Golden Monkeys, Buffalo and Butterflies.

My days at the Karisoke Research Center have consisted of me getting up in the morning and coming to the office.  Once there, I pretend to write something while staring frustratingly at my rising pile of notes.  The amount of work I’ve been doing has risen dramatically since I arrived here.  I have at least 2 or 3 interviews planned for me per day at it leaves little time for my writing.  However, I am at the point where I have very few people left to interview and the articles are the only thing left for me to do.

During one of the staring-at-my-pile-of-notes session, Deogratias Tuyisingize came up and told me we were going to be having an interview later that day.  Many of my interviews seem to be organized in this impromptu way. I often come to the office only to find out I’m already late for an interview I was never told about.  I’ve taking up the habit of coming to the office first thing every morning just in case.

Every time I see Deo he seems to have a big smile on his face and is always eager to talk about his programs. His primary focus is the Golden Monkey program. He came to the Center 4 years ago to do his undergraduate work on the Golden Monkeys under the supervision of the Karisoke director Katie Fawcett.  He’s since become the program coordinator and has started two new programs on large mammals and butterflies. Every time Deo picks up a scientific paper, he gets an idea for another conservation project and wants to realize that idea: “I need everything to be known, not just in the Volcanoes National Park.”

The golden monkey, like the gorillas, is endemic to Albertine Rift which is the string of volcanoes I’m presently living next to in the North West part of Rwanda. The monkeys have a distinctive golden body and great bulbous cheeks.  The monkeys have been on the endangered species list since 1994 and Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International has been studying them since 2002.  The species can only be found here and the Gishwati Park to the south.

They focus on two groups of monkeys with around 80 to 90 monkeys per group. However, the groups like to live in a very small area in the bamboo zone and you cannot count them all at once. The only time a researcher can observe how many there are in a group is when the group crosses a clearing or a stream. The group will file out one by one across the stream and a tracker has to be quick to count them all as they cross.

In the long term study of the monkeys, Deo is looking at 8 behaviours: feeding, moving, resting, playing, grooming, vocalisation, fighting / aggression and copulation. The results of these studies may shed light on why the Ugandan side of the park has recorded a decline in the Golden Monkey groups at a whopping 40%!  Deo has many theories as to why this may be that he wants to test in the future.  He thinks the harvesting of bamboo and climate changes have contributed to loss of their habitat.  There is also a strange lack of babies in the groups despite the fact that there is no lack of copulation or females.

 

Deogratias’ next project entails the study of large mammals in the Volcanoes National Park with the support from the Protected Area Biodiversity Project. Deo is focusing on the buffalo, antelopes, duikers and, sometimes on a rare occasion, elephants.  Large Mammals is a group that is the most heavily hunted for bush meat and it is a good index of the overall conservation status.  Tourists who come to see them are an added bonus as well.  The point of the conservation project is to maintain the current population, assess the importance of the different vegetation zones and compare findings to research done in 2003 and 1991.

 

 

Finally, Deo’s latest project is the Invertebrate Conservation Project with the butterfly as its model.  This project is still just a skeleton and will study the importance the conservation area provides for the invertebrates.  Hopefully, like the gorillas, the butterflies will become something tourists, as well, could be able to come to the Virungas to enjoy.

 

While Deogratias loves animals and works towards preserving them, it is very hard to find funds to train and staff people needed for project teams.  Insecurity in the Democratic Republic of Congo also makes it hard to find funding for that side of the park so animals are left helpless if they move across the border.  Deo’s enthusiasm for his projects is very energizing.  I know one thing for sure; he will always try to find new and exciting ways to save the animals he cares so deeply about.

 Photos by Deogratias, Antelopes photographed by Veronica Vecellio