First I want to say how happy I am to be working with these wonderful animals, and in such a beautiful place! The first time I saw flying foxes was in a forest in Northern Madagascar – they completely enchanted me and I remember thinking how much I would love to work with them in the future! And here I am. Counting all the Flying Fox roosts on the island is no easy task I can assure you! The flying foxes don’t always stay in the same roost, but regularly shift between sites and move according to season. The bats also roost on steep ridge tops, in thick forest, in mangroves, and on some of the small islets surrounding Pemba. It’s hard to predict when they are going to move – so we have to try and cover as much of the island as quickly as possible, to minimize the chance of double counting some of the bats or missing them completely. Without radio tagging these animals, much of their movements remain a mystery. The infrastructure is basic on Pemba Island, so some of these sites take a long time to reach by car, driving slowly to avoid the pot-holes and hoping it doesn’t rain and turn the whole road into a mud slick! Pemba Flying Fox in flight Photo J. Robinson As part of this project we are not only completing a comprehensive survey to get a recent population estimate and mapping the distribution of the Pemba Flying Fox, but we are also spending time talking with the community, to try and gage their feelings and attitudes towards the Pemba Flying Foxes. As flying foxes eat fruit, seeds and nectar there is potential for them to be viewed as pests by the local people – for damaging their fruit crops. Although so far the opinions are mixed, many people here seem to appreciate the role of the Pemba Flying Fox as a primary seed disperser, and they are often proudly referred to by the local people as ‘tree planters’. In many places the conservation education the DCCFF have been working on over the years appears to have been very effective in increasing understanding of the importance of these animals to this special island.
First of all I must apologize for the lack of updates! The last couple of months have been very busy in the field. Since the arrival of our volunteer, we have been conducting a comprehensive survey of all the Pemba Flying Fox roosts on the island. Janine is studying for her MSc in Applied Ecology and Conservation at the University of East Anglia in the UK, and is going to be updating this blogg for the next few weeks while completing her research project on the island. So far things have been going great, apart from a few delays with fuel, power shortages and some heavy rains work has been continuing successfully.
Finally we got a volunteer! Thank you to all who have shown interest in the volunteer position. We are very grateful to see that very many people are interested in the helping us here in Pemba. Unfortunately we can only take in one volunteer at a time. We have finally selected one who is due to come to Pemba in mid March and we are looking forward to her arrival!
Hello everybody! Update on the Kidike Information Centre…….. Well, the centre is complete and its looks wonderful. We have had quite a number of visitors and they like it too! We would like someone to design some good interpretation material, please contact me if you would like to help with this.
Hello everyone, am sorry I have been away for so long. I got really sick and couldnt do very much but I am now better and can now work. I decided to post a few facts about the Pemba Flying Fox for those who have never really heard of it or seen it.
Hey all, I mentioned a legends in one of my posts. So here goes…….
Below are some interesting links on some of the conservation efforts on the Island Lubee Bat Conservation Programs
Well I promised to post some pictures of the Information Centre at the Kidike, which was the first to form an association. The pictures show the previous information centre built by the communities at Mjini Ole and the construction of the new information centre with support from the Department of Comercial Crops Fruits and Forestry and Fauna and Flora International. The community have been active in the conservation of the bat, its amazing! The Kidike signpost
Old Interpretation board New Information Centre under construction We are now looking for someone who can help us with the interpretation material for the centre, perhaps someone can provide some assistance!
Some of you are interested in how we caught the Pemba Flying Fox.Believe it or not, we used to catch the Pemba Flying Fox with a slingshot! You know like, David and Goliath….well am not proud of it now, but it was a part of my childhood. This was usually done by the children in the villages…..you can imagine how that could disturb a colony of bats peacefully resting…..sleeping probably! Also used were thorny bushes attached to sticks!
But one place we could never disturb the bats was a place where the communities buried their dead. Something like a graveyard which is full of indigeneous trees. This place was considered sacred and was not to be disturbed. The bats love this place and it is currently the largest roost site in the area. It is known as Kidike and its in a village known as Mjini Ole. The villagers of Mjini Ole came together and formed the first flying fox association known as Kidike Pemba Flying Fox Association. The communities set up a basic information centre and invited tourists visiting the Island to view the bats and learn a little bit more about the bats and the Island. Tourists pay a nominal fee which is used put into a community development fund that is used for various community projects. One example is, providing lighting at the local mosque and paying the electricity bills. Pemba is an Islamic society and religion is very important to us. We have assisted the association to improve the information centre and I will post some pictures of the centre in the next post. Please note, another method of hunting was the use of shotguns. This appreared to have a higher and potentially non sustainable impact on populations as noted by two researchers known as Abigail Entwistle and Nadia Corp. This was however rarely done by the local populations but by visitors on the Island and military men from the military bases.
Well, I would like to tell you how we started working towards the protection of the Pemba Flying Fox. It all started with an organization known as Fauna and Flora International (www.fauna-flora.org) which noted the decline in the population of the Pemba Flying Fox and decided to work with the Department of Commercial Crops Fruits and Forestry to set up a conservation initiative. I therefore had to oversee this initiative from the very beginning! Its been very encouraging to see how the communities have been actively involved in the conserving the bats- which they loved to eat! Its actually a delicacy on the Island….kind of like lobster to some! Hence the decline in their numbers. They also used to cut down many of the indigenous trees which the bats use as roost sites to pave way for clove plantations. Through our efforts we have been able to secure the two main tracts of forests on the Island and enabled the communities to monitor the bats and set up Pemba Flying Fox associations. I will tell you all about it in the coming posts! I also have two books on the history of Zanzibar and Pemba and will post some pretty interesting stuff about the Islands! By the way they are very beautiful and you should plan a trip one day! You wouldnt believe how serene and untouched Pemba is, we have been working so hard to protect it!
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