 155,460 tiang antelopes, even a few elephants—together more than 1.2 million big game animals. This is an ecotourism gold mine that, if well managed, would help the people rebuild their lives and societies
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
African Wildlife: The Big 5, Ugly 5 and Little 5
Preface
When Jeff and I were planning our trip to Africa in 2008, we searched hundreds of safari Web sites, and corresponded with perhaps 100 tour operators, some in person here in Vancouver, and began to suspect what I wrote above about tours. All of them advertised the “Big 5”. In Ernest Hemingway's day, when he wrote ”The Snows of Kilimanjaro”, these were the 5 most dangerous game animals to the hunter: lions, cape buffalo, white rhinoceros (black is more dangerous, but were nearly extinct by then), leopard, and elephant.
When non-hunting tourism began to take hold, the tour operators co-opted this phrase, implying that if you saw these 5 wildlife species, you had seen Africa.
Preamble
After some time with our guide, Lucky Garenamotse (www.luckyafricasafaris.com), and cook, Moses, on our private safari (which actually cost less than the all-inclusive tours), we discovered that the guides and other tour staff uniformly deride this “Big 5” notion. Our guide, when he understood that Jeff and I felt likewise, played a game: he began to show us the “Little 5” (one was a mouse) and the “Ugly 5” (for example, the Jaribou Stork).
The Story
After I’d been in Africa about 4 ½ weeks (3 with Hannah) and Jeff 1 ½ weeks, and had seen 24 species just in the family Bovidae (the antelopes and buffalo), 2 species of zebra, 2 of giraffe, 2 of rhinoceros, hundreds of hippopotamus including one that ran through our camp between our tents, plus nearly every other big game animal in southern Africa, not to mention almost all of the medium-sizes and large carnivores (bat-eared fox, 6 species of mongoose, 2 kinds of civets, spotted hyena--had actually looked up from my sleeping bag on the ground into the eyes of a hyena looking down at me--hunting dogs, leopards, and lions), and counted 344 species of bird; and had leapt aside as hyenas actually chased impalas between our tents, we came to the resort down of Kasane on the Zambezi River. This is just above Victoria Falls in Zambia, where tourists fly in on 3- or 5-day tours, see the falls, and then take a day’s detour so they can say they were in Botswana. Jeff and I went into the biggest resort for coffee while Lucky and Moses tinkered with the Land Rover and refilled our fuel and food supplies. On the verandah overlooking the Zambezi River, I put up my ‘scope and found an African Finfoot, a rare grebe-like bird with no relatives on Earth (except for the Asian Finfoot) and that that only occurs in Botswana at this one spot. Jeff and I were thrilled, as we wouldn’t get another chance. As we were turning to re-join Lucky and Moses, we encountered a young woman in safari tour-leader garb, with “Naturalist” on her name patch, who asked us if we had “got lucky” that morning. Not knowing what she meant, Jeff mentioned the Finfoot as being quite a prize. Then it was her turn to look perplexed. She had no idea what a Finfoot was. Finally we understood that she had been enquiring whether we had been lucky enough to see a hippopotamus on the morning’s boat ride!
The Epilogue
For the rest of the trip, when Jeff or I saw a new species, the other would say, “Got lucky there!”
The Sequel
Jeff and I are thinking about a trip to Borneo. Reading the tour operators' and lodge literature, it seems that people only go there to see orang-utans, which Jeff and I have labeled "The Big One." Worth seeing, to be sure, but Jeff and I agreed that we could be happy not seeing captive orang-utans being fed bananahs in rehabilitation centres. We've seen them in zoos, after all. If I (a primatologist, partly) miss them in the wild, but see a reasonable diversity of gibbons, leaf monkeys and perhaps a tarsier or two, and if Jeff adds 200 or 300 birds to his life list, we can live without seeing The Big One.
When Jeff and I were planning our trip to Africa in 2008, we searched hundreds of safari Web sites, and corresponded with perhaps 100 tour operators, some in person here in Vancouver, and began to suspect what I wrote above about tours. All of them advertised the “Big 5”. In Ernest Hemingway's day, when he wrote ”The Snows of Kilimanjaro”, these were the 5 most dangerous game animals to the hunter: lions, cape buffalo, white rhinoceros (black is more dangerous, but were nearly extinct by then), leopard, and elephant.
When non-hunting tourism began to take hold, the tour operators co-opted this phrase, implying that if you saw these 5 wildlife species, you had seen Africa.
Preamble
After some time with our guide, Lucky Garenamotse (www.luckyafricasafaris.com), and cook, Moses, on our private safari (which actually cost less than the all-inclusive tours), we discovered that the guides and other tour staff uniformly deride this “Big 5” notion. Our guide, when he understood that Jeff and I felt likewise, played a game: he began to show us the “Little 5” (one was a mouse) and the “Ugly 5” (for example, the Jaribou Stork).
The Story
After I’d been in Africa about 4 ½ weeks (3 with Hannah) and Jeff 1 ½ weeks, and had seen 24 species just in the family Bovidae (the antelopes and buffalo), 2 species of zebra, 2 of giraffe, 2 of rhinoceros, hundreds of hippopotamus including one that ran through our camp between our tents, plus nearly every other big game animal in southern Africa, not to mention almost all of the medium-sizes and large carnivores (bat-eared fox, 6 species of mongoose, 2 kinds of civets, spotted hyena--had actually looked up from my sleeping bag on the ground into the eyes of a hyena looking down at me--hunting dogs, leopards, and lions), and counted 344 species of bird; and had leapt aside as hyenas actually chased impalas between our tents, we came to the resort down of Kasane on the Zambezi River. This is just above Victoria Falls in Zambia, where tourists fly in on 3- or 5-day tours, see the falls, and then take a day’s detour so they can say they were in Botswana. Jeff and I went into the biggest resort for coffee while Lucky and Moses tinkered with the Land Rover and refilled our fuel and food supplies. On the verandah overlooking the Zambezi River, I put up my ‘scope and found an African Finfoot, a rare grebe-like bird with no relatives on Earth (except for the Asian Finfoot) and that that only occurs in Botswana at this one spot. Jeff and I were thrilled, as we wouldn’t get another chance. As we were turning to re-join Lucky and Moses, we encountered a young woman in safari tour-leader garb, with “Naturalist” on her name patch, who asked us if we had “got lucky” that morning. Not knowing what she meant, Jeff mentioned the Finfoot as being quite a prize. Then it was her turn to look perplexed. She had no idea what a Finfoot was. Finally we understood that she had been enquiring whether we had been lucky enough to see a hippopotamus on the morning’s boat ride!
The Epilogue
For the rest of the trip, when Jeff or I saw a new species, the other would say, “Got lucky there!”
The Sequel
Jeff and I are thinking about a trip to Borneo. Reading the tour operators' and lodge literature, it seems that people only go there to see orang-utans, which Jeff and I have labeled "The Big One." Worth seeing, to be sure, but Jeff and I agreed that we could be happy not seeing captive orang-utans being fed bananahs in rehabilitation centres. We've seen them in zoos, after all. If I (a primatologist, partly) miss them in the wild, but see a reasonable diversity of gibbons, leaf monkeys and perhaps a tarsier or two, and if Jeff adds 200 or 300 birds to his life list, we can live without seeing The Big One.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
The Jordan that Tourists Rarely See 1: Azraq Oasis
Driving east from Amman, the desert at first seemed flat, featureless, and empty. The bushes got smaller and the patches of grass more meagre until they disappeared entirely. I was glad for the air conditioner struggling to keep the 45 °C heat at bay, and the radio. One of my colleagues, a Jordanian ornithologist, called out the names of birds we passed. For such seemingly uniform country, there was an astonishing variety—nine species of wheatear, for example, a songbird that perches upright on the highest rock in its territory. This diversity implied a variety of habitats that was not at first obvious.
At intervals we stopped the car and took short hikes to examine the terrain. The ground was covered with black basalt stones big enough make walking difficult. This is the "Harra", the ancient outflow from an extinct volcano just over the border in Syria. Even so, there were flocks of sheep here and there, gleaning tufts of grass from crevices. A bright blue agama lizard sunned atop a rock. We saw a variety of Mourning Wheater, that, unlike the typical variety that has a white belly and crown, is entirely black except for under its tail, a colouring it evolved the better to hide among the black stones. On a later trip I saw a black variety of spiney mouse that only occurs in the Harra, in constrast to the normal red or tan ones.
Further along, there were no large stones, only reddish to grey, marble-sized flint pebbles that cover the ground. This is the Hammada, the typical surface of the Syrian Desert that covers southern Syria, eastern Jordan, western Iraq and northern Saudi Arabia. Over the eons, any loose soil has long since washed away, leaving a sort of pavement. It forms a vital ecological service by breaking up the raindrops that typically fall in only one or two torrential raisn per year, preventing erosion, while in spring it retards evaporation, giving life to the few shrubs and perennial grasses and other plants that can survive severe dessication by sending their roots deep. Meanwhile, the light soil washed from the Hammada accumulates in depressions and ephemeral runoff channels called "Wadis." There it provides a deep, soft bed for seeds of annual grasses and wildflowers that have lain waiting all year for a rain to burst them into bloom. In one such swale filled with grass, a shepherd grazed her sheep while a laden donkey followed, carrying lunch and water. The frequency of flocks of sheep made me realize another fact of the Jordanian desert: the Bedouin culture is alive and well. Although not easy to see because they spend most time far from towns in search of pasture, living in their traditional goat-hair tents, they remain a prominent part of the cultural and political life of Jordan. From a vendor by the road, I bought a beautifully woven, 4-metre long kilim, a narrow rug that they recline on in their tents.
Then we came to Azraq Oasis, a wetland nature reserve fringed with palm trees. Though now mostly dry, a 30 hectare lake remains, fed with springs is choked with cattails and reeds and raucous with the sound of birds. We passed through a village, South Azraq (formerly Shishan) and went into the Royal Conservation of Nature centre at the edge of Shishan Springs.
The Azraq Oasis has been famous for its wildlife since ancient times. It is fed by springs that formerly (before overpumping drained the aquifers) filled about 1,255 hectares with permanent, fresh water, and in winter by runoff that flooded a mudflat of about 12,000 hectares, and in wet years up to 30,000 hectares. Its ecological stems from two features: (1) it is on the migration routes for birds migrating between Eurasia and Africa, and (2) as a large oasis in a very arid desert, it provides a unique habitat essential to many resident species of birds, fish mammals, amphibians, reptiles, invertebrates and plants. Some 70 species of birds have bred at Azraq and 300 resident and migratory species have been recorded there. In the 1960s and 1970s, up to one million birds were using the oasis annually during spring migration, with up to 50,000 being present at any one time. Besides waterfowl, the waterbirds included up to 2,500 common cranes, thousands of shorebirds use the mudflats, passerines such as swallows, wagtails and warblers use the dense shrubs of the marsh edges, and preying on them were many species of hawks, falcons, harriers and eagles.
Roman use of the Azraq wetlands is still evident in a low wall that they constructed, apparently to facilitate boat launching, and also possibly to contain the wetlands. In prehistoric times Azraq was a wildlife paradise with lions hunting wild boar, Syrian wild ass, Arabian oryx, and aurochs, the progenitors of domestic cattle. Cheetahs chased gazelles in the surrounding desert, and a considerable array of medium-sized carnivores hunted hares, gerbils and jerboas. The lions and wild boar survived into the Byzantine period, the ass and cheetah until the 8th century (Umayyad period) and the oryx until about 1960. Predators that still occur in Jordan’s eastern desert include Syrian jackals, Arabian wolves, red foxes, Ruepelli’s foxes, caracals (a medium-sized cat), sand cats, wild cats, and Syrian striped hyaenas. 300 species of birds have been seen at Azraq, and for most of the last century it was internationally famous for waterfowl hunting. Under the Ramsar Convention ("Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especially as Waterfowl Habitat") Azraq was designated as a "Wetland of International Importance" in 1977. The same year an additional 1,245 ha surrounding the spring-fed marshes were declared Jordan’s first Wetland Reserve. But after it went dry in 1991 and was then partially restored by 1999, an ornithologist estimated 150,000 birds of which 39% were raptors, 30% waterbirds, and 31% songbirds.
We drove up a little ways to North Azraq (formerly Druze) for lunch of the ubiquitous hummus, a salad of cucumber, tomato, and herbs, and a roasted chicken in a shady, roadside restaurant. We took an hour to look around the castle, one of the largest and best preserved of its type in Jordan. It was probably built first by Nabateans, then enlarged or rebuilt by Romans, Byzantines, the Umayyad and Ayyubid Caliphates, and the Ottomans. Parts were crumbling by the time English archaeologist and adventurer Gertrude Bell photographed it in 1913. Later, her protégé, T. E. Lawrence, used it as a military base while fighting with the Arabs against the Ottomans during World War I.
Then we drove back south a few kilometers to the Shaumari Nature Reserve and saw Arabian oryxes, goitered gazelles, blue-necked ostriches, Persian onagers, a striped hyena, a crested porcupine, and other wildlife, all species native to the Jordan desert. The Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature is breeding the oryxes for reintroduction to the wild. Suddenly, the seemingly empty desert was coming alive.
Previously, I posted a note about Pella and one about the Bedouin coffee ritual. From time to time I'll post other notes about special places in Jordan.
At intervals we stopped the car and took short hikes to examine the terrain. The ground was covered with black basalt stones big enough make walking difficult. This is the "Harra", the ancient outflow from an extinct volcano just over the border in Syria. Even so, there were flocks of sheep here and there, gleaning tufts of grass from crevices. A bright blue agama lizard sunned atop a rock. We saw a variety of Mourning Wheater, that, unlike the typical variety that has a white belly and crown, is entirely black except for under its tail, a colouring it evolved the better to hide among the black stones. On a later trip I saw a black variety of spiney mouse that only occurs in the Harra, in constrast to the normal red or tan ones.
Further along, there were no large stones, only reddish to grey, marble-sized flint pebbles that cover the ground. This is the Hammada, the typical surface of the Syrian Desert that covers southern Syria, eastern Jordan, western Iraq and northern Saudi Arabia. Over the eons, any loose soil has long since washed away, leaving a sort of pavement. It forms a vital ecological service by breaking up the raindrops that typically fall in only one or two torrential raisn per year, preventing erosion, while in spring it retards evaporation, giving life to the few shrubs and perennial grasses and other plants that can survive severe dessication by sending their roots deep. Meanwhile, the light soil washed from the Hammada accumulates in depressions and ephemeral runoff channels called "Wadis." There it provides a deep, soft bed for seeds of annual grasses and wildflowers that have lain waiting all year for a rain to burst them into bloom. In one such swale filled with grass, a shepherd grazed her sheep while a laden donkey followed, carrying lunch and water. The frequency of flocks of sheep made me realize another fact of the Jordanian desert: the Bedouin culture is alive and well. Although not easy to see because they spend most time far from towns in search of pasture, living in their traditional goat-hair tents, they remain a prominent part of the cultural and political life of Jordan. From a vendor by the road, I bought a beautifully woven, 4-metre long kilim, a narrow rug that they recline on in their tents.
Then we came to Azraq Oasis, a wetland nature reserve fringed with palm trees. Though now mostly dry, a 30 hectare lake remains, fed with springs is choked with cattails and reeds and raucous with the sound of birds. We passed through a village, South Azraq (formerly Shishan) and went into the Royal Conservation of Nature centre at the edge of Shishan Springs.
The Azraq Oasis has been famous for its wildlife since ancient times. It is fed by springs that formerly (before overpumping drained the aquifers) filled about 1,255 hectares with permanent, fresh water, and in winter by runoff that flooded a mudflat of about 12,000 hectares, and in wet years up to 30,000 hectares. Its ecological stems from two features: (1) it is on the migration routes for birds migrating between Eurasia and Africa, and (2) as a large oasis in a very arid desert, it provides a unique habitat essential to many resident species of birds, fish mammals, amphibians, reptiles, invertebrates and plants. Some 70 species of birds have bred at Azraq and 300 resident and migratory species have been recorded there. In the 1960s and 1970s, up to one million birds were using the oasis annually during spring migration, with up to 50,000 being present at any one time. Besides waterfowl, the waterbirds included up to 2,500 common cranes, thousands of shorebirds use the mudflats, passerines such as swallows, wagtails and warblers use the dense shrubs of the marsh edges, and preying on them were many species of hawks, falcons, harriers and eagles.
Roman use of the Azraq wetlands is still evident in a low wall that they constructed, apparently to facilitate boat launching, and also possibly to contain the wetlands. In prehistoric times Azraq was a wildlife paradise with lions hunting wild boar, Syrian wild ass, Arabian oryx, and aurochs, the progenitors of domestic cattle. Cheetahs chased gazelles in the surrounding desert, and a considerable array of medium-sized carnivores hunted hares, gerbils and jerboas. The lions and wild boar survived into the Byzantine period, the ass and cheetah until the 8th century (Umayyad period) and the oryx until about 1960. Predators that still occur in Jordan’s eastern desert include Syrian jackals, Arabian wolves, red foxes, Ruepelli’s foxes, caracals (a medium-sized cat), sand cats, wild cats, and Syrian striped hyaenas. 300 species of birds have been seen at Azraq, and for most of the last century it was internationally famous for waterfowl hunting. Under the Ramsar Convention ("Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especially as Waterfowl Habitat") Azraq was designated as a "Wetland of International Importance" in 1977. The same year an additional 1,245 ha surrounding the spring-fed marshes were declared Jordan’s first Wetland Reserve. But after it went dry in 1991 and was then partially restored by 1999, an ornithologist estimated 150,000 birds of which 39% were raptors, 30% waterbirds, and 31% songbirds.
We drove up a little ways to North Azraq (formerly Druze) for lunch of the ubiquitous hummus, a salad of cucumber, tomato, and herbs, and a roasted chicken in a shady, roadside restaurant. We took an hour to look around the castle, one of the largest and best preserved of its type in Jordan. It was probably built first by Nabateans, then enlarged or rebuilt by Romans, Byzantines, the Umayyad and Ayyubid Caliphates, and the Ottomans. Parts were crumbling by the time English archaeologist and adventurer Gertrude Bell photographed it in 1913. Later, her protégé, T. E. Lawrence, used it as a military base while fighting with the Arabs against the Ottomans during World War I.
Then we drove back south a few kilometers to the Shaumari Nature Reserve and saw Arabian oryxes, goitered gazelles, blue-necked ostriches, Persian onagers, a striped hyena, a crested porcupine, and other wildlife, all species native to the Jordan desert. The Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature is breeding the oryxes for reintroduction to the wild. Suddenly, the seemingly empty desert was coming alive.
Previously, I posted a note about Pella and one about the Bedouin coffee ritual. From time to time I'll post other notes about special places in Jordan.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Birdwatching at Poyang Lake, China
If China is a waking giant, some parts must still be asleep.
Having a meeting in Qingdao, I decided to add a few more days for bird watching at Poyang Lake, is the largest freshwater lake in China.
Poyang Lake, “the last lake of clear water,” is famous among birders and conservationists. In winter it hosts almost the entire world populations of Siberian cranes and oriental white storks, together with four other species of crane and hundreds of thousands of other waterbirds. It is a National Nature Reserve, a Ramsar site (designated under the under the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance), and an IBA (Important Bird Area) site, and it figures prominently in virtually all of the conservation plans for endangered waterbirds in East Asia. It is only a half day’s drive from Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi Province.
I quickly discovered that, although famous, Poyang Lake not actually easy to get to. Before leaving Canada, I had failed to find on the Internet any accommodations in or near the refuge, in the nearest town, Wu Cheng, or even in Nanchang. There were no ecotours there, and none of the tourist agencies either in Canada or China that I contacted had ever heard of it. Eventually I tracked down the email address of the Director of the reserve, a Mr. Zhang, who promised to help me get to the refuge and “take care of me.” At least, I thought he had, as his emails were not easy to decipher. Moreover, he had not replied to my query as to what I should do upon arrival, since my plane was scheduled to land at 9:30 PM.
I went without hotel reservations anyway, trusting that he would be there. He wasn’t.
The Nanchang flight’s scheduled 9:30 PM arrival was delayed almost two hours. Arriving after 11:00 PM, I found my suitcase missing and no English speakers in the small airport. My few words of Mandarin (a remnant of previous visits to China) and a Chinese-English dictionary helped with tracking the errant bag, which the airline agent finally assured me would arrive by 4:00 PM the next day. Great, I thought, already a day gone from my birdwatching and I’m not even there yet. By now it was midnight and the taxi drivers had all gone home.
The airline agent, seeing me looking uncertainly at the benches, took me by the hand—literally—and walked me two kilometres in a stiff, cold wind (it was December) two kilometres to a small, darkened hotel. He banged on the door. A sleepy, pyjama-clad young woman opened up, turned on some lights, smiled a welcome admittance, and led me to a room.
At dawn I went for a walk and quickly added some birds to my life list, before finding a savoury breakfast waiting for me at the hotel. The same young woman was at the desk. Although she was unable to find a telephone listing for the Nature Reserve, she let me use her computer to send an email to Director Zhang explaining my situation and adding, “If I have not heard from you by 1600 hours, I will hire a taxi and go to the Nature Reserve.”
At the airport, there was no reply from Director Zhang, so I sent another email. Patrons at a nearby restaurant delighted in teasing the foreigner, helped me order a plate of small, bony fish and other exquisitely delicious dishes for lunch, and told me I needed a haircut. Although perplexed, I dutifully went to the barber next door who, while trimming me, mentioned that it was her father who had given me the appearance appraisal.
My missing bag arrived at 2:00 PM, but there was still no reply from Director Zhang. The solicitous airline agent found me a taxi driver who was willing to make the trip to Wu Cheng; however, no one at the airport had ever heard of the Nature Reserve. Someone produced a good map of the county (not, however, showing the Nature Reserve), and we set off for Wu Cheng.
After two hours of rice and corn fields and a few villages where the only industry seemed to be making red mud bricks fired in rudimentary kilns, the road ended in a swampy marsh. The driver spent a long time on his mobile phone, then drove us back to the Nanchang Airport and got new directions. We drove north on a small but paved road parallel to a highway (to avoid the toll), bought supper (rice, fruit, and a different kind of fish) at a roadside stand, passed through a small city, Yong Xiu, and came to a promontory overlooking Poyang Lake.
Now it became obvious why no one knew the way to Wu Cheng. There was no road. The lake rises and falls about 7 meters with the season. At high water, Poyang Lake covers more than 5,000 km2 and Wu Cheng is on an island. As the water level falls, the giant lake shrinks to around 50 km2 and separates into many smaller lakes among which rivers wander, and grass grows on the former lake bed. The lake bed can’t be farmed, and this is why it draws nearly a million water birds from all over northern China and Siberia. Now, at the end of the dry season, we saw a vast sea of grass. Ah, but the cab driver asked local workmen and discovered that a new road was under construction, sort of a causeway across the grassy prairie.
We found it and bounced for an hour in deep ruts, dodging earth movers and graders. As the sun set, Poyang Lake closed in on both sides of the causeway. In it were standing thousands of Eurasian cranes, storks, swans, ducks, geese, and shorebirds. Every species was new on my life list. I began to perk up. An island appeared on the horizon at the end of the causeway.
Finally we reached Wu Cheng. Its only street was unlit and nearly deserted. Electricity had not yet reached this island, but that did not explain why many of the shops were shuttered. I got out and the driver, anxious to get back across the causeway before dark, quickly left.
A cold wind was blowing. I could not see a hotel or restaurant and most shops were closed. A pair of women giggled as I attempted to say “Hello” in Mandarin. My English-Chinese dictionary did not have a translation for “nature reserve,” but they understood “Where is the National Park for birds?” and pointed up the street. Shouldering my bag, I walked.
Past the town, I came to a two-story building behind an elaborate gate with a sign in English and Chinese: “Jiangxi Poyang Lake National Nature Reserve.”
A middle-aged man and young woman were just locking up for the night. The building turned out to be a guesthouse with no guests. I had not been expected, but the man got on his mobile phone to try to contact Director Zhang, whom he knew. Meanwhile, the woman showed me to a room and then walked me back into town to a tiny restaurant and ordered supper and beer. She sat down to eat only when I insisted that she join me. It was the best beer I’ve ever had.
Back at the guest house, the man said that he had telephoned the Reserve Director, who was in his office in Nanchang—there was no Nature Reserve office at Poyang Lake. The Reserve Director apologised for not meeting me at the airport—he had been unavoidably detained. He could not come, but Mr. Wang, an ecologist, would meet me tomorrow. All of this was accomplished with the aid of the English-Chinese dictionary. Things were looking up.
At dawn, I walked up to a huge, four-story, open pavilion with classic, sweeping roof lines, on the highest point of land on the island, evidently a watchtower and navigational aid. Overlooking the confluence of two rivers where a steady procession of tugs towed barges, it gave a view of vast wetlands and lakes stretching to the horizon in all directions. The combined river flows north only a little ways to the mighty Yangtze, but in the wet season, the direction reverses and overflow from the Yangtze floods into Poyang Lake. Villagers pushed handcarts piled high with produce along a short causeway to a jetty where a sampans were tied. Since ancient times until just recently, Wu Cheng was an important town that controlled shipping, the only transportation. Then about 20 years ago, the government built a highway and railroad around Poyang Lake. The town’s population plunged from about 40,000 to 2,000, explaining the deserted nature of the town.
Not for long: in 2008 the Governments of China and several provinces agreed to begin a massive Poyang Lake Project that will dampen the flood-drought cycles. Its central feature will be a dam with shipping locks and a fish passage system within sight of the Wu Chen watchtower, as well as irrigation and flood control works throughout the basin. It will limit the lake’s size to 3000 km2 and open up much of the prairie for farming. How it will affect the waterbirds and other wildlife, such as the rare Yangtze Finless River Porpoise, has not been assessed. While I was there, a scientific expedition searched in vain for another dolphin species, the Yangtze River Dolphin or baiji, throughout the Yangtze system and declared it “functionally extinct.”
In the guest house dining room, I enjoyed a huge breakfast while rare Oriental White Storks flew past the picture window. The guest house man drove me back to the causeway to wait for Mr. Wang. Eurasian and White-naped Cranes flew overhead while wading birds, shorebirds, and waterfowl dotted the lake in huge numbers.
A van drove up and disgorged half a dozen birdwatchers with spotting scopes and binoculars. One was a very petite young woman with a spotting scope and tripod almost bigger that she was.
“This is Mr. Wang,” said the guest house man, clearly losing something in the translation.
Miss Wang, Ecologist, spoke excellent English and knew every bird species. Over the next four days, she took me long hikes across the grassy prairie to an assortment of lakes, each with new bird species. We saw Siberian, Hooded, White-necked, Red-crowned and Eurasian Cranes. We passed farmers herding their water buffalo. Miss Wang arranged for a boat and boatman, who took us up and down the rivers to more distant lakes and marshes. We passed fishing families who live in houseboats on the river and row their children to Wu Chen every morning for school. We watched them using cormorants for fishing. We saw rare mammals, including the finless river dolphin and the Chinese water deer. In the town, we chatted with mothers and their toddlers and farmers bringing chickens and dripping bags of fresh tofu to the market. After an inauspicious start, it was a wonderful trip in a naturalist’s paradise.
Having a meeting in Qingdao, I decided to add a few more days for bird watching at Poyang Lake, is the largest freshwater lake in China.
Poyang Lake, “the last lake of clear water,” is famous among birders and conservationists. In winter it hosts almost the entire world populations of Siberian cranes and oriental white storks, together with four other species of crane and hundreds of thousands of other waterbirds. It is a National Nature Reserve, a Ramsar site (designated under the under the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance), and an IBA (Important Bird Area) site, and it figures prominently in virtually all of the conservation plans for endangered waterbirds in East Asia. It is only a half day’s drive from Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi Province.
I quickly discovered that, although famous, Poyang Lake not actually easy to get to. Before leaving Canada, I had failed to find on the Internet any accommodations in or near the refuge, in the nearest town, Wu Cheng, or even in Nanchang. There were no ecotours there, and none of the tourist agencies either in Canada or China that I contacted had ever heard of it. Eventually I tracked down the email address of the Director of the reserve, a Mr. Zhang, who promised to help me get to the refuge and “take care of me.” At least, I thought he had, as his emails were not easy to decipher. Moreover, he had not replied to my query as to what I should do upon arrival, since my plane was scheduled to land at 9:30 PM.
I went without hotel reservations anyway, trusting that he would be there. He wasn’t.
The Nanchang flight’s scheduled 9:30 PM arrival was delayed almost two hours. Arriving after 11:00 PM, I found my suitcase missing and no English speakers in the small airport. My few words of Mandarin (a remnant of previous visits to China) and a Chinese-English dictionary helped with tracking the errant bag, which the airline agent finally assured me would arrive by 4:00 PM the next day. Great, I thought, already a day gone from my birdwatching and I’m not even there yet. By now it was midnight and the taxi drivers had all gone home.
The airline agent, seeing me looking uncertainly at the benches, took me by the hand—literally—and walked me two kilometres in a stiff, cold wind (it was December) two kilometres to a small, darkened hotel. He banged on the door. A sleepy, pyjama-clad young woman opened up, turned on some lights, smiled a welcome admittance, and led me to a room.
At dawn I went for a walk and quickly added some birds to my life list, before finding a savoury breakfast waiting for me at the hotel. The same young woman was at the desk. Although she was unable to find a telephone listing for the Nature Reserve, she let me use her computer to send an email to Director Zhang explaining my situation and adding, “If I have not heard from you by 1600 hours, I will hire a taxi and go to the Nature Reserve.”
At the airport, there was no reply from Director Zhang, so I sent another email. Patrons at a nearby restaurant delighted in teasing the foreigner, helped me order a plate of small, bony fish and other exquisitely delicious dishes for lunch, and told me I needed a haircut. Although perplexed, I dutifully went to the barber next door who, while trimming me, mentioned that it was her father who had given me the appearance appraisal.
My missing bag arrived at 2:00 PM, but there was still no reply from Director Zhang. The solicitous airline agent found me a taxi driver who was willing to make the trip to Wu Cheng; however, no one at the airport had ever heard of the Nature Reserve. Someone produced a good map of the county (not, however, showing the Nature Reserve), and we set off for Wu Cheng.
After two hours of rice and corn fields and a few villages where the only industry seemed to be making red mud bricks fired in rudimentary kilns, the road ended in a swampy marsh. The driver spent a long time on his mobile phone, then drove us back to the Nanchang Airport and got new directions. We drove north on a small but paved road parallel to a highway (to avoid the toll), bought supper (rice, fruit, and a different kind of fish) at a roadside stand, passed through a small city, Yong Xiu, and came to a promontory overlooking Poyang Lake.
Now it became obvious why no one knew the way to Wu Cheng. There was no road. The lake rises and falls about 7 meters with the season. At high water, Poyang Lake covers more than 5,000 km2 and Wu Cheng is on an island. As the water level falls, the giant lake shrinks to around 50 km2 and separates into many smaller lakes among which rivers wander, and grass grows on the former lake bed. The lake bed can’t be farmed, and this is why it draws nearly a million water birds from all over northern China and Siberia. Now, at the end of the dry season, we saw a vast sea of grass. Ah, but the cab driver asked local workmen and discovered that a new road was under construction, sort of a causeway across the grassy prairie.
We found it and bounced for an hour in deep ruts, dodging earth movers and graders. As the sun set, Poyang Lake closed in on both sides of the causeway. In it were standing thousands of Eurasian cranes, storks, swans, ducks, geese, and shorebirds. Every species was new on my life list. I began to perk up. An island appeared on the horizon at the end of the causeway.
Finally we reached Wu Cheng. Its only street was unlit and nearly deserted. Electricity had not yet reached this island, but that did not explain why many of the shops were shuttered. I got out and the driver, anxious to get back across the causeway before dark, quickly left.
A cold wind was blowing. I could not see a hotel or restaurant and most shops were closed. A pair of women giggled as I attempted to say “Hello” in Mandarin. My English-Chinese dictionary did not have a translation for “nature reserve,” but they understood “Where is the National Park for birds?” and pointed up the street. Shouldering my bag, I walked.
Past the town, I came to a two-story building behind an elaborate gate with a sign in English and Chinese: “Jiangxi Poyang Lake National Nature Reserve.”
A middle-aged man and young woman were just locking up for the night. The building turned out to be a guesthouse with no guests. I had not been expected, but the man got on his mobile phone to try to contact Director Zhang, whom he knew. Meanwhile, the woman showed me to a room and then walked me back into town to a tiny restaurant and ordered supper and beer. She sat down to eat only when I insisted that she join me. It was the best beer I’ve ever had.
Back at the guest house, the man said that he had telephoned the Reserve Director, who was in his office in Nanchang—there was no Nature Reserve office at Poyang Lake. The Reserve Director apologised for not meeting me at the airport—he had been unavoidably detained. He could not come, but Mr. Wang, an ecologist, would meet me tomorrow. All of this was accomplished with the aid of the English-Chinese dictionary. Things were looking up.
At dawn, I walked up to a huge, four-story, open pavilion with classic, sweeping roof lines, on the highest point of land on the island, evidently a watchtower and navigational aid. Overlooking the confluence of two rivers where a steady procession of tugs towed barges, it gave a view of vast wetlands and lakes stretching to the horizon in all directions. The combined river flows north only a little ways to the mighty Yangtze, but in the wet season, the direction reverses and overflow from the Yangtze floods into Poyang Lake. Villagers pushed handcarts piled high with produce along a short causeway to a jetty where a sampans were tied. Since ancient times until just recently, Wu Cheng was an important town that controlled shipping, the only transportation. Then about 20 years ago, the government built a highway and railroad around Poyang Lake. The town’s population plunged from about 40,000 to 2,000, explaining the deserted nature of the town.
Not for long: in 2008 the Governments of China and several provinces agreed to begin a massive Poyang Lake Project that will dampen the flood-drought cycles. Its central feature will be a dam with shipping locks and a fish passage system within sight of the Wu Chen watchtower, as well as irrigation and flood control works throughout the basin. It will limit the lake’s size to 3000 km2 and open up much of the prairie for farming. How it will affect the waterbirds and other wildlife, such as the rare Yangtze Finless River Porpoise, has not been assessed. While I was there, a scientific expedition searched in vain for another dolphin species, the Yangtze River Dolphin or baiji, throughout the Yangtze system and declared it “functionally extinct.”
In the guest house dining room, I enjoyed a huge breakfast while rare Oriental White Storks flew past the picture window. The guest house man drove me back to the causeway to wait for Mr. Wang. Eurasian and White-naped Cranes flew overhead while wading birds, shorebirds, and waterfowl dotted the lake in huge numbers.
A van drove up and disgorged half a dozen birdwatchers with spotting scopes and binoculars. One was a very petite young woman with a spotting scope and tripod almost bigger that she was.
“This is Mr. Wang,” said the guest house man, clearly losing something in the translation.
Miss Wang, Ecologist, spoke excellent English and knew every bird species. Over the next four days, she took me long hikes across the grassy prairie to an assortment of lakes, each with new bird species. We saw Siberian, Hooded, White-necked, Red-crowned and Eurasian Cranes. We passed farmers herding their water buffalo. Miss Wang arranged for a boat and boatman, who took us up and down the rivers to more distant lakes and marshes. We passed fishing families who live in houseboats on the river and row their children to Wu Chen every morning for school. We watched them using cormorants for fishing. We saw rare mammals, including the finless river dolphin and the Chinese water deer. In the town, we chatted with mothers and their toddlers and farmers bringing chickens and dripping bags of fresh tofu to the market. After an inauspicious start, it was a wonderful trip in a naturalist’s paradise.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Wildlife Watching in Vietnam
Stepping out from my room in the guest house at the main ranger station in Cuc Phuong National Park, I paused in the darkness on the tiled veranda. This was my first morning ever in Southeast Asia and I wanted to savour it. A sharp, peaked hill loomed against the stars behind the guest house, brightened on the east side by the looming dawn. In front of the guest house, the terrain dropped away from the hills toward the lowlands. The tropical forest was coming alive with calls of birds that I didn’t know yet, but would soon see: babblers, laughingthrushes, and many others. In a few moments I would meet my guide for a few hours of birdwatching before breakfast. Suddenly there occurred one of the most profound moments of my life. Loud calls, whoops, and yells erupted from the black forest below the station, and were immediately answered by similar cries from the hills above. The calls from below were from several species of gibbons, long-armed swinging apes, and langurs, a type of monkey, that were housed in the Endangered Primate Rescue Center adjacent to the ranger station. The calls from the surrounding hills were from wild gibbons. Like us, gibbons are monagamous and probably mate for life (although this isn't known for certain for all species) and in the morning each pair sings a duet with complementary male and female parts. This is one of the few places in the world where these species can be seen in the wild. All are on the brink of extinction. The ones I heard behind the guest house were white-cheeked gibbons Nomascus leucogenys. Besides the gibbons, 2 species of loris: Nycticebus pygmaeus and N. bengalensis; and 3 species of macaque: (Macaca mulatta, M. assamensis and M. arctoides) live there.
Vietnam has a great variety of monkeys—24 species—and many are rare. Five are endemic to Vietnam (they occur nowhere else) and are among the most endangered primates on Earth. I arranged my trip through the tourism department of Cuc Phuong National Park (www.cucphuongtourism.com). Established in 1960, it is the oldest and largest nature reserve in Vietnam and located only 120 km from Hanoi, the capital. It is also home to the Endangered Primate Rescue Center (www.primatecenter.org) that houses primates confiscated from poachers, conducts research into their biology and life history, and breeds them for release into the wild.
The guide met me with a car and driver at the airport and took me straightaway to Van Long Nature Reserve, stopping for lunch at Ninh Binh, a village on the edge of the vast, fertile, and populous plain of the Red River (Sông Hðng). Soon we stood on a dike overlooking a long, narrow marsh that disappeared in the distance between high, limestone cliffs. A tiny woman ushered us into an equally tiny boat, its gunnels barely inches above the water, and began to row across the marsh. In a moment we turned up a winding creek between limestone cliffs. The sharp-eyed guide pointed to a group of Delacour’s langurs scampering along a cliff, their white rumps, thighs, and cheek whiskers contrasting with otherwise black bodies. On our return at sunset, a brisk headwind slowed our progress and I could see that the boatwoman was struggling. I asked if I might be allowed to row. Surprised, she looked at the guide and said something questioningly that included the word, “American.” The guide shook his head no, and said something that included “Canadian.” She handed me the oars and, carefully so as not to upset the craft, we changed places and I began rowing strongly. She grinned at the guide and they exchanged a few more words. Later he translated them as roughly, “Oh, well, if he is Canadian, of course he can row.”
I saw an amazing variety of birds, most unrelated to anything I had seen before and boasting astonishing colourful plumage: green magpies, blue-winged leafbirds, flamebacks, green-billed malkohas, three kinds of pittas, canary-flycatchers, sultan tits, and many kinds of babblers, fulvettas, yuhinias, flowerpeckers, sunbirds, and many others. The park list is 307 birds long; in three days I added 75 to my life list. After birding and wildlife-watching there and around the main ranger station, the guide drove me to Bong Station, deep in the interior of Cuc Phuong National Park for another couple of nights. That evening, while walking down a dark road from my one-room chalet to the dining hall, I saw a light glinting beside the road, and then another. Could it be a wild cat? a civet? a weasel? But then more lights appeared, not in pairs, and they began randomly moving around, up in the air and everywhere—they were fireflies! Actually, beetles. It was like walking among the dancing stars of Heaven.
I thought I had hired a bird guide, but in the morning, when we paused atop a trail summit, I asked him about mammals. Immediately, he began reeling off a list of mammals known to inhabit Cuc Phuong National Park: serows, a goat-like ungulate, sun bears (Helarctos malayanus), Asian black bears (Ursus thibetanus), two species of deer, red muntjak (Muntiacus muntjac), leaf deer (Tragulus javanicus), wild pigs (Sus scrofa), dhole (Cuon alpinus), racoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides), tiger (Panthera tigris), leopard (Panthera pardus), clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa), Asian golden cat (Catopuma temminckii), leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis), fishing cat (Prionalurus viverrinus ), Owston’s civet (Chrotogale owstoni) and variety of smaller predators including other civets, genets, palm civets, mongooses, and the binturong (Arctictis binturong). In all, 89 species of mammals inhabit the park and more are still being discovered (see http://www.vqgcucphuong.com.vn/English/ for more information). While we talked, a black giant squirrel (Ratufa bicolor), jet black with white cheeks and an orange underside, leapt among the branches nearby.
Unfortunately, many of the species we saw are endangered, some critically so. The whole world population of Delacour’s langurs, for example, may not number more than 200 individuals. Poaching is rife and a new biodiversity protection law offers scant protection. Primates, especially, are highly valuable as meat, alleged health products, and pets; although many are consumed locally, there is a vigorous trade north into China. See http://www.traffic.org/ for more information on illegal traffic in wildlife in Vietnam.
References:
A Guide to the Mammals of Southeast Asia, 2008. Charles M. Francis.
Birds of Southeast Asia, 2005. Craig Robson.
Mittermeier, Russell A., Jonah Ratsimbazafy, et al. (2007). "Primates in peril: the world’s 25 most endangered primates, 2006 – 2008." Primate Conservation 22: 1–40.
Nadler, Tilo, Vu Ngoc Thanh, et al. (2007). "Conservation status of Vietnamese primates." Vietnamese Journal of Primatology 1(1): 7-26.
Vietnam has a great variety of monkeys—24 species—and many are rare. Five are endemic to Vietnam (they occur nowhere else) and are among the most endangered primates on Earth. I arranged my trip through the tourism department of Cuc Phuong National Park (www.cucphuongtourism.com). Established in 1960, it is the oldest and largest nature reserve in Vietnam and located only 120 km from Hanoi, the capital. It is also home to the Endangered Primate Rescue Center (www.primatecenter.org) that houses primates confiscated from poachers, conducts research into their biology and life history, and breeds them for release into the wild.
The guide met me with a car and driver at the airport and took me straightaway to Van Long Nature Reserve, stopping for lunch at Ninh Binh, a village on the edge of the vast, fertile, and populous plain of the Red River (Sông Hðng). Soon we stood on a dike overlooking a long, narrow marsh that disappeared in the distance between high, limestone cliffs. A tiny woman ushered us into an equally tiny boat, its gunnels barely inches above the water, and began to row across the marsh. In a moment we turned up a winding creek between limestone cliffs. The sharp-eyed guide pointed to a group of Delacour’s langurs scampering along a cliff, their white rumps, thighs, and cheek whiskers contrasting with otherwise black bodies. On our return at sunset, a brisk headwind slowed our progress and I could see that the boatwoman was struggling. I asked if I might be allowed to row. Surprised, she looked at the guide and said something questioningly that included the word, “American.” The guide shook his head no, and said something that included “Canadian.” She handed me the oars and, carefully so as not to upset the craft, we changed places and I began rowing strongly. She grinned at the guide and they exchanged a few more words. Later he translated them as roughly, “Oh, well, if he is Canadian, of course he can row.”
I saw an amazing variety of birds, most unrelated to anything I had seen before and boasting astonishing colourful plumage: green magpies, blue-winged leafbirds, flamebacks, green-billed malkohas, three kinds of pittas, canary-flycatchers, sultan tits, and many kinds of babblers, fulvettas, yuhinias, flowerpeckers, sunbirds, and many others. The park list is 307 birds long; in three days I added 75 to my life list. After birding and wildlife-watching there and around the main ranger station, the guide drove me to Bong Station, deep in the interior of Cuc Phuong National Park for another couple of nights. That evening, while walking down a dark road from my one-room chalet to the dining hall, I saw a light glinting beside the road, and then another. Could it be a wild cat? a civet? a weasel? But then more lights appeared, not in pairs, and they began randomly moving around, up in the air and everywhere—they were fireflies! Actually, beetles. It was like walking among the dancing stars of Heaven.
I thought I had hired a bird guide, but in the morning, when we paused atop a trail summit, I asked him about mammals. Immediately, he began reeling off a list of mammals known to inhabit Cuc Phuong National Park: serows, a goat-like ungulate, sun bears (Helarctos malayanus), Asian black bears (Ursus thibetanus), two species of deer, red muntjak (Muntiacus muntjac), leaf deer (Tragulus javanicus), wild pigs (Sus scrofa), dhole (Cuon alpinus), racoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides), tiger (Panthera tigris), leopard (Panthera pardus), clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa), Asian golden cat (Catopuma temminckii), leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis), fishing cat (Prionalurus viverrinus ), Owston’s civet (Chrotogale owstoni) and variety of smaller predators including other civets, genets, palm civets, mongooses, and the binturong (Arctictis binturong). In all, 89 species of mammals inhabit the park and more are still being discovered (see http://www.vqgcucphuong.com.vn/English/ for more information). While we talked, a black giant squirrel (Ratufa bicolor), jet black with white cheeks and an orange underside, leapt among the branches nearby.
Unfortunately, many of the species we saw are endangered, some critically so. The whole world population of Delacour’s langurs, for example, may not number more than 200 individuals. Poaching is rife and a new biodiversity protection law offers scant protection. Primates, especially, are highly valuable as meat, alleged health products, and pets; although many are consumed locally, there is a vigorous trade north into China. See http://www.traffic.org/ for more information on illegal traffic in wildlife in Vietnam.
References:
A Guide to the Mammals of Southeast Asia, 2008. Charles M. Francis.
Birds of Southeast Asia, 2005. Craig Robson.
Mittermeier, Russell A., Jonah Ratsimbazafy, et al. (2007). "Primates in peril: the world’s 25 most endangered primates, 2006 – 2008." Primate Conservation 22: 1–40.
Nadler, Tilo, Vu Ngoc Thanh, et al. (2007). "Conservation status of Vietnamese primates." Vietnamese Journal of Primatology 1(1): 7-26.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
