Hi! This is Lucy F- project manager for ZSL’s conservation project in the Virunga National Park, DRC.

Do you know the difference between a Ugandan Kob and a Reedbuck? A Blue duiker and a Bates antelope? An Angola colobus monkey and a Guereza colobus monkey?

Being able to identify and distinguish the large mammals found in the Virunga National Park are skills that sixty Congolese wildlife authority (ICCN) rangers have been learning at a workshop organised last week by ZSL with the ICCN. To be able to accurately monitor animal populations whilst they are patrolling the park, ICCN rangers need to be able to correctly identify species so this workshop, held in Mutsora in the northern sector, has been invaluable.

For all the species studied, tables were drawn up detailing their distinguishing features- which ones have twisted or straight horns, which ones have black marks on their legs, and even which ones have white eyebrow marks (the blue duiker!)- to help the rangers make quick comparisons of critical details and therefore the correct species identification.

Rangers learnt to identify the seven large and ten smaller antelope species and the fifteen monkey species found in the park as well as the more interesting details of better known animals such as the forest elephant.

Species from all parts of the park were covered by the workshop even though some species are only found in restricted parts of the park. The management structure of the Virunga NP is such that rangers are rotated to different sectors of the park so it’s important that rangers can identify species that may not been found in the sector they are currently working in.

Bongos (a large forest antelope), for example, are only found in the northern sector but guards currently working in the southern sector, who may have never seen a bongo, still need to be to identify them. Another full day was spent on learning how to use GPS (Global Positioning System) units for simple navigation (-very useful if you are lost!) and the course concluded with rangers being given their own copy of a list of Virunga NP’s large mammals.

This was taken in the Rwindi plains, through which we drove through to get to the workshop, and shows large group of Ugandan Kob.

On our way we also went to see how the rehabilitations ZSL are organising in Ishango (a sub-station of Virunga NP, situated on the Northern Shores of Lake Edward) are progressing.

Whilst there we saw some elephants on the river bank and heard reports that lions were roaming around the station at night.

This last picture is of some water buffalo we saw in the Ishango savannah.

It’s good to know that, in spite of the recent conflicts in the DRC, there are some areas where species exist in relative safety!

As you’ve probably seen in the news, in the last few weeks the security situation in the East of DRC has seriously deteriorated.

On Sunday 26^th October, rebel forces seized control of the headquarters of Virunga National Park (the park where we work). There is considerable humanitarian concern and fear for the safety of DRC’s wildlife.

I am thankful to report that we are all safe and, because the okapi habitat is outside of the immediate danger zone, our work monitoring okapi in the northern sector has been able to continue in spite of the civil unrest.

We’ve captured even more great images with our camera traps this month. As you can see from the photo story on the website, in addition to okapi, we’ve collected images of chimpanzees, red-river hogs, mongooses, blue monkeys, black and white colobus monkeys, and aardvarks.

It’s not surprising that the area we are working in is so rich in wildlife given that we’ve found evidence of okapi in the region.

Because it’s very sensitive to human activity and habitat loss, the okapi is a really good indicator of the overall health of an ecosystem and so where we find okapi we expect to find other species doing well.

Consequently, areas inhabited by okapi are of high conservation value and by conserving them we can protect a whole host of species. The presence of okapi in some areas of the Virunga National Park, as demonstrated by our camera-trap work and previous surveys, highlights the importance of efforts to protect the park.

It’s for this reason that ZSL and the ICCN continue to deploy efforts to protect the okapi and its habitat.

Hi my name is Stuart Nixon and I am a field biologist who has been working with Thierry and ZSL for the past 3 months here in Congo to help set up the camera trap study but also to start some important research on the Virunga okapi to find out where they live, how many there are in the park and how threatened they are. For this we have been doing what we call forest reconnaissance (or recce) surveys where we basically walk through the forest following on a pre-planned route.

The team walks along and records all the animal trail and sightings that we see. This is very hard work as the Watalinga forest is very dense with lots of hills, steep valleys, biting insects and prickly vegetation. We have been starting work at 6.30 am and finishing at 5pm, camping out in the forest every night. We know where the okapi have been by the presence of their dung piles, their foot prints and also from feeding signs.

Okapi eat mainly a very tough diet of leaves from shrubs, young trees and vines which they grab with their long purple black tongue (like their cousin, the giraffe) and strip from the branches. They especially like to feed on the dense vegetation in large clearings where trees have fallen. Also their dung is very easy to identify, looking like a pile of very large rabbit droppings!

Seeing okapi though is very difficult because they are very, very shy. I have been working in the forests of Congo since 2001 and I have still never seen an okapi in the forest with my own eyes!! That is why the cameras are very important in helping us recognise individuals and monitor the population.

So far we have walked over 200 km in the forest and we are finding okapi but they are very rare here. It will take all our efforts to make sure we can protect them and keep them alive.

As well as the okapi we are finding trail from lots of other fantastic wild animals, such as hippos, forest buffalo, duikers (small forest antelopes) chimpanzees, red river hogs, giant forest hogs, bongo and many species of monkey. I will keep you updated as we continue with our work!

Thierry here again ,

Its been an exciting few weeks for us here in Virunga National Park with the publication of our okapi photos making it into the international news! We are very happy that our discovery has brought some much needed attention to this species which is very much in danger.

Okapi are a much loved animal around the world and are very important to Virunga and also to my country. Here, I have posted some photographs that show how proud we are in Democratic Republic Congo of our okapi.

First  is a picture of a very old postage stamp from when my country was still called Zaire, this stamp was to comemorate the 50^th birthday of the park in 1975 ! Its amazing that even at this time people here were unsure whether there were still okapi in the park.

The second picture here is of the roundabout in Beni, my home town and the nearest town to the Watalinga forest sector of the park where we have are working.

It shows a wonderful painting of an okapi. Before the war which started in 1996 many hundreds tourists used to pass through Beni on their long drive the Okapi Faunal Reserve in the dense Ituri forest.

At the Okapi Faunal Reserve headquarters tourists had the chance to see the captive okapi held in huge forested enclosures, as though they were wild.

Still today in Beni there is a restaurant called the ‘Okapi Bar’ and people listen to the ‘Radio Okapi’ station. Little did we all realise at the time that there still okapi in the Watalinga forest just 20 miles from Beni !

The Road to Watalinga

Until very recently the road to the Watalinga forest was completely overgrown and impassable but in 2005 it was restored. Here you can see the road where it cuts through the park.

The road can be a menace to wildlife because it can allow hunters easier access to isolated places but here we all hope it will help ICCN patrol the park to stop people hunting the okapi and the other animals which live here.

We have been checking our cameras every three weeks to see if we have got any more photos. The cameras are working well but we are still learning how place them at the best height to get decent photos.  These last few weeks we didn’t get any more okapi pictures but we do know that the okapi are still using the area because we found fresh okapi trail walking behind the tree where the camera was placed !

Here are some photos we just got of a couple of very curious chimpanzees looking straight at our camera! 

The pictures is in black and white and not so clear because the pictures were taken when the thunder clouds had gathered and the camera thought it was night time because the forest had gone so dark!

We have readjusted our cameras here and hope that in the next week we should get a much clearer picture of pigs and chimpanzees here.

But here we have got some lovely pictures of a family of black and white colobus monkeys at a saline, a site of mineral rich mud which many different types of animals like to feed on from time to time ( a bit like when we take vitamin tablets).

These lovely monkeys are known as magistrates by local people because their black coat and shaggy white hair looks like a judge’s uniform!

This family of monkeys hung around here for over 40 minutes causing our camera to take nearly four hundred pictures!

Anyway goodbye for now and check back in a couple of weeks to see what else we have found!

I’m Thierry – monitoring officer for ZSL’s conservation project in Virunga National Park, eastern DRC.

The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) started the okapi project (funded by the EU) two months ago in the Watalinga (or Semliki) forest of northern Virunga National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Luckily for our team, the northern sector of the park is the most accessible in terms of security and access to the park’s northern forest due to the rehabilitation of a road passing through it to connect with Uganda to the east.

The Watalinga forest is where okapis were ‘rediscovered’ in 2006, when WWF and then by WCS in 2007, recorded evidence of their presence during surveys – having not been documented in Virunga National Park for nearly 50 years.  However, when we talked to local people, very few of them said they had seen them in the wild.

With Stuart, who is overseeing the okapi project, we trained the group of 9 Congolese wildlife authority (ICCN) rangers who are based at the two patrol posts in the Watalinga forest on how to use camera traps, and helped them to set up the camera trapping survey. We also carried out interviews with the communities around the park to find out what the local population thinks of the okapis, if they still exist and where, how many are left and if they are hunted for bushmeat.

Okapi are the shyest animals you can imagine - which is why after two weeks of work placing the cameras in the forest, we just saw droppings and other signs of their presence, but never actually saw them. So we are so happy that now we have managed to catch them on camera!

We used highly sophisticated camera traps to capture good quality colour images of these fascinating mammals, which are most closely related to giraffes, and only exist in DRC.

Have a look at the photo album slide show so far.  These are the results of only two weeks of having the camera traps in place, so come back in a couple of weeks to see if there are new and even more exciting photos of okapis and other animals!

Photostory - the first pictures of the elusive okapi

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