by Richard Bergl
June 10, 2011
Page 1 : Traveling to the Primary Camp
January 5 – 6, 2011
Delta/Air France flight to Malabo via Paris – arriving Malabo ~ 6:00 PM (45 min. late). Picked up at the airport and brought to the project compound. Most of the others there already. Slept in tents on soccer field.
January 7 – 8, 2011
At the compound getting things ready for expedition. Helped to organize equipment and supplies. Also worked with Drew on some Cybertracker items and prepared Cybertracker devices for going to the field. One complication this year is the lack of a cargo boat that previously delivered personnel and gear to Moraka Playa. Eventually we were able to arrange for the boat to take gear, but not people. As a result, most people will have to hike (two days via Belabu and Ureca) while we, Gail and a few others will go via cayuco (a small motorized boat) to meet the gear ship and set up the beach camp.
January 9, 2011
Left the compound at 4:00AM and traveled to the port of Luba where we met the cayuco. There were supposed to be two, but only one showed up. It is a good thing we didn’t bring any more people.
Set off around 6:00AM following the coast south and east. Along the way, had good views of old cocoa plantation houses and the Caldera itself (about a four-hour trip). Made the tricky beach landing without incident. The cargo ship was there when we arrived, so we began shuttling gear to the shore immediately. It took about five hours to shuttle the gear, get it all organized, and set up most of the tents. Camp consists of a large number of 4-6 person tents, a wooden cook shed, and two areas covered with tarps. Beach is much as it was last year. So far no rain and temperature not too bad. Other team arrived in afternoon after a long 32-kilometer (19-mile) hike.
January 10, 2011
Spent most of the day in camp finalizing Cybertracker (CT) program (Spanish version). Other team members began surveying census trails for primates and other mammals. By the end of the day we had seen most of the monkeys that are found in this part of the Caldera (erythrotis, pogonlais, red colobus, black colobus).
January 11 – 13, 2011
Began training field assistants how to use CT and started collecting census data with the devices. At present we are collecting data with both the CT units and notebooks/paper, but once everything is up and running the project will transition to fully electronic data collection.
Next Page : Hormigas Camp
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