Throwing a Festival for Lemurs in Madagascar

After an inspirational pep talk from my dear friend and colleague, Caroline Rojosoa and I committed to throwing a big World Lemur Day celebration in Ranomafana. My roles were to build our team, brand the event, and fundraise to make it all happen in time with eight weeks to spare. As it turns out, throwing a festival is A LOT of work!

Our Top Goals for the Lemur Festival

1. Focus and raise awareness of critically endangered lemur species living in their natural habitats

2. Increase local capacity to carry out future conservation efforts through training and experience obtained through project management and participation by Malagasy citizens

3. Demonstrate the economic benefit achieved through conservation of a species and its habitat, as compared to loss thereof

4. Strengthen international network of partners and enhance their capacity to be successful conservationists

Caroline and I began by jotting down our ideas for activities, and researching what’s been done in the past. Lemur Conservation Network’s website was a great starting point. It provided ideas and recaps from previous events with lots of facts about lemurs. They also had an official World Lemur Day logo for 2019 that we were able to download and adapt to say RANOMAFANA. From there, we developed a highly visual powerpoint to explain our goals and activity plans to potential donors and local participants. There wasn’t enough time to develop in-depth sponsorship levels, so I reached out to potential partners to discuss mutually beneficial agreements. My commitment grew stronger as the funds started to roll in. Lovasoa, the Head of Education at Centre ValBio, took on the task of calculating out a detailed budget. She then rallied her education team and delegated tasks for the event. She also helped translate our marketing pieces and activities in local Malagasy dialect. 

Jocelyn took charge of spreading the word and organizing community meetings to get everyone involved. He works at the Ranomafana Telecommunications Center and is the president of Ranomafana’s Nature Center. After designing and printing fliers for meetings, I walked 6 kilometers from the National Park entrance down the mountain to Ranomafana town to let people know about the festival. We held regular community meetings in the town hall, Tranompokonolona, to plan and share ideas leading up to the event.

The result of one meeting led to scheduling a swimming competition in the hot springs for World Lemur Day. I was a bit concerned that people were starting to lose sight that this event was about lemurs and their connection to the well-being of our community, but in the end it worked out. We had nature-themed prizes for everyone including medals, posters, and lemur toys.

We commissioned local artists Alain Rasolo and Christian Menabe to illustrate and paint invitations, street banners, and fliers for the event. Madagascar’s US Embassy Ambassador, Michael Pelletier, and his family were touring Centre ValBio when I was working on the balcony finishing the graphic design for the Festival’s Facebook event banner. I told them about the event, and to our joy, they said they would love to come!

On October 1st, we took our first shopping trip to Fianarantsoa (about an hour and a half drive away) to grab money and materials. I did my best, but it was surprisingly hard to find lemur-themed school supplies for prizes. We eventually found some lemur notebooks and nature-themed art supplies. We continued to have productive meetings in Ranomafana, which involved further development of the program schedule and activities. I commissioned a local wood carver to create a conservation promise tree, and Fidi to create the swimming medals for the competition.

I had to take a trip to South Africa from October 11th-20th prior to making this World Lemur Day commitment. Before I left, I had to finalize sponsorships with partners, frantically transfer funds to the shirt company, and send in final designs to have everything ready by our event. It was difficult to leave my team two weeks before the Festival date, but they made some serious progress while I was gone! I returned to Madagascar on October 20th and shopped for decorations in the capital of Madagascar the next day. I was so excited to get back for that final push before the event.

On October 23rd we had one last community meeting in preparation for the festival. The next day, Caroline and I took our second and final shopping trip to Fianarantsoa with our friend Ray to order event tents and find more supplies from our favorite school supply store called Alefa Mianatra. The education department and some teachers made lemur art decorations with Rasolo from Lovasoa’s office. We also threw a decorating party that night at the research centre with some volunteers. I painted a sequence of jumping sifakas for an interactive “Sifaka Jump” station, while others helped cut out leaves and string them together.

Friday, October 25th, was officially World Lemur Day! I spent the morning at Centre ValBio to run through the program with the senior management team alongside Lovasoa. We gathered the rest of the festival supplies that were stored in her office and headed into town with Rasolo, Gabby, Caroline to make lemur masks with the kids from templates designed by Yana Grabner. While the children colored with Rasolo, I set up the four meter interactive sifaka jump so the kids could test their skills and show off their new lemur masks. Christian Menabe, a few other volunteers, and Lovasoa’s student teachers showed up to help as well. There were some amazing masks, and the kids really enjoyed themselves. Lova coached the kids into trying to jump as far as a sifaka. Their parents told me that they came home raving about the masks and jump.

The local decoration team showed up late that afternoon, and began preparing inside the Town Hall, while the tent crew set up for partnership booths in front of the Mayor’s office. After dark, Jocelyn put together an outdoor movie showing of BBC’s Madagascar nature documentary translated into Malagasy, while volunteers at my house continued to work on lemur decorations. I ran back and forth to make sure everything was going smoothly. I looked around and paused during the movie showing. I saw people completely enamored by the animals they were seeing on the film. Those fleeting moments remind me how important this kind of work is for conservation. It was a lovely soft launch before our BIG festival event the next day.

I stayed up all night finishing decorations and making masks to represent all 12 lemur species. Jocelyn did not sleep either. He helped the crew set up the sound and light system inside the Town Hall for the party. At 5AM Caroline came back over to my house, and started decorating the Madagascar National Parks (MNP) cars with string decorations and foliage with Ella for the parade. The tee-shirts were supposed to come to Ranomafana town by taxi brousse between 2-3AM that night, but they did not come until 8AM. Nicolas and Gabby were in charge of signing off shirts at my house from the list Lovasoa and Jocelyn made of people who put time in to make sure the festival was a success. Everyone and their mother wanted a free shirt. We emphasized that shirts are for people who participated and worked to make the festival happen. There were a few cars designated to take locals to and from the National Park entrance that morning because FREE entrance was allowed between 6:30AM-7AM that day.

Alain Rasolo teamed up with Christian Menabe to start face painting at Kianja Maitso where the parade would start. Many organizations began to show up from around the region to get their faces painted. They held signs to display their organizations and lemur love.

The parade was scheduled to start at 9AM, but we needed to wait until the authorities arrived. Pat had taken them into the forest to see golden bamboo lemurs and other critically endangered lemur species. It was ultimately a good thing that they were late because our sound system in the back of the lead truck decided to stop working. They had to drive off to get it fixed. People in the parade were anxious to get started. Around 10AM we made a last minute route change, and got the call to start the parade. When the parade reached the Tranompokonolona, the national anthem was playing with all the authorities, so we had to halt the parade in the town center which is also a National Highway. There was no one directing traffic, so I had to step in and block traffic until the anthem was over. People in the parade were hollering and cheering as they marched through town and circled back to fill in the empty space in front of the speeches.

During the speeches, I went back to my house to take a breather and to check on how the tee-shirt distribution was going. We only had enough in our budget to order 200 shirts. Turns out I ordered way too many smalls and not enough larges and extra larges. (Next time, we will have sign up sheets so people can put their name, event job, and shirt size).

I returned to the festival as authority speeches were ending. The VIPs looked thirsty, so I traded water bottles from the shop across the street for some shirts, then passed water out to the kings and other special guests. I recruited some women to help Caroline with educational quizzes and prize giveaways.

The day grew hotter than ever. Organizations wrapped up their education booths, and I went up to Centre ValBio where Dr. Wright and the VIPs were having a late lunch. I got to catch up with them and hear their positive thoughts about the festival. Afterwards, they went to go explore the scarf shop and hot springs, while I joined the festival’s music and poetry competition. The crowd outside brought lots of energy, while Ranomafana’s teachers were setting up for the night party inside. After the competition, we all went to the hot springs to watch the swimming competition at 4pm. The kids who won would go to national swimming competitions. It was so nice and relaxing to finally sit with my team, watch the competition, and celebrate the fruit of our hard work. We gave out awards, and then got some dinner together as the sun went down.

I had not slept for nearly two days, so right after dinner I fell into a deep sleep upon immediate contact with my bed. Around 9PM, I woke up to my neighbor Lova in my front yard yelling “Jessie wake up! Dr. Wright is at the night party. It’s starting!”. Luckily, I live a few houses from town center (and the coincidentally where the party happening), so I quickly put on my dress and dancing shoes and headed in as it was starting. Jocelyn and I joined in the dance. The lighting system was incredible. I’m really impressed with Jocelyn, my team, and how we managed to put all of this together. I sat with Centre ValBio staff a bit and danced as much as I possibly could. My hips were so sore from all the running around the past two days. I stayed until it was time to vote for the music competition winners. I announced the first place winner on stage, and then walked out of the dance to go to bed because I couldn’t stay awake any longer. As I was leaving there were a bunch of people outside waiting to come in. I yelled “MANDROSO!”, which means “come in”. People cheered and started moving towards the entrance as I went home to sleep like a baby.

The night party raised funds to help complete the construction of Ranomafana’s new High School. We will be working with the teachers to include conservation education into their curriculum. I’m so thankful for the handful of people (especially Jocelyn, Lovasoa, Caroline, and Lova), who stuck with me from the beginning. Thousands of people showed up and had a good time at the festival while learning and celebrating the importance of lemurs in our community too. Everyone had good things to say, and I want to give a special shout out to the Oakland Zoo and other supporting partners for making this special conservation event a reality.

Merapoh, Malaysia

I was fortunate to stay with a team of passionate wildlife conservationists at the Malayan Rainforest Station (MRS) during my first few days in Malaysia. I arrived Kuala Lumpur on July 2 mid-morning and hopped on a bus towards Gua Musang. Around dusk I got off at Merapoh where my friend Angus Hamilton and the rest of his team stayed. I was shocked by the humidity that hit my face and fogged up my glasses as I emerged from the heavily air-conditioned bus. Between the climate and blood-thirsty mosquitoes it reminded me of days exploring natural areas in south Florida and documenting breeding behavior of Malayan tigers at the Palm Beach Zoo.

The Malayan Rainforest Station is a research and eco-tourism facility located between the Titwangsa range in the west and Taman Negara National Park to the east. It’s an important corridor for the critically endangered Malayan tiger (only 200 in the wild), and other charismatic and endangered fauna such as Asian elephants, sun bears, gibbons, siamangs, tapirs, clouded leopards, pangolins, and much more. Although hard to spot, there are hundreds of species of birds. Surprisingly little research has been done in this area. Angus is here to survey and create a checklist of local reptiles and amphibians while making more wildlife videos for his project called Life Gone Wild.

My first full day was spent with the eco-tourism team, assisting the locals guides manage an international group of high school students on a trekking challenge into the National Park. I accompanied them on what turned out to be a 16k roundtrip hike to the Elephant Caves. The day was unbelievably hot and humid. We saw signs of tiger, sunbear, and lots of elephant tracks (and dung) along the trails as we trekked deeper into the forest. It was fun to step in the tracks of giant pachyderms and imagine how they might live day to day in this jungle. We also saw signs of sun bear claw marks in trees and some disturbance made by either a tiger or clouded leopard. The coolest animal encounter that day might have been discovering the world’s largest ant species. We could hear gibbons and siamangs calling in the distance. We stopped and had lunch at the base of the towering limestone caves. Large honeycomb bee nests hung from the cliff tops over us. Desperate little bees swarmed to lick up our salty sweat. After lunch we followed more elephant tracks into the cave. There were hundreds of bats squeaking and flying through the cavernous corridors. I was told that elephants and tigers sleep in these caves.

The next morning Angus, Charlotte, and I explored a nearby river in search of snakes. No luck during the day, but Angus will probably return at night after a good rain. Despite the area being highly biodiverse, the animals are harder to spot than expected.

Photo by Jordan Curzon

I was able to talk with Izereen, MRS’s project manager, about his work and passion. He recently caught camera trap footage of a clouded leopard in one of his study sites. He gets hired to evaluate the sustainability on different palm oil plantations in Malaysia, and is an arbitrator for international Bird Races held locally every year. Honestly, he was so busy writing grants and meeting with community partners during my stay that I felt I didn’t get enough time with him.

Luckily, I did get to go out with him and his team to set up a camera trap at a rhinoceros hornbill nest site. This is the only project of its kind studying rhinoceros hornbill nesting behavior via camera traps on the entire Malayan peninsula. We entered the local indigenous village and worked with a local to set up a new camera trap. After driving through a palm oil plantation we got out of the car and walked to a nearby forested area. The nest was in a tree near the forest edge, and was about ten meters high. We needed to figure out how to strap the camera trap onto the neighboring tree same height as the nest. Mosquitoes were out at full force, and it made the whole experience almost unbearable. None of us had bug spray. After about a hundred mosquito bites the only thing to do was to accept the situation.

We needed to make a ladder. We already had a pair of thick bamboo shoots and some branches, but needed rope and nails. Izereen and Ariff drove off to get supplies. I stayed on site with a researcher and the guide. Soon the sound of large graceful wings flapping through the air became louder and louder until the male hornbill flew right over us like a dragon towards his mate in the nest. He fed her some fruit and was off again.

When Izereen and Ariff returned with all the necessary materials they quickly constructed the ladder and carried it to the nest site. It was heavy and required all of us to hoist the ladder into position on the neighboring tree. Ariff climbed to the top of the ladder, a few branches cracking under his weight as he crawled up. Once at the top, he bear hugged his way up the rest of the tree to get level with the nest. His strength and endurance was nothing less than impressive. Minutes seemed to crawl by as I watched him set up the camera trap.

As he finished positioning the camera trap high up the trees, we set up a net at the base of the tree to catch the leftovers mama hornbill tosses from the nest regularly. Izereen is particularly interested in collecting data on their diet. Once that was set up and camouflaged, we started to wrap things up and head back. It was now golden hour, and just as we were leaving we heard the sound of large majestic wings once again. The male had returned. He flew to a dead tree in the clearing. He jumped around branch to branch. He tossed something in his mouth at one point. I was able to snap a few photos before he flew off again.

Later that night Angus, myself, and a couple Eco-teers drove to Gua Musang to experience the night market together. We had mango shakes, fried food, and I even tried durian for the first time. It was indeed stinky and strange tasting. I can see why some people love it and others hate it.

We spent the majority of my last day laying on the tile floor under the fans in the research station’s common area to beat the heat. That night we celebrated with the Eco-teer trekking group. Afterwards, we went on an exciting night survey looking from the back of a pick up truck for animals along the road in a nearby palm oil plantation. We saw a frog, owl, civets, and a leopard cat!

I want to say a special thank you to Angus, Izereen, and the entire Malayan Rainforest Station for inviting me to stay for a couple days. Keep up all the great work you do for the local wildlife in Malaysia. I hope to come back some day and collaborate.

If you’re interested in getting involved or want to make a donation please visit:

www.malayanrainforeststation.com

Stayed tuned for my next blog post about traveling solo in North Sumatra. Particularly to an eco-tourist hotspot called Bukit Lawang adjacent to Gunung Leuser National Park.

Swimming with Dolphins in Tamarin Bay

Swimming with dolphins in the wild is a dream come true for many of us, but is it ok to take a boat out and jump in with them?

When I arrived in Mauritius, my taxi driver asked me if I would like to swim with wild dolphins. I said yes, of course, but as I began to ponder what that actually entailed.. he quickly called his guy and arranged a trip for me.

Dolphin watching is big in Tamarin Bay on the west coast of Mauritius. The whole town is sprinkled with dolphin decorations on everything, and I can only imagine how much money this has generated for the local economy.

I arrived around 8 am and boarded a small boat that could hold maximum 22 people. There were only about 12 people on the boat. We headed north into deeper water, and eventually caught up to about 6 other small boats. The dolphins popped up, and those who chose to could grab a mask and jump in with the guide. 

When the bubbles faded, I began to make out the shapes of dolphins below and to my side. There must have been at least 30 spinner dolphins. I turned around and they were right behind me coming up for air. Just as fast as they came they had left. Within 3 minutes, we were instructed to get back in the boat to catch up to them and jump in again two more times.

After the third time, we visited a snorkel spot. I am not a coral expert, but the reef seemed damaged and there were not as many fish as I was expecting to see. Apparently, boats are not being careful about where they drop their anchors.

Although, it was exciting to swim with wild dolphins, I can’t help but wonder how this is impacting their behavior and the reefs. Does the noise pollution from the boats affect them?

I came across a few past projects on the web that studied this dolphin population and it inspired some regulations on the marine activities, but I’m not sure what the current situation is.

From what I saw, there is room for improvement here for both the animals and the people. I feel compelled to help in some way or another. If you have any information or comments please feel free to let me know.