ITFC as I
experienced it back then- Bob Drewes
1990 Bob Drewes at Ngoto
Swamp
"I
first visited IFCP (the Impenetrable Forest Conservation Project as it
was known then) in 1990 at
the invitation of Tom
Butynski and Jan Kalina who
were running the project at the time.
This was before the forest
was gazette as a National
Park. On the recce, I was
accompanied by an old friend
from Kenya, John Miskell and
the ornithologist John Ashe.
Together, I think they
eventually wrote the birds
of Somalia."
1990 Jens Vindum and Bob Drewes
in Ishasha Gorge
"At Tom
and Jan's invitation, we
then did a two-month survey
of the amphibian fauna,
looking for hotspots in
anticipation of the
development of gorilla
tourism. This was in the
fall of 1990 and I invited
Professor Harry Greene (now
of Cornell University, but then UC
Berkeley) to join us. Harry
later wrote 'Snakes: The Evolution
of Mystery in Nature', in
which he reminisces about
our hike to Omubiyanja
Swamp. This expedition was
written up in Outside
magazine, as we were also
joined by an old friend Mike
McRae, who is a professional
journalist."
1990 Our camp at Ngoto Swamp, in
Bwindi
"We
returned for another two
months in 1996 to survey the
reptile fauna.
By
then, the Park had become
Bwindi Impenetrable N.P. and
ITFC was run by Simon
Jennings. I think we were
the "test case" for the new UWA permit guidelines and
had quite a time of it. This
time, I invited Prof. Alan
Channing who has since
written two guides: one to
the amphibians of South and
Central Africa and one to
the amphibian fauna of East
Africa. On
both long expeditions, our
main field man was Jens
Vindum, who is still Senior
Collections Manager here in
the Department of
Herpetology."
1996 Jens Vindum and Alan
Channing
1996 fly camp Omubiyanja.
Sofia Vonesh, James Vonesh,
Dan Gallagher, Jens Vindum
And
for those who are unaware of
the Bwindi herp site, here
is the url:
http://research.calacademy.org/redirect?url=http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/herpetology/frogs/
[1]
Fondest regards to our old
friends and their students."
Robert
C. Drewes, is a Curator
& Section Head, Herpetology
with California Academy of
Sciences- San Francisco.
Gulf of Guinea Islands
Project:
http://www.calacademy.org/medialibrary/blogs/gulfofguinea/ |