Conservationist makes ultimate walk on the wild side
Copyright 2001 Associated Press
March 14, 2001
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Conservationist J. Michael Fay has some advice for dealing with wild elephants: Don't turn and run and don't let them outflank you.
He should know. Fay encountered more than 100 wild elephants during a 15-month walk across 1,200 miles of nearly uninhabited central African forest.
Fay discussed his trip Wednesday at the National Geographic Society, where he plans to spend the next year compiling the information collected in his ultimate walk on the wild side.
He also is campaigning to protect this pristine region in Congo and Gabon. Some of the forest already has been logged since he completed his walk last year, Fay said.
There are a few kinds of trees that forest elephants depend on for fruit, and the elephants have made trails that lead to those trees, explained Nick Nichols, a photographer who accompanied Fay on parts of the journey.
"If loggers cut those trees down, there's 600 years of elephant social structure down the drain," Nichols said.
Fay said he made a point of "encountering" each elephant he saw on his trip. Elephants that have been hunted will run from humans, he said, while those not familiar with people will investigate or charge to chase off the stranger.
On one film clip Fay can be seen fending off a charge by waving his arms and yelling, even as the cameraman retreats.
If you turn and run they will chase you, he said, and elephants are very fast.
He also warned
"You should never let elephants outflank you. Their strategy often is for a few members of the group to stare you down while a couple of others move quietly around to your side. You have to change position accordingly or they will all charge, and that will be the end of it."
While the elephants did not harm Fay, he estimates he suffered some 5,000 fly bites on the 460-day walk and, at one time, had 32 foot worms. Eventually he resorted to wrapping his feet in duct tape to protect them.
Nichols suffered a severe bout of hepatitis.
The purpose of the effort was to collect scientific data to help support the campaign to protect these forests.
Fay works for the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and has spent years studying African forests. His long walk was what is known as a transect, a trip along a line through a region, collecting scientific data long the way.
Fay counted 40,000 piles of animal droppings, measured 35,000 trees, filled scores of notebooks with data and videotaped everything possible.
After seeing signs of hundreds of baboons Fay came to one area where there were none. Nearby natives told him the deadly Ebola virus struck two years earlier. He estimates that 10,000 baboons died there without any notice by the outside world.
The goal of each day's walk was to finish where there was water, though that sometimes meant drinking from a muddy pool.
Where there are people, there is disease, but in the forest, away from people, the water was safe to drink, he said.
Out of food at one point, Fay used a satellite phone to call for help. Hours later a plane flew overhead and dropped sacks of food.
Asked how the natives who were helping carry his gear reacted to that, he commented: "In Africa the line between the natural and the supernatural is very thin."
Only Fay completed the full walk, hiring new bearers along the way as others left.
A portion of the trek is featured in the March issue of National Geographic magazine with more coming in August. On Sunday, viewers can see film of his walk on the National Geographic Explorer television show.