Searching for Bonobo in Congo

Notes, photos and videos by Daniel Alempijevic

The far south of Lomami National Park is nutrient-poor, seasonally flooded grasslands dotted with tree islands, or bosquets. Gallery forests project into these prairies, creating a fluted but, abrupt end to the rainforest blanket covering most of the park and most of the Congo Basin.

The Luzaka prairie and surrounding forests are TL2 “hotspots” where patrols frequently encounter bonobos. David Fasbender spent a year in Luzaka studying the bonobo-rich forest with terrestrial camera traps. 

But what about the arboreal mammal community?  Which species occur in the forest fingers, or galleries? How many of these mammals leave the trees to cross prairies and colonize bosquets?

I am a PhD Candidate from Florida Atlantic University.  This was my third trip to the Lomami National Park.  Earlier I used multi-strata camera trap “columns” to study Inoko in the courbure sector. These columns increased our knowledge of mammal diversity in Lomami National Park (LNP), and revealed the preferred heights of different species in the canopy. Since these surveys, one Inoko was killed by a hunter in the Luanga gallery, on the east side of the Luzaka prairie.

Joined by a fellow FAU student, Charlene, and a TL2 team, I set 30 columns, 2 km apart, covering forest interior, forest edge, and bosquets to determine the occurrence not only of inoko but all mammal species in the southern LNP ecotone. 

There were some surprises working in Luzaka.  At some camps, it was the bee swarms. Honeybees craving salt would swarm us at camp, covering our skin, entering our clothes. They are not aggressive but, it is easy to pin the bees under your clothes, resulting in a sting. There were times when it was unbearable, and we would have to take refuge in our tents. Once, with bees in my ears and mouth, I had to submerge myself in a nearby stream.  I have been stung almost daily in Luzaka.  

At another camp, it was the termites. Charlene was their first victim, waking in the middle of the night with the sensation of insects crawling on her. They had chewed through her tent from below. We thought it was an unfortunate coincidence, and patched up the holes with some duct tape. A few nights later, I woke flat on the ground. The termites chewed through my tarp, then my tent, and finally my inflatable sleeping pad, and I was only three weeks into a 6-month trip. Over the next few visits to this camp, wherever I set up my tent, the termites would emerge. Over the next few months, other insects chewed through the rainfly and mesh from above. Brand new camping gear, all bug food.

Next, the rains began. Much of our 172 km² survey area quickly became inundated with water. Already difficult hikes over tussocky grasses and sedges, now included wading and the occasional swim. My “storm proof” tent, now covered in holes, offered little shelter from the storms. Flood surges destroyed two camera traps.

While at our farthest camp from the Lukunda field base, Martin, one of my assistants, woke me in the night whimpering from abdominal pain. Together with an ecoguard, they left camp on foot towards Lukunda, from where a TL2 motorbike took Martin to Kindu. The following night, I woke with fever. The next day, three more sick. We pushed for a few more days, setting a few more camera traps, this time targeting Inoko where the hunter reported killing one in the buffer zone years before. Finally, we could go no further, abandoned our goal of setting the three last sites, and started our two-day hike back to Lukunda. There we found that both the TL2 base leader and the ICCN head of the guard post had returned to Kindu ill. Some tested positive for malaria, none tested positive for COVID, we are now calling our collective illness “Lukundiasis”.

Through this work, we have accumulated some incredible videos. Not only did we record bonobos on the ground, but also in the canopy for the first time. The forest galleries are also home to a diverse ungulate community, and four monkeys.

The elusive Inoko, blue monkey, and black mangabey, are all present nearby in the Courbure sector, but  rare or absent in southern galleries. 

The most exciting finds for me have been black-bellied pangolins. Canopy camera traps provide the only confirmation that this exclusively arboreal species occurs in Lomami National Park. We recorded all three rainforest pangolin species during this survey. 

We have found that two monkeys and several other arboreal species are frequent visitors or residents of the bosquets. Three of them have been recorded crossing the prairies. We also recorded two of the prairies predators.

And perhaps the most incredible part of this work, is the breath-taking view and indescribable feeling of emerging through the rainforest canopy to see what creatures have passed over the same branch as me.

I want to thank the Primatology Lab at Florida Atlantic University and the FZS-TL2 project in DR Congo. Our particular thanks to ICCN for welcoming and facilitating this project. The critical funding that made it possible came from Margot Marsh Biodiversity Fund, Primate Conservation Inc. (PCI) and Primate Action Fund (PAF).

In Lomami National Park we help hunters:

We build metal-roofed shelters for them to sleep under when they cross the park;
We clear the paths through the park they use to carry bushmeat to market;
We give them vouchers so they will not be arrested by surveillance patrols.

WHY?

Because:  all the cultures around the southern park have economies based on hunting, and
Because:  hunting is the biggest threat to the park. 

THEREFORE, the only people who can reduce the threat are Hunters themselves.  
By recognizing legal hunting, we win greater support against illegal hunting.

What is legal hunting? 
All hunting outside the park is legal;
except – it is illegal to hunt totally protected species (elephant, bonobo, pangolin…..),
except – it is also illegal to hunt during the closed season.

The hunters on the west side of the park are mostly legal.  They have a huge uninhabited forest to hunt (3000 km2 with only a small population concentrated along a couple foot paths).  The Lomami River separates them from the park, BUT to sell their bushmeat at the closest bushmeat market– Kindu – the fastest, least expensive route is to backload the bushmeat across the park.  

The hunters on the east side of the park are closer to the market.  They are also much more numerous, living in more frequent villages, clustered along roads and paths that motorbikes can travel.  The local eastern hunters are also joined by more outside hunters, coming from different provinces and ethnic groups.

Not surprisingly, it is in the east where there is the greatest threat from hunters clandestinely crossing into the park to hunt.

Surveillance patrols arrest these poachers in the park and burn their bushmeat. 

But what about people walking their bushmeat from the west side to the east side?  How to tell them apart?  How do we make sure they don’t stop to hunt along the way?

This above map of early surveillance in the courbure sector of the Lomami Park showed the problem.  Who was legal and who was illegal?  Were they just carrying bushmeat caught outside the park from Kakongo to Bafundo on the footpath or did they come from a hunting camp hidden in the park?

We did not want to alienate the whole western section of the buffer zone as their meat crossed the park, but how could we be sure that they had not actually been hunting in the park?

In 2015 we started an experiment to “certify” bushmeat by giving bushmeat transporters a voucher, or “jeton” that listed all the animals they carried when they left the west to cross the park.  They had only two days to cross from one of the western villages, Polepole, Benekamba or Kakongo, to the nearest village east of the park, Bafundo or Oluo, where the “jeton” would again be checked against the load.  Depending on the path it was a walk of 45 to 55 km. 

The voucher stations were to be manned by one person from the TL2 project, one ICCN person and one villager assigned by the chief. 

We expected a grudging acceptance by the western populations. 

BUT INSTEAD, JETONS got enthusiastic approval.  We had given them back a lifeline that could have been cut off.  And we had made them partners in the protection of the park.

The low point was in October 2019 when the Mai-Mai, Fidel, attacked two of our jetonniers (voucher distributors).   In Benekamba, Debaba was pummeled to near-death; in Kakongo Idris was shot but survived.  The military beside him was shot dead.

We nearly dropped the process – potential non-local “jetonniers” were afraid.   No one wanted to move into the lawless villages.   But then Locals, themselves, stepped up, we were amazed at the risks they took to keep “jetons” going.

Alain Basila, local jetonnier at Benekamba said “hunting is the only way my brothers can get money, there is no other way for medicine, clothes, school….with jetons they can take it to market”

In Polepole – Cedric, the local jetonnier, went into hiding in the forest.  He only came out when the Mai-Mai were absent and a meat transporter called him.  He checked the load, wrote up the jeton, and went back into hiding.  Cedric’s family, afraid for their son, gave Fidel a goat, but that was not enough.  Eventually they had to put a “Fidel-fee” on every load of meat that went across.  About 8 dollars.  People paid until finally Fidel was arrested, captured by the villagers themselves.   Then the surcharge was dropped.

In Kakongo –Marcel, the son of the local chief Liboke, was the local jetonnier beginning in June 2019.  He continued after Idris, was shot in the early morning by Fidel’s Mai-Mai band.  Bernard’s band sent a contingent of Mai-mai to steal from Liboke, just because he and his son Marcel collaborated with the Park.  They stole three goats, chickens, ducks and two bags of rice.  Marcel, too, temporarily went into hiding, but came back and continued providing his brothers with jetons.

The story of Benekamba was particularly heart-wrenching.

Even after Fidel was captured there was continued tension.   The person who replaced Debaba also fled when more threats came in, but the local assistant, Alain Basila, took over.  Alain is handicapped.  A few years ago, while clearing forest for his garden, a tree fell on his lower back.  He has no use of his legs.  He sits in his one-room house where bushmeat transporters seek him out to show their meat and get jetons before crossing the park.

In May 2020, Thoms, the father of Fidel, sent a group of 35 young men to teach Alain a lesson for collaborating with the park.   Thoms’s way of exacting revenge for the capture of his son.  They beat Alain around the head and shoulders and hung him up in the baraza to beat him more.  But Konya, an elderly villager threw himself on the ground in front of the young attackers pleading for mercy.   Perhaps somewhat ashamed – they took a radio and the equivalent of about 70 dollars and they left.

Alain recovered and continued doing jetons…. There was no one else with the courage to replace him.

But there is another benefit from the jeton process: All the collected jeton information gives us a better understanding of the people around the park and the animals that they depend on. We want to manage this park based on real knowledge.

For instance:
The forests west of the park have not been depleted by overhunting. HOW DO WE KNOW? A large proportion of the bushmeat brought across is from large mammals. Less than 5% was small animals (such as porcupine) which are the most abundant game from overhunted forests and there was a large proportion of forest pigs and large antelope – about 10% of all animals – rare in depleted forests.
Hunting is no longer the only important source of income in the west. HOW DO WE KNOW? In 2020 there were 927 domestic species (goats, chickens and ducks) brought across the park to sell and 319 groups of porters walked through with loads of fish from the rivers and streams of the western buffer zone.
But there are still a lot of forest animals coming over as bushmeat: in 2020 6,400 animals were killed and carried across the park, most to sell in the bushmeat market of Kindu.