(RM) Second bonobos

My second bonobo encounter

7 March

Bonobo encounters have been fairly hit-or-miss over the past couple of weeks. When I first arrived here, it seemed that our bonobo group was nested almost every day; that frequency has been waning.

Ideally, the bonobos are followed to their nesting site in the evening, and they are greeted there again in the morning. They are then followed for as long as possible during the day, although they often evade the researchers in the field. If the group has evaded the researchers, or if their whereabouts was entirely unknown for the day, researchers spend the afternoon looking (listening) for them. In this way, the group is often found again in time to nest them in the evening.

On Friday evening, the researchers who had gone into the field succeeded in locating the bonobos settling into nest trees for the night. In fact, they located two separate nest groups - about 500m apart. This had been the first successful nesting in almost a week. So, that night, when we planned the next morning, it was determined that two groups of researchers would head out to the field in order to have observers at each of the two nest sites. I joined one of the two groups.

Bonobos nest at around dusk, and they begin to stir at first light. For whoever nests the bonobos, this means that they start hiking back to camp as of around 6pm, while whoever greets the bonobos in the morning needs to be within close earshot of the nest by around 5:30am. The cue is when it is possible to navigate the forest without the headlamp – that’s when it’s time to move close enough to the nest tree to begin visual observations.

Lately, the bonobos have been nesting between 7 and 9 kilometres from camp. This makes a long commute in the dark to get to the nest sites by first light. For nest sites that are far from established trails, the last few hundred metres can add a considerable amount of time to the commute. (At least the trails leading to the recent nest sites are on dry ground; many of the trails here are submerged in water or mud. The following days’ nests were in such swampy areas.)

Saturday morning, the closest of the two nest groups was about 50m off of the trail, after about 7.5km of trail hiking from camp. The next one was about 250m off of the trail, after another 250m or so of trail. So we needed to leave camp by 3:45am in order for everyone to make it to the nest groups by 5:30.

The day began at around 3, in the misty dark of the night. Each of us appeared gradually from our tents, dressed for the field. The moon shone eerily through the haze. We turned the light bulb on at our table. We used thermoses of hot water that had been prepared the night before to make oatmeal and coffee. Everyone seemed to have a different recipe for oatmeal – I mashed a banana into mine.

We all had similar supplies for such an excursion: The headlamp for the hike out – and possibly for the hike back, in cases where someone stays out all day and comes back after dark. A couple of litres of water each. Some food, including a couple of packs of biscuits and a can of sardines per person, and perhaps a banana or two. Each group generally takes some kwanga (the local starch, with the consistency of a glue-stick). Everyone needs a compass, a pair of binoculars, and a field notebook. There’s generally a GPS unit per group. A raincoat is always a good idea. I also brought my camera and tripod, although the extra weight means that these aren’t brought out daily.

We began the hike promptly at 3:45. We didn’t stop for over 90 minutes, and we barely spoke. Stopping to pee means falling significantly behind – there’s no time for breaks. In a single-file line, with headlamps illuminating the windey trails through the forest, this really constitutes a commute.

The first 5.5km are a straight shot down a single trail, then a 1km shortcut trail to the second trail, then another half km or so to the start of the trail where the bonobos nested. The first pause in our hike was at the start of that trail, where we divided into our two groups. We also agreed to keep our headlamps pointed downwards, in order to avoid shining into the forest where the bonobos were still sleeping.

I was in the first group, so we arrived at the turnoff from the trail with about 10 minutes to spare; the others still had half a kilometre to hike, much of which was off the trail already. We got to sit and rest for a few minutes, eat a few biscuits, and repack our bags from hiking mode to observation mode.

We headed into the forest, on the lookout for bonobos. Through my binoculars, I spotted one high up in a tree, swinging downwards. We continued in that direction. Another bonobo (or possibly the same one) climbed a spindly tree high enough to stare at us. We stopped and stared back for a few moments. It went back to the ground and took off. So did the others, I guess. We tried following the group, but they sure move more stealthily than we do. And when they’re out of sight and not calling, they’re pretty damn hard to locate. Our bonobos got away. I’d gotten good looks at two (maybe the same one), while my colleagues said they’d seen three.

So then we did what a lot of bonobo field work involves. We sat and listened. We first returned to the trail near to where we had first left it, and continued down it to the first good log. We discussed tactics, repacked our bags, ate biscuits, and so on. I’m making it sound like we were so busy - really, we just sat and listened. I photographed a mushroom.

After a while (was it 30 minutes or an hour?), we heard a bonobo call off in the distance! A single call. So we continued down the trail in that general direction, and stopped again once we were in line with the approximate spot where we thought the call may have come from. We found another log, sat down, and proceeded to listen again.

After another while (someone else was taking notes on such details as timing), we heard bonobo calls. This time they were closer, and it was a series of calls rather than just one. We were off! We headed straight into the forest, following the compass bearing in the direction of the bonobo calls, and soon found them. There were several scattered around, up different trees in the vicinity. I chose to observe the juvenile and the infant playing high up in a tree, next to a day nest of, presumably, a mother. They were so cute!

As we approached the bonobo group, it became clear that there were loads of bonobos all over the place: above us, up in neighbouring trees, on the ground nearby, and so on. I continued to observe the two little guys playing, because they were the cutest. But I couldn’t help notice some movement in the underbrush ahead of us. And some bright red!

It was Martin, with his red bandana. We had located the other nest group, that he and Brigham had been observing since dawn. It’s likely that the bonobos we had first encountered at our nest site were also among the greater group surrounding us, but we were clearly infringing on Martin and Brigham’s observations.

The bonobos in our forest have been getting gradually habituated to the presence of human researchers since sometime in 2002, when the LuiKotal field research station was first established. Habituation has progressed slowly but surely, to the point where behavioural observations are finally possible: the bonobos are sufficiently relaxed to human presence to allow us to actually make observations. But the policy has always been to have a maximum of three humans observing a given group at a time, generally all within close proximity to each other. Suddenly, as Andrew and Caro and I showed up to the group being observed by Martin and Brigham, we had five humans scattered among the bonobos. At least two of us needed to leave.

So I left with Andrew. He planned to return in the afternoon, to take over the observations for whoever was ready for a break. We made our way through the bush back to the trail, and started back to camp. It was about 8:30am, and we had already been out for almost 5 hours. Camp was about 8km away.

So my second encounter with the bonobos was fairly typical, though my cutting it short early is generally not so intentional. The early morning departure from camp, with the long hike to the nesting site, is standard practice. The quick loss of the bonobo group, unfortunately, is also fairly normal. Sitting on a log, listening intently, is therefore very common too. And although heading back to camp at around 8:30 was my choice, it is often also fairly commonplace, if the morning group gets away and doesn’t make another sound.

Since I was out so early, so far from camp and carrying photo gear, I took advantage of the rest of the day and returned very slowly to camp. Since I couldn’t photograph bonobos, I decided to photograph more mushrooms. They’re so much more cooperative! I shot dozens of them. I also got several cool butterflies, a blue dragonfly, a colourful flycatcher (bird), and several other smaller primate species. I got home around 4:45pm – about 13 hours after leaving camp.

Since Saturday, they bonobos have been successfully followed pretty much all day. They were nested again on Saturday night, and they were followed for the full day on Sunday. Granted, it was raining most of the day on Sunday, so they didn’t move around a whole lot. But when they did travel, they travelled far, and mostly through swampland! So now the bonobo work has the added dimension of schlepping knee-deep through mud, in addition to the other challenges.

I think I’ll probably hold off for a little while before going out on another bonobo observation day – at least until they’re not in swampland all day. It’s definitely tough work for everyone involved, and the researchers here who do it on a daily basis are clearly pushing their bodies hard. But spirits are high, because of the bonobos. Sure, 20km+ days are the norm, deep mud is always a possibility, and lunch often consists of sardines and biscuits. These all seem somewhat trivial, though, when you get to hang out with a bonobo group as they go about their daily business. I guess the bonobos are habituating the researchers, too.