Back in the office and daydreaming of Pongara…

Cool Guitarfish I saw swimming along the shore.

Tomorrow I’ll head off to Akanda National Park, a half hour drive north of Libreville. I’ll be surveying for manatees and juvenile sea turtles (likely greens, but also possibly hawksbills) with Angela, a sea turtle colleague who works here. Akanda may not have many manatees due to it’s proximity to Libreville (there are also a few fishing villages there), but a carcass was reported there last year and it’ll be interesting to check out another protected area. I’ll be offline from Friday-Sunday, hopefully they’ll be time for one more post before I fly to the US on Monday night.

This is a nice map of Gabon’s national parks that I found on the internet. In my 7 weeks here I will have surveyed Mayumba, Loango, a western section of Ogooue (Lambarene and Evaro), and Akanda for manatees, so I feel that I have been able to see a wide representation of the country’s protected areas and different manatee habitats.