Dominic Travis, DVM, MS–Veterinary Epidemiologist

Destinations: Gombe National Park and Ngorogoro Crater Conservation Area, Tanzania, East Africa

Dates: Aug. 12-31, 2005
Dominic’s first major destination is Gombe National Park to work on a study of disease risk and prevention in chimpanzees. In collaboration with Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) and the Tanzanian Park Authority (TANAPA), Dominic is joined by Elizabeth Lonsdorf, Ph.D., Director of Lincoln Park Zoo’s Lester E. Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes.

August 15, 2005
It’s 4 a.m. in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and I’m adjusting to Africa again on the first night after a long two days of travel—Chicago to London to Muscat (Oman) to Dar es Salaam. The Muslim call to prayer echoes from the mosque next door, crows are cawing right outside my window and somewhere nearby a cat is fighting with something.

I am staying with Doug Cress, head of the Pan African Sanctuary Alliance, and his family at their house overlooking the Indian Ocean. It’s cool here right now and raining hard. I think about mosquitoes as I try to put myself to sleep by reading the latest scientific literature on malaria, while attempting to keep from touching or getting tangled in my bed’s mosquito netting.

Tomorrow I will attempt to fly to Kigoma and then catch the boat to Gombe National Park. Unfortunately, the only airline that flies to Kigoma (one flight a day, six days a week) has no record of my reservation so I am on standby for tomorrow’s flight. Supposedly I’ve made a “real” reservation for the next day if tomorrow’s flight is full.

More then from either Dar or Kigoma.

August 17, 2005
Arrived here in Kigoma late yesterday after waiting on standby for two and a half hours at the Precision Air counter in Dar es Salaam. Kigoma is a major ferry port about 10 km north of Ujiji, where Dr. Livingston was “presumed” by Mr. Stanley and where explorers Burton and Speke “discovered” Lake Tanganyika in 1858.

My flight followed the railroad from Dar es Salaam to the shores of Lake Tanganyika. The plane was small and the flight bumpy, but visibility was high and the scenery was beautiful.

Met Mike Wilson, Jane Goodall Institute’s (JGI) director of field research for Gombe Stream Research Centre, and Jared Bakuza, a graduate student and Lincoln Park Zoo’s Tanzanian project manager, at the JGI offices. Spent the night at Mike’s and stayed up until 2:30 a.m. discussing the chimpanzee-health project--particularly how to implement a plan of action for the project’s new Tanzanian veterinarian, Dr. Jane Raphael.

A young chimpanzee died recently in the Gombe National Park, and Jane was able to perform a complete necropsy. Although everyone was saddened by the passing, Jane’s necropsy results will provide valuable information that could help prevent future deaths.

Today Jared and I are headed down to the lakeshore to ride a boat to the research center in Gombe. The boat travels north along the lakeshore and, depending on wind and waves, takes about three hours to reach the park.

August 24 , 2005
I am just back off the boat from Gombe National Park, where I spent the last week working on our ecosystem-health project with Project Manager Jared Bakuza and our newly hired Tanzanian Project Veterinarian Jane Raphael.

The chimpanzee health-monitoring project is really starting to gel now: the parasitology lab is up and running and Jared is becoming proficient at parasite identification; samples are also sent regularly to Lincoln Park Zoo for verification.

The trackers and researchers now complete a health checksheet for every chimpanzee they follow or observe, and the new veterinarian stands ready to conduct necropsies (animal autopsies) on deceased animals and make visual assessments of health problems.

It’s the end of the dry season and the weather at Gombe is pleasant. I was lucky enough to experience the first rain showers of the wet season and I learned what a cloudburst in the tropics feels like without a poncho—aargh!

I spent six days in the park, usually awakening before sunrise to hike up to where the chimpanzees were seen to nest the previous evening. Mornings were then spent following the apes, collecting fecal and urine samples, and refining the data-collection process.

At night we have long discussions about how to fine-tune the project, particularly how to best use Jane’s skills as a veterinarian and how to educate the staff on the importance of following protocols (e.g. wearing gloves).

I’m am now sending a flurry of e-mails to confirm the next stage of my trip to the Serengeti National Park, where I will meet with officials from the Carnivore Disease Project to launch a new collaboration. After the Serengeti I will try to catch up with Nobby Cordiero, the zoo’s Tanzanian research fellow working in the Eastern Arc Mountains.

I have just heard that I am not only “confirmed” (a relative term here) on today’s flight from Gombe to Dar es Salaam but that I am also “booked” tomorrow on a flight from Dar es Salaam to Arusha to the Serengeti National Park. Fingers crossed!

Monday, August 29, 2005
Got to Serengeti last night after the great Craterball Run. Not since “Cannonball Run” has there been an overland trip such as I experienced yesterday. First, I flew from Dar es Salaam to Arusha, Tanzania and met up with Christine Mentzel, who works for our collaborators in the Serengeti National Park. When our Land Rover “wouldn’t go” we were stranded in Arusha with no available flights to the Serengeti.

Some TAWIRI (Tanzanian Wildlife Research Institute) researchers offered us a ride to Seronera (in the Serengeti). But our noon departure time came and went. We finally left Arusha around 4 p.m. The gate to Serengeti National Park closes at 6 p.m. sharp and it is usually a 4-5 hour drive from Arusha, about half of which is over unpaved roads.

After leaving Arusha, we went through vast, arid plains, past Tarangire and Manyara National Parks, up the rift escarpment and into the Ngorogoro Conservation Area. We sped down the gravel road, stopped for a minute on the edge of world-famous Ngorogoro Crater to check tire pressure, then resumed our bumping, jostling, high-speed journey across open plains, passing buffalo, giraffe, warthog, antelope, elephant and local Maasai herding goats.

As we approached the gate to Serengeti National Park, almost 1.5 hours late, the TAWIRI folks said we might get through if the guards were in a good mood. They were and we were off on another breakneck 1.5 hour drive, now in the dark. Tired, sore, and a bit bruised, we arrived here in Seronera after 9 p.m.—a long travel day even by African standards.

Later this morning I’ll be heading out to work with the team that is vaccinating domestic dogs for canine distemper and rabies as part of the Carnivore Disease Project.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005
I woke up this morning in Seronera, Serengeti National Park, and looked out over the Serengeti plain for the first time from the veranda of “Disease House.” Here at the Serengeti Research Institute, each group of researchers lives in a house named after their its project: (e.g., Hyena House, Cheetah House, Lion House, Biodiversity House). Disease House refers to the distemper and rabies project that Lincoln Park Zoo is now collaborating on with Craig Packer, Ph.D., from the University of Minnesota and Sarah Cleaveland, Ph.D., from the University of Edinburgh.

The project will create a “buffer” around the park by vaccinating feral and semi-feral dogs in neighboring villages for canine distemper and rabies. Our role is to help with vaccinations on the east side of the park in the Ngorogoro Conservation Area and Loliondo region.

I went out with the vaccination team–Christine Mentzel, Tanzanian veterinarian Ernest Eblate, and several “all purpose” field assistants–which moves from village to village in the regions surrounding the park. We are always accompanied by local agricultural-health officials. Depending on the size of the village and the number of people willing to participate (participation is not mandatory), the team vaccinates dogs in as many as six villages each week.

Participation in the program continues to grow as the result of education efforts and increased trust on the part of the villagers. The first village we visited had about 40 participants—twice as many as last year but still far fewer than we had hoped for. In some villages there are hundreds of people lined up at 8 a.m., often waiting for hours to have their dogs vaccinated.

The vaccination project was created in response to an outbreak of distemper in the 90’s that wiped out a third of the park’s lion population. After spending time with the vaccination team, the Serengeti Lion Project’s Henry Brink and Kirsten Skinner took me out to see how they monitor the health of the population. We followed five radio-collared prides of lions and collected a range of data on their health, location, and general condition. There are 24 radio-collared prides and each is located once each week.

After a productive visit in the Serengeti, I will start the long journey back to Chicago tomorrow.

Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Yesterday, I caught a ride back to Arusha with some of the lion researchers. Their vehicle is 10 years old and—and shows it—so the trip was a long eight hours of bumpy, rattling, dusty fun, punctuated by frequent stops to let the engine cool down. Traveling in daylight, coupled with a slower speed, enabled me to spot more wildlife than on my way into the Serengeti. Highlights of my exit trip include spotting a female cheetah with four cubs, several large herds of plains zebra and a secretary bird.

I leave Arusha in a couple of hours for Dar es Salaam and then head back to Chicago tomorrow morning. This was one of our most productive trips to Gombe and it was exciting to start our new collaboration in the Serengeti. But it has been an exhausting three weeks of rough travel, long days and even longer meetings. I am ready to start my three-day journey home – Arusha to Dar es Salaam to Muscat, Oman to Frankfurt, Germany and finally Chicago.