Corn Bunting

I have been working recently on various 2020VISION assignments. 


Wallasea Island is part of the Thames Futurescapes Project and a major coastal realignment plan. To mitigate for farmland bird habitat loss when Wallasea Island is flooded the RSPB have given over several hectares of the island to rotated conservation crops. This is currently holding a flock of up to 200 corn buntings, one of the UK's declining farmland species.

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Wildlife Trade Cambodia

Billboard in Koh Kong

I'm very pleased that my image of a female pileated gibbon - herself rescued from the wildlife trade and photographed at a rescue centre in Thailand - is being used by Wildlife Alliance in Cambodia to raise awareness about the illegal trade in wild animals.   A series of signs and billboards have been erected around Phnom Penh and Koh Kong with more planned. 

Wildlife Alliance operate the Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team and the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center  to address wildlife trade law enforcement and rehabilitation of confiscated animals. It's easy to become despondent when faced with the scale of wildlife trade in Asia (or anywhere else) but Wildlife Alliance are having a real impact in Cambodia. It makes what I do feel worthwhile when I see my work used in this way.

 Phnom Penh
Sign translation: “HELP ME! Together we can stop illegal wildlife trafficking in Cambodia. Report Wildlife Crimes: 012-500-094”

 Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh

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A Touch of Wind

Driving past the wind farm on Romney Marsh recently I noticed how the the light was striking individual turbines as the clouds drifted over. I thought it might make an interesting time lapse but of course, by the time I was set up the clouds were thinning. There is a brutal jump between clips that really jars but whichever way I edit them together it's ugly. Back to the drawing board.

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Vietnam Endangered Primate Tour

It was around eight years ago when Frank Momberg, then the Vietnam Country Director for Fauna and Flora International (FFI), Canadian Biologist Michelle Tung and I had lunch in a  cool tree-shaded Hanoi courtyard restaurant. We talked about primate based tourism as a means to provide funds to local communities that were protecting isolated groups of critically endangered species of leaf-eating monkeys and gibbons. These were interesting times as FFI had field biologists like Le Khac Quyet scouting remnant karst forests in northern and central Vietnam and new populations of crested gibbons and Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys had recently been discovered. And more have been found since then. All were living in remote, unprotected forests that although had not been deforested due to the difficult terrain, were under pressure from fuelwood collection and hunting for food and  medicinal products.

FFI was setting up community-based protection for these populations and helping local and national government agencies get to grips with firearms control and hunting. Frank was keen to find a way for the communities to generate income sustainably from the primates that would directly benefit the local people and give them an incentive not only to protect the wildlife but eventually expand the habitat. Frank has since moved on to a regional role but Paul Insua Cao, FFI’s s China-Indochina Primate Programme Manager and I have continued to explore specialist primate photography tours as a means to generate funds for the community and also help raise awareness back home about the plight of these critically endangered, but little known, species. 

 Karst Forest at Khao Ca

Villager collecting fuelwood, Van Long Nature Reserve

I made several trips to Vietnam around then and since with support from FFI and other NGOs to photograph primates. Although I had a very successful trip for Delacour's langur at Van Long my main interest was, and still is, the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey, a strange- looking character thought to be extinct until rediscovered in the early nineties and now thought to number around 200 individuals in several isolated populations. I first tried at Na Hang Nature Reserve working with  the Peoples Resource and Conservation Foundation www.prcfoundation.org and the Forest Protection Dept. Based in a lovely village of bamboo houses and paddy fields, 2 Rangers and I hiked up into the forest and looked over miles of forest from a karst outcrop. It was difficult to pin down exactly when TSNM had last been seen in this area or even if there were any left in this part of the reserve. The rangers, who were not used to babysitting foreigners in the forest moved very quickly, almost running, in very steep and difficult terrain and carrying heavy photo equipment it was impossible for me to keep up with them. To be honest, even without the kit, I wouldn’t have come close to keeping up with them. With a small population of monkeys (maybe) in a large forest this clearly wasn’t going to work. 

Community Ranger Mr Khoan watching for snub-nosed monkeys, Khau Ca

My next attempt was at Khau Ca where FFI’s Le Khac Quyet had recently discovered a small population of TNSM in a remnant karst forest surrounded by villages and agriculture. I was guided by 2 members of the local community, Mr Hap and Mr Khoan. Based in a tiny hut at the forest edge, 6 km from and 600m higher than the village, Khoan and I hiked into the forest each day to look for monkeys. Although still in difficult terrain, Khoan was much more experienced at finding and watching wildlife and we moved at a sensible pace and as quietly as possible. Khoan found monkeys 3 out of 5 days and although I got photos on 2 of those days I didn’t get anything of the quality I needed. It was immensely frustrating and today, with digital, I would have been able to get much more than I did. It was just too soon though. The population had only recently been discovered and although protection measures had already been implemented the monkeys were still extremely shy. If they got the slightest hint of our presence, alarm calls would sound and they would be gone. Quyet had good photos already - he has amazing ones now - but he was able to spend long periods alone in the forest. And he has an uncanny skill in finding and photographing these animals. It’s different today. It will be just as challenging to get to the place and find the monkeys but they feel more secure and are starting to become habituated to people. A Chinese film crew recently got good images of TSNM (and Cao Vit gibbon at Trung Khanh) and so the time is right to take small groups of photographers into these places with a reasonable expectation of success.   

It’s taken a long time to get from that lunch in Hanoi to here and it still feels like we are only now taking the first steps. Vietnam Endangered Primate Photo Tour 

 Delacour's langur group, Van Long Nature Reserve

 Delacour's langur group, Van Long Nature Reserve

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Amazing Time Lapse

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

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Donna Nook Seal Update

Last year I wrote about the issues surrounding the Donna Nook grey seal colony in Lincolnshire.Link.

Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust have issued a statement that would appear to vindicate their position. Obviously one year's data is not enough to form a firm conclusion but it's pretty convincing. The statement is posted below with permission from LWT. 

Donna Nook Statement 2011

The Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust’s management of the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve allows tens of thousands of people to enjoy the incredible annual spectacle of pupping grey seals without causing damaging disturbance to the very animals they come to see.

However, uncontrolled access to the seals about a mile out across the beach had been building from 2006, reaching a peak of 1,500 people in 2009.  This was thought to be a contributing factor to the otherwise unexplained rise in mortality amongst the seal pups in this outer sand banks area.  In response to this, in 2010, the Wildlife Trust requested that all visitors remained behind the fence line and did not venture out onto the beach. 

The Wildlife Trust is thankful to all the very kind and supportive photographers and other visitors who did stay off the beach.  The result was a dramatic fall in the mortality of pups in the outer sand banks area, despite extremely harsh weather conditions and the coldest December on record.  The 80% drop in numbers of people on the beach coincided with a 50% drop in the pup mortality. 

Disappointingly, 314 people refused to cooperate.  All but two of these people, went on to the beach with the sole purpose of photographing the seals, of those the majority were with organised commercial groups, members of photographic clubs or professional photographers from overseas (including those from Holland and Germany where access to seal colonies has been banned due to disturbance).

Pup mortality in the outer sand banks remains higher than in the dunes area, perhaps because of those who insist on ignoring the Wildlife Trust’s request.  If all visitors remained behind the protective fence, it is possible that the mortality of these pups could be reduced further.

Visitors captured some stunning images from behind the fence, dispelling the myth that you can’t get good photos there.  It is a credit to those who have used their skill and ingenuity to capture excellent images without causing any problems to seals or upsetting other visitors.

In light of this evidence, during the seal pupping in 2011, the Wildlife Trust will continue to request that all visitors watch and photograph the seals from the viewing area and that nobody walks amongst the seals on the beach.

Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, October 2011

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Endangered Dolphins Down Under

Article in today's Grauniad about Hector's dolphins, the world's most endangered marine dolphin species - apparently. I photographed the above pair off Akaroa on the Bank's Peninsula a couple of years ago.

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