Faces of the Ekongo forest

Bild 1: Fotos wie diese Aufnahme helfen dabei, auch unter weniger günstigen Beobachtungsbedingungen Individuen zu erkennen und tragen dazu bei, die Gesellschaft der Ekongo-Bonobos besser kennenzulernen.
Bild 2/Figure 2: Diede Piepenbrock hat im Studium ihre Faszination für Primatenverhalten, Ökologie und Naturschutz entdeckt. Bevor sie nach Ekongo kam, beschäftigte sie sich mit dem Verhalten wilder Klammeraffen in Ecuador.
Diede Piepenbrock discovered her fascination for primate behaviour, ecology and conservation as a student. Before arriving in Ekongo, she studied wild spider monkeys in Ecuador.
Bild 3/Figure 3: Camilo Camacho ist Primatenforscher und Naturschützer aus Kolumbien wo er als Forscher und Projektkoordinator Erfahrungen mit Naturschutzprojekten sammelte.
Camilo Camacho is primate researcher and conservationist from Columbia where he worked as research coordinator for a project focused on the conservation of brown-headed spider monkeys in Ecuador.
Getting wild primates used to tolerate the proximity of humans can be a great challenge. Patience, perseverance and skill are required to overcome their natural fear towards humans, their main enemy. It often takes years until they stop their flight behaviour and even if this threshold is crossed, it can still take a long time before they tolerate people in their immediate vicinity. When the bonobos in the Ekongo forest encounter people, they have stopped reacting to the two-legged creatures with alarm calls. As long as they are in the trees, they can be observed. On the ground, however, they still keep a comfortable distance. In order to learn more about the bonobo society of Ekongo, camera traps have been set up for some time to obtain close-up images so that the different individuals can be identified. The aim is to find out who is travelling with whom and which bonobos tend to avoid each other. For a long time, the shy apes gave camera traps a wide berth. Slowly but surely, this aversion is subsiding and the first images are now available that can be used for reliable identification (Figure 1). This method provides important information, but is no substitute for direct observation. This is why assistants are out in the forest every day trying to stay on the bonobos' heels for as long as possible. The Ekongo Project is funded by the Ouwehand Zoo Foundation. With this commitment, the Foundation helps protecting bonobos and other endangered species in the buffer zone of Salonga National Park. Diede Piepenbrock (Figure 2) and Camilo Camacho (Figure 3) arrived in Ekongo in March and have been on the trail of the shy bonobos together with the Congolese assistants ever since. She comes from the Netherlands, he from Colombia, but the two are a well-rehearsed team who know each other from previous work in conservation projects. Before making Ekongo their new home, they were out and about in neighbouring LuiKotale where bonobos are accustomed to human proximity since many years. Now they are working hard to get as close as possible to the bonobos in Ekongo. Every hour of observation is still hard-won and the early-morning march to the nest group does not always guarantee success. Diede and Camilo know that they are tackling a particularly difficult task and that they need to learn more about the bonobos and the forest in order to get closer to their goal.
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