Thursday, Aug. 19

Back in Kinshasa, and at last we have some time to relax in the mission where our journey began. It was quite a trip downriver — our “speed” boat had broken down, so we ended up hitching a tow from a leaky pirogue with an ancient 15-horsepower outboard engine. The journey from Tshumbiri to Kinshasa took a day and a night of solid motoring, and we arrived rather bedraggled but happy to have made it in one piece.  But now well rested and re-energized, for the last few days we have been packing specimens, meeting with students and colleagues and getting our export permits in order — as well as making plans for a return next year.

At this point I can’t yet tell you exactly what we have found, or whether the fishes we collected in the Malebo region will provide the clues we are looking for to help us understand why the lower Congo is so extraordinarily rich in species. But I can tell you that every trip I have made to Congo has resulted in new findings and the discovery of more fish species new to science — and I have a strong hunch that this time is going to be no different.

There is so much we have yet to learn about this magnificent river and its fishes. In the Congo we really are in the exploration and discovery phase of science — and expeditions like ours and those of the Congolese students we train are the only way to make sure those discoveries continue to happen. The excitement and rewards of this kind of expeditionary biology are precisely why I chose to become a curator at a major research museum rather than staying on in a university department.

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Wednesday, Aug. 11

Looks like we are back on track.

Just as all hope was fading, the WWF truck rattled into view. It turns out it had broken down en route to meet us, and with no phone service for hundreds of miles there was no way anyone could let us know the problem.

Worries forgotten and with bags piled high on the roof, we squeezed  in for the bone-rattling ride some 60 kilometers inland to the Malebo station. Three dusty hours later we arrived, hungry, tired and very dirty, at our destination. And what a destination — sunrise revealed a beautiful landscape of mixed savanna and forest with small rivers flowing through dense, moist forest. This is one of the last remaining outposts in this part of Central Africa for lion — yes, it’s a tiny population, estimated at around 20, but holding steady and critically important as part of the genetic reservoir of this iconic African animal. But best of all (for us, at least) this place is pretty much ichthyological terra incognita, so just about anything we can learn about the region’s fishes will be of use to the researchers at the station. Part of our goal is to compile a guide to the fishes of the region, as this can be used to help provide the kind of baseline data needed to begin to help the surrounding communities manage this important food resource.

But over and above such development goals, what makes Malebo so great for us is that this is the one place in the country where we can sample both of the main rivers that we think may have given rise to the tremendous diversity of fishes in the lower Congo. Those two prime suspects are the middle Congo River and its huge southern tributary, the Kasai River, and in the Malebo region we can reach small tributaries that flow into both. Neither has been well studied ichthyologically, and there is much work ahead. Yesterday, that work began.

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Sunday, Aug. 8

When doing fieldwork in Congo one thing is for sure: the best-laid plans will very probably go horribly awry. This time it’s nothing too dire, but our “10-hour trip” upriver to the small settlement of Tshumbiri has taken a full three days. It’s been a series of very long days sprawled on top of bags full of our hard, lumpy equipment, slowly motoring upriver. The river is huge here, more than a kilometer wide, and as we struggle upstream we dodge large clumps of grass, some as large as small islands, that flow downstream in the current. The fast boat we hitched a ride on immediately morphed into a slow boat, probably because it was filled to capacity with our field gear, the fishing team and three other passengers who are also trying to reach the Malebo field station, not to survey fishes but to see bonobos.

Our fish team, in addition to Jake and myself, has been joined by my all-time favorite Congolese ichthyologist, Victor Mamonekene, with whom I have worked for many years both in his home country, the Republic of Congo, and here in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Victor is a professor at the University of Marien Ngouabi in Brazzaville (just across the river from Kinshasa), and in addition to being a world-class ichthyologist, he is an accomplished naturalist, a talented linguist and a lover of classical music — he is, in fact, the consummate renaissance man, and you couldn’t wish for better company on a trip like this.

Along with Victor we have the pleasure of Tobit Liyandja’s company. Tobit is a freshly minted graduate from the University of Kinshasa (where he graduated at the top of his class). Tobit loves fishes, and he is hoping to begin ichthyological studies for his master’s degree. This trip is his “testing ground” — his professors at the University of Kinshasa have selected him to accompany us and learn the ropes of ichthyological fieldwork. Needless to say, he is already teaching us a thing or two about survival in the field and making the best of a tricky situation.

The truck which was to take us inland to the World Wide Fund for Nature’s Malebo field station hasn’t arrived. No word, no nothing. Looks like another night in a makeshift camp eating chikwange (Congo’s staple carbohydrate, fermented cassava) and canned sardines and swapping stories. Batteries are running low, and an overcast sky is not giving my solar panel the juice it needs to keep this computer running, so I will sign off now. Hopefully our ride inland to Malebo will arrive tomorrow and we can begin our studies. Ever optimistic, I’ll leave off here, hopefully with more to follow soon.

Thursday, Aug. 5: Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

The Congo River is a place of superlatives. It is the world’s second-largest river basin (only the Amazon is bigger), draining an area the size of Europe. It is so immense that its source waters in the highlands of eastern Africa take more than six months to exit into the Atlantic Ocean.

In his classic novella “Heart of Darkness,” Joseph Conrad’s protagonist, Marlow, describes the river as an immense snake, “uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land,”  a wonderfully evocative description, but also one that is more than a little menacing.  And sadly, it is true that most of the news to come out the Democratic Republic of Congo today describes an epicenter of human misery where more than five million people have died since 2002 — more than in any other conflict since World War II.

Our experiences studying fishes in the Congo River have, however, been overwhelmingly positive, and so far nothing so menacing, or so dark, has befallen us. For the past four years, with support from the National Science Foundation, I and a team of United States and Congolese students and colleagues have been exploring the fish biodiversity of the lower Congo River, which is the head and neck of Conrad’s imaginary snake. Read more…