[Bristol-Birds] Chris O'Bryan back from Africa and down in ditches with his turtles
- From: "Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Bristol-birds" <bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2013 21:17:14 -0400
Chris O'Bryan arrived home to New Bern, NC, not far from the ocean at mid-day
Sunday.
He had just returned from Africa and was back in the field today, conducting
graduate
research in wildlife biology at Clemson University. He is studying Eastern
Spotted Turtle
habitat selection and nesting ecology in a highly-managed ecosystem on land
owned and
managed in the carolina costal plains by Weyerhaeuser -- one of the world's
largest forest
product companies.
He flew back to the U.S. near Washington
and spent the night at a hotel before renting
a car early Sunday and driving to New Bern.
We enjoyed a lengthy "catching up" by phone
as he traveled south.
Among the interesting accounts he shared were:
-- traveling with a hired car driver to his hotel the
first night in Mombassa (a city of more
than a million population) where he found the facility locked behind bared
doors and windows
for the night. The driver took him to another part of
the darkened city and dropped him off to find another place to stay. He said
that experience was challenging and he felt vulnerable. He was not expected to
meet up with Ed Smith of the Smithsonian until the next day.
Limited communications by cellphone, email or text.
Had to wing it on his own.
-- stifling traffic in the city with waits of several hours in a single traffic
jam. Cars traveling on sidewalks and private property to move ahead. No
traffic flow pattern. Just like walking thru a crowd at the mall.
-- saw a massive, new, white advertising billboard so covered with exhaust
emission from cars that
it had turned black. Simply awful pollution from low grade fuels and no
pollution management
equipment. The fumes were so bad he had headaches for two days.
-- Hundreds and hundreds of miles of travel over roads of poor conditions that
had no traffic
control, speed limits, direction signs and no names or numbers posted. The
only way they
could travel anywhere was to take advice from natives and others about
trustworthy drivers
who knew the way and took them in their cab-type cars for a day's fee.
-- out in the wildlife bush country coming up on a couple of safari vehicles at
different times
with well-to-do safari goes (dressed in kaki quick-dry clothing and sun hats)
who pay a
thousand dollars a day or more to be shown around and experience the wildlife.
-- the field sites and outposts where they stayed were research stations with
no modern
facilities but makeshift toilet and showers in one larger not-so-private rooms.
Sleeping in
beds with mosquito nets. No air condition (not even in cars) and temperatures
reaching
well over a 100 degrees some days. Electricity generated for short periods
each day and
local water not potable. They bought and hauled bottle water the entire
adventure. Going to sleep listening to haunting laughter-like calls of hyenas
and their celebrations of making a kill to devour.
-- good and enjoyable food. Mostly ate at less expensive and non-touristy
restaurants they hunted down in city streets. In the bush, they carried their
own provisions when traveling and had cooks on the staffs at the field stations
-- lots of fruits. Ate well. Slept well every night without waking up due to
daily exhaustion from field work.
-- in the field they always had ranger guards who walked with them carrying
rifles to guard them from wild animals and other perils. Once they were
surprised when they came upon a small herd of adults elephants coming around
the curve in their path. One had a baby elephant with her and became
aggressive and defiant. They had to quickly back up and escape the danger.
-- conducting field studies with Ryan Valdez, a Smithsonian fellow out of
George Mason
University, studying black rhino landscape conservation. They spent all day
walking thru
fields and brush for miles counting populations and herds of animals. Using
GIS and GPS they mapped the exact locations while they walked over long
straight-line transects of the study. All the time with armed guards watching
out for them. Chris was very up to speed with all this since he taught
GIS courses and labs at Clemson and has used the technology in California while
working with
the US Forest Service researchers two summers ago and last year for the
University of Florida
and the US Fish & Wildlife Service in Florida.
-- small and beautiful pride of lions resting in the shade at a watering site.
One young male became
too interested in a baby elephant but changed his mind after the mother
elephant threatened him with
her ears spread and making it clear to stay away.
-- wildlife and plants of all kinds (new and strange) everywhere. Abundant
birds and an easy 400
to be identified but Chris has not yet made a count of the many species they
saw.
All of his stories and accounts are fascinating.
Best of all he did not get sick or injured and enjoyed the entire trip and
learned a great deal of
biology and landscape conservation.
The Bristol Bird Club provided significant financial resources to help fund
some aspects of Chris'
experiences in Kenya.
Wallace Coffey
Bristol, TN
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