After briefly setting down in several different countries and too many hours of flying we finally arrived in the city of Douala, situated in southwestern Cameroon. We were greeted first by a heady mix of high humidity and the aroma of eucalyptus and then, having navigated through customs, by Dr. Bethan Morgan and Ngwane Henry, a long-term member of her field team. Within minutes we were driving though the heart of Douala and were immersed in the bustle of market trading and manic driving styles on the unpaved roads. That evening, we stayed at a local hotel and then set out at sunrise for Limbe, an ocean township about 90 minutes from Douala.

Several years ago, Bethan chose Limbe as the headquarters of the San Diego Zoo’s Ebo forest research project, so it made sense for us to stop off there to make our final arrangements for our own trip into the rain forest. Our timing was planned so that we would attend Bethan’s conservation education workshop (see Bethan’s blog, Cameroon: Teaching Hunters about Conservation). This was an extremely useful experience for us as we got to see Limbe’s Wildlife Centre (and its primate inhabitants, many of which we hoped to encounter in the forest, too) and also meet with local hunters who were in attendance to learn more about viable alternatives to their involvement in the bushmeat trade.

With the realities of primate hunting still fresh in our minds, we left Limbe for a long off-road journey to the village of Iboti. We arrived there early evening and met with the chief of the village to explain our plans for the field. The villagers were very excited to see us and it was immediately obvious to me that their relationship with Bethan was one of deep respect and trust. The following day, Fred Bercovitch and I hiked for around seven hours before making our final ascent to the research camp. We were immediately welcomed by Bethan’s research team and for the first time that day found time to take in our surroundings.

At the heart of the primary rain forest the vegetation is extremely thick and it becomes obvious that Ebo is amazingly fertile. Just a brief glance around gives you an idea about the density of flora and fauna here. At that time, it was also apparent that these inhabitants also make a great deal of noise! As we were interested in studying how these animals communicate, hearing so much conversation was very exciting. The following morning, we learned that Bethan’s team members were not only hospitable but also masters in this type of habitat. You can imagine our delight when we heard and were able to record four different species of guenons on that very first morning!

The goal of our pilot study was to try and record vocalizations from as many of these rare and endangered primates as possible. In some cases, we discovered that finding monkeys to record is only the first step of the process. Insects produce a loud cacophony of sound and when trying to capture primate calls you have to be careful to get your recording levels right or you’ll just come home with the musings of cicadas! Often, other animals such as (very) loud frogs and several parrot species also want to impress you with their singing. Indeed, on many occasions my recordings of primates were thwarted by the dulcet tones of a pair of African gray parrots chatting loudly right above us! This said, such problems (along with the intense humidity) are not insurmountable and over the course of the following two weeks I was able to get wonderful examples of most of the primates that live in the Ebo forest. An especially rare treat was hearing a troop of chimpanzees calling very near to us. They are experts at hiding, so we did not manage to see them, but I was able to record a bout of pant-hoots. Before you hear the chimps you’ll also hear all the other inhabitants chiming in.

[audio:http://www.sandiegozoo.org/wordpress/wp-content/Ebo chimps-blog.mp3]

We also heard and recorded drills (a very rare and endangered Old World monkey and the main focus of Bethan’s ongoing research at Ebo ).

Overall, our efforts yielded an amazing collection of calls, especially given the relatively short amount of time we spent in the forest. In 10 days we captured the calls of 8 of the 11 resident nonhuman primate species in the Ebo forest. As a result, we realized that the Ebo forest is an amazing resource that must be preserved and whose inhabitants should be studied more in the future.

Matt Anderson is a scientist in the Behavioral Biology Division of the San Diego Zoo.

Read Matt’s previous blog, Singing in the Rain.
Read Bethan’s blog, Recording the Primates of the Ebo Forest.

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