Expedition into no man's land

April 15, 2015

Six months among lions, rebels and poachers: How two intrepid students from Bern and Vienna rediscovered all kinds of animal species that were thought to be lost in Central Africa

Hic sunt leones. There are lions here. This is how cartographers in the Roman Empire designated unknown land beyond the borders. Mostly it was in Africa.

When Swiss biology student Thierry Aebischer pondered three years ago about which area of Africa could provide exciting research work, he couldn't stop thinking about the Chinko Basin, the almost deserted southeast of the CAR, the Central African Republic.

The Chinko Basin is a mosaic of large forest savannas and tropical rainforests - three times the size of the Serengeti. The checkerboard-like structure of savanna and forest makes it a hotspot of biodiversity. Once upon a time, tens of thousands of pachyderms said goodnight there with giraffes and rhinos. What, Aebischer asked himself, is still crawling and running through the bush there today?

“Wherever I asked, all I ever heard was: 'We don't know anything.'” says Aebischer. There was hardly any scientific data on the area the size of Austria. The region had not been explored for over a hundred years.

Together with the Viennese student Raffael Hickisch, Aebischer came up with the idea of an expedition into no man's land. Only photos taken by a Swedish big game hunter named Erik Mararv, who runs a hunting camp on Chinko, gave any idea of the treasure hidden there.

“So we asked Erik if he was interested in research in his hunting area,” remembers Aebischer. In 2011 the two visited Mararv in Sweden. The 28-year-old, who usually only calls wealthy hunters from Europe and the USA his guests, informed them about the risks and side effects and invited them into the wilderness. Huts, transport, food – everything was ready.

The two 26-year-olds wrote down what it would all cost: binoculars, camera traps, porters, trackers, hunting guides for 70 days, flights, medication, satellite phone and so on. They came to 51,836 dollars and one cent. Finding sponsors was frustrating. Everyone waved them off: from the WWF to the big cat protectors at Panthera. It was said that it was too dangerous, too costly and couldn't be done with the mini budget.

The duo didn't let themselves be deterred, put their own money on the table, collected money from friends, family and companies and scraped together some of the money. Later we managed to get 12,000 euros from the Basel Foundation for Biological Research.

The aim was to record large mammals and their habitats on the Chinko and to estimate population sizes. The two traveled to Central Africa twice and stayed for three months each, first from February to April 2012, then from December 2012 to February 2013.

When the zoological news just tumbled down from the memory cards of the camera traps like elephant droppings, Panthera jumped up in New York, and in Washington the “National Geographic Society” prepared to put its man on the march for Africa. That had to happen when the recent civil war broke out in the Central African Republic.

The duo used 100 camera traps and took over 200,000 images. In order to spot wild animals directly and determine tracks, they walked 500 kilometers of line transects, pre-drawn straight paths. They trudged another 1,500 kilometers across the wilderness.

Their discoveries were spectacular from a zoological perspective. In total, Aebischer and Hickisch identified 62 medium and large mammal species, including ten primate species, 23 ungulate species and 21 species of predators - from lions to servals.

Even species that were considered extinct across Africa or regionally appeared at the photo shoot. Above all, the African wild dog. In Central Africa he had long been a phantom. The photo evidence gives new hope for the species, whose population across Africa is estimated to be only 1,400 animals in the reproductive stage.

Using a camera trap, the duo was also able to prove the existence of a species of mongoose, the cunning mongoose, which had not been seen for twenty years. “Species that normally live far away from each other in very different areas occur together in this part of Central Africa,” reports Aebischer. There are two subspecies there: the Sudan buffalo and the African forest buffalo as well as the forest and savanna elephants.

Aebischer and Hickisch are no beginners when it comes to field research. The two have known each other since 2005 from a research trip to Costa Rica. Aebischer comes from Heitenried in the canton of Freiburg. He was drawn from the community of 1,300 souls into the world, the further the better. In 2007, he lived in a village in Cameroon's Nki Boumba Bek National Park for six months and examined the droppings of various antelope species and the nests of gorillas and chimpanzees for WWF Cameroon. For his bachelor's thesis in 2010 he analyzed the vegetation of Kilimanjaro. He completed his studies as an evolutionary biologist at the University of Bern this summer.

The Viennese Raffael Hickisch is actually a computer scientist and added a master's degree in social and human ecology to his bachelor's degree. His thesis took him to Senegal. There he investigated the question of how suitable rubber tree plantations are for storing CO². What drew him to Chinko was “his interest in nature, his curiosity and simply the idea of trying something like that,” he reports.

In addition to their love of research, the two are driven by their thirst for adventure. The Chinko expedition turned out to be the adventure they were looking for, unplanned challenges included. During the dry season it was up to 45 degrees during the day. The duo swallowed and vaccinated everything tropical medicine could provide. Aebischer still caught tropical malaria both times. In the five hunting camps they could sleep in mud and wooden huts and only camp outside. “At night we heard lions and hyenas,” says Aebischer. “The campfire in front of the tent was never allowed to go out.”

Satellite phones provided the connection to the world and to each other. In the evening the two gave their locations to the hunters. They usually traveled in pairs in the bush. Raffael Hickisch explains that “you quickly become familiar with the situation on site.” You just have to sharpen your senses. One morning they encountered a leopard, which quickly fled. The next day they encountered a black mamba, which reared up threateningly.

The political situation and poaching were a cause for concern. Poachers have been slaughtering elephants in Central Africa for years. Over 90 percent of the stocks in the CAR have expired. During the dry season, bands from Sudan also invade the Chinko Basin. Bushmeat, hides, ivory and other trophies are turned into cash in the markets. The camera traps did not bode well: poachers could be seen on paths used by elephants. The two of them met them every now and then. “We were always afraid that they would think we were military,” said Aebischer.

During the young researchers' second tour at the end of 2012, rebels took up arms. Since then, the poor country has descended into chaos. In March 2013, the rebels took power in the capital Bangui. Outside the capital, the state practically no longer exists.

Despite all the problems, Aebischer, Hickisch and Mararv now want to transform 17,600 square kilometers on the Chinko into a biosphere reserve. Management is to be transferred to an NGO called “Chinko Nature Management”, and the reserve is to be split into three zones: a deserted core zone, a buffer zone for patrols, and a zone for trophy hunting and safari tourism. “The benefit from hunting is greater than the harm,” says Aebischer. Mararv assures that it continuously records the wild population and only releases two percent of the animals for shooting each year.

Meanwhile, Thierry Aebischer has made the biodiversity of the rustic area the subject of his doctoral thesis. Working title: “Evolutionary processes and biological diversity using the example of the heterogeneous forest-savanna mosaic of Central Africa.” He wants to go back to Chinko next January. A few zoological questions are still open.

www.chinkoproject.com

Six months among lions, rebels and poachers: How two intrepid students from Bern and Vienna rediscovered all kinds of animal species that had been thought lost in Central Africa. Hic sunt leones. There are lions here. This is how cartographers in the Roman Empire designated unknown land beyond the borders. Mostly it was in Africa. When the Swiss biology student Thierry Aebischer pondered three years ago, which...

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