Predators I Have Known (18 page)

Two final owlish observations: the great horned owls, like the hawks, are permanent residents in our canyon. Many a summer’s night, we see them sitting in their favorite trees and hear them hooting back and forth. I have tried hooting at them in turn, and flatter myself that they answer me. In reality, they are doubtless just continuing to call among themselves, no doubt saying something like, “Don’t you wish that stupid mammal would just
shut up
?”

And the other thing I have learned about great horned owls . . . ?

You cannot imagine the sheer volume of their nightly defecations, the kitchen-sink whiteness of it, and how hard it can be to try and remove the stuff from patio flagstone once it has had a chance to dry. It sets like tub grout. The daily output of an entire flock of pigeons does not begin to compare.

Central Gabon, January 2007

CARNIVORE OR HERBIVORE?

When you walk through the rain forest and suddenly encounter nothing but an eye or two staring back at you, when you can see nothing but unmoving pupil and glassy reflection and no body, how do you tell whether the animal behind the eye desires to eat you, avoid you, or a little of both? It frequently depends on circumstance, conditions, your presumed palatability on the part of the eye’s owner, and a dozen or more other variables. All of them usually beyond your control.

The forests of central Gabon are among the least disturbed remaining in Africa. This is because Gabon is fortunate in having a low population-to-land ratio compared to many of its neighbors, boasts a fair amount of mountainous terrain unsuitable for easy slash-and-burn agriculture, and has managed to utilize at least some of the money acquired from the sale of its oil for purposes other than lining the pockets of its leaders, or “big men” as they are often called in Africa. The country also generates substantial income from the sale of forest products, yet remains percentage-wise one of the most forested countries on Earth.

All of this allows for the existence of national parks that in many places actually serve the function of national parks instead of private preserves for local exploiters. Within their boundaries, I have been fortunate to see some of Gabon’s many animal wonders: elephants foraging on beaches fronting the surf-tossed Atlantic; large primates like the black-capped mangabey and black colobus monkey that do not automatically flee at the sight of a human; the forest buffalo (smaller than their Cape cousins); and the outrageous red river hog, which with the white stripe down its back, facial bumps, long tufted ears, striking rust-red coloring, and the porcine equivalent of a Fu Manchu mustache, looks like a giant pig that’s been tricked out by a southern California custom car shop. I have seen hippo tracks on the beach (though alas, not their makers in the water) and chimpanzees in the forests of Loango. In Lopé National Park, a startled young silverback gorilla once paced our 4x4 for half a mile, astonishing us not only with its endurance but its speed.

But of all Gabon’s mammalian wonders, none is more intriguing than the forest elephant. No, it’s not a predator, but its size, elusiveness, and temperament make it more of a real threat to visitors than the scarce leopard or gentle gorilla.

My sister and I were staying at the Tassi Camp, a tented facility located a full day’s drive over rain-soaked tracks from the main lodge at Loango. Tassi is situated on the crest of a gentle slope overlooking damp, muddy, flat ground interspersed with sizable patches of dense forest. A short drive westward leads to uninhabited coast that is in full view of the camp. I went bodysurfing there one day, the only recreational swimmer for dozens of miles in either direction, too content to worry about sharks and the far more potentially dangerous medical debris that arrives on the current from the mouth of the Congo River not far to the south.

Our guide had been brought in from his own well-established safari operation in Zambia to help expand and professionalize the still very new tourist facilities in Loango. Though hailing originally from New Zealand, he had long since joined the community of the African bush, a neighborhood that knows no nationality save Nature. Quickly discerning that I was not a fresh-faced insurance salesman from Des Moines embarking on his first visit to the jungle, he artfully shifted his ongoing narration away from tourist generalities and became more specific and conversational. It was not necessary for him, for example, to instruct my sister and me to avoid picking up snakes or going for a hike sans full water bottle and something to eat.

Tassi is a strange place to trek. Every step you take on the open, rain-saturated terrain, you are likely to see your feet sink into muck and mud that sometimes swallows you halfway to your knees. In every direction, clumps of forest beckon. The sodden air within their boundaries is no less humid than that out on the flat coastal plain, but at least the leaves and branches of the trees offer some protection from direct sunlight. It was within these mottled woods that one morning we caught a glimpse of stocky black shapes traveling in a line. Wild chimps. A big male glanced once in our direction, and then they were gone.

My experience in similar surroundings notwithstanding, our guide (like any guide) had his ground rules. The one he repeated more often than any other was, “Forest elephants can be almost invisible. If we should happen to surprise any, whatever you do,
don’t run
.” Along with a handful of other rules, this admonition was repeated every time we set out for a walk.

I soon surmised that the urgency with which this caution was repeated might have something to do with a local forest elephant the staff at the camp had nicknamed Cruella. While the other amiable members of her foraging family group were content to avoid the open camp, Cruella had concluded that there was food to be had within. Whenever visitors arrived, she would magically appear that same night to try and force her way into the food lockers. With no substantial structure at hand in which to secure supplies, the staff had taken to placing the lockers high up in a tree sturdy enough to be elephant-proof. This primitive but highly effective ploy did not sit well with Cruella.

Our first midnight at Tassi, we were awakened by the sounds of shouting and the repeated loud honking and engine-revving of our four-wheel drive. Fumbling for a flashlight, I stumbled out of my cot and to the entrance of our tent. It turned out that I didn’t need the light. Less than a hundred yards away, a frustrated Cruella was confronting our Land Cruiser. With half the camp staff on board, it charged at her repeatedly. The driver revved the engine as loudly as he could while everyone in the open back end stood wildly waving their arms and yelling at the tops of their lungs. The aggravated elephant would make a charge, halt abruptly, flare her ears, trumpet her resentment, and then retreat, whereupon the entire process would repeat itself, only with her now positioned farther from the camp.

Standing in the tent opening, my sister and I watched this peculiarly African ballet for about an hour until Cruella, furious and defeated, turned and stomped off into the nearest patch of forest.

On previous travels, I had been variously awakened from a sound sleep by the plaintive wail of emergency sirens, the carousing of drunken revelers, bawling lions, high seas, and, in Saint Petersburg, an attractive Russian hooker mistakenly sent to my room by a member of the staff at the hotel where I happened to be staying who hoped I might be in need of some nocturnal company. But never before by an elephant dueling with a car.

Cruella had her revenge, though. Slipping quietly into camp the following night, she proceeded to pummel her tormentor mercilessly, bending the driver’s side rearview mirror in half and putting one of her tusks right through the windshield on the passenger side. Viewing such damage, one suspects there must be places in Africa where you can buy elephant insurance for your vehicle.

While this destruction formed the basis for some predictable light banter on the day following Cruella’s Revenge, as it quickly came to be called, it was not taken lightly as we set out on our last morning’s hike at Tassi. Out on the open, bumpy, muddy surface, we could see for miles, but we knew we would have to be more cautious when we entered the patchwork forest. Somewhere in our immediate neighborhood brooded one seriously dyspeptic pachyderm, whom none of us had any desire to surprise.

When possible, all safari walks in Africa are done in the morning and the late afternoon, not only to avoid the heat of midday but because the animals do the same and those are the best times for wildlife sightings. As we walked, we encountered some red river hogs, a pair of sitatungas, and the usual exotic birds, but for the most part, that morning at Tassi tended toward tranquillity. As the sun rose, the humidity increased along with it. Off to my right, I could hear but not see the booming surf. With each boggy step, the thought of another dip in the ocean increased its appeal.

We were hiking out on the mucky, treeless flats parallel to a clump of forest. As with all tropical forests, wherever there is an absence of trees, the undergrowth explodes to produce what appears to be a solid wall of green. This is no reflection on the equal fecundity of the forest’s interior, which often boasts ample room between individual boles in which to walk, but rather has to do with the much greater availability of unobstructed sunlight. This is why tropical rivers appear to be lined with impenetrable jungle. Every square inch of space is filled with verdure as plants on the fringes of forest or growing along riverbanks take every advantage of the precious, unblocked, energy-producing sunshine. As we walked, our guide was searching the green barrier on our right for a suitable place where we could enter.

In the motionless water-heavy air, the thunderous blast of sound that erupted from the trees resounded as loudly as Gabriel’s horn announcing the apocalypse—except that this herald came equipped with her own built-in trumpet. I thought instantly of the bent side-view mirror and the hole in the tough glass of the Land Cruiser’s windshield. Our guide’s reaction was instantaneous.

“RUN!”
he yelled at the top of his lungs as he turned to his left and burst into a mad sprint perpendicular to the trees.

I started to comply, only to have my leg pause literally halfway off the ground as I gaped at him in confusion. My sister stood frozen, her gaze darting rapidly back and forth between guide and brother. I don’t think I stammered.

“But you said not to run under any circumstan—”

“
Run, run!
” He slowed his pace long enough to look back at the trees and at us, but he did not stop.

Unsurprisingly, we ran.

A couple of hundred yards away, we were forced to stop to catch our breath. Perspiration poured down the length of our bodies like slender threads of channeled whitewater. Looking back at the section of forest we had been a mere couple of steps from entering, we saw nothing. No movement, and no sign of whichever elephant had startled us into anxious flight.

“Cruella?” Bent over with her hands on her knees, my sister was panting hard, but she hadn’t fallen. As was her preference, she had been hiking barefoot.

“Possibly.” Our guide was studying the motionless trees intently, still not wholly content with the distance we had put between them and ourselves. “No way of telling unless she comes out.”

“How close were we?” my sister asked.

I looked at her, then I looked at our guide. He looked at me.

“Too close,” he said. “A matter of feet, not yards. She was right there, just inside the first branches.”

I had not seen so much as a trace of elephant. I did my best not to sound accusing. “You told us not to run.”

He didn’t hesitate. “Almost every time, you
don’t
run. Ninety-eight percent of the time, you don’t run.” He nodded in the direction of the trees from whence the overwhelming blast of sound had originated. “But when you’re that close, you run. Might well have been a mother with a calf. Just letting us know we were getting too close.”

As we slugged down the contents of our water bottles, a part of me was sorry we had not seen the elephant in question. It would have been interesting to know its identity. And while I realize that I am succumbing to easy anthropomorphizing, I cannot escape this image of Cruella, lying on her back in the forest with her forelegs crossed over her chest, trunk in the air, laughing some self-satisfied, uncontrollable, elephant laugh.

* * *

Mikongo Camp lies not in the Congo but deep within Lopé National Park in the center of Gabon. Its simple but sturdy individual wooden chalets boast showers, large beds, and plenty of mosquito netting, though nothing can keep rain-forest bugs completely out of any building. As you go about your business, you learn to dance around the potentially dangerous ones, admire the attractive ones, and ignore the ants. It’s their forest, after all.

With a pair of dedicated trackers, we were off searching for mountain lowland gorillas. As the hours wore on and we found ourselves struggling up and down mud-slicked jungle paths, we found plenty of gorilla spoor but were unable to catch up to the local group itself. We were advancing along a trail cut into the side of a steep hill when my sister stopped in front of me. Intent on keeping watch for insects and other denizens of the forest floor (we had encountered a young green mamba the day before), it dawned on me that not only had everyone stopped, but they had gone completely silent.