Manjula goes blogging...

I am sure many of you, at one point or another, have had to play ‘sand detective,’ i.e., examined the disturbed sand on the beach to identify the species that nested or depredated your nest or killed your turtle or simply roamed your beach….Well then, take a look at the above photo… Can you identify the species responsible for disturbing the sand? (Double click on photo to enlarge it). Here are a few hints:
Location: Gamba Beach, Gabon
Turtles generally nesting: leatherbacks and olive ridleys and the occasional green and hawksbill.
Don’t read on…take a guess!

Okay, another hint: it is the same species that is responsible for the brown pile in the foreground of the below photo:

Yes, you probably got it! It is Loxodonta africana, the African elephant. Having seen only ghost crabs, raccoons, green iguanas, monkeys, freshwater turtles, monitor lizards, tyras, and the elusive jaguar on nesting beaches, it was rather thrilling to discover that there are corners of the world where elephants come down to the beach…We walked a long ways on Setté Cama beach (north of Gamba) at dusk hoping to catch a glimpse of these giants of the forest, however, we didn’t see any. But early morning, they showed up at camp and below is my only photograph of them as they walked by foraging in the trees around:

Yes, somewhere in the darkness of that photo is an elephant :) Alexis Billes (ECOFAC/Kudu Programme Coordinator in Gabon) and I tried to follow them and almost bumped into the rear end of one of them as we turned a corner! Besides elephants, hippos can be seen on the beach or in the surf as well as wild buffaloes, but no hippo or buffalo sightings for me on this trip…