The Yasuni Biosphere Reserve sits at the intersection of the Andes, the Equator, and the western Amazon region, an ecological bull’s-eye where extremely rich communities of plants, amphibians, birds, and mammals in South America converge. A single hectare of Yasuni forest contains 100,000 insect species, more varieties than recorded anywhere else.
Within a 2-square-mile area, researchers have identified 200 species of mammals, including 10 of primates, 100 of bats and big cats like jaguars and pumas. Scientists have determined that on average 655 tree species spring from every hectare of the Yasuní, more than are native to the continental United States and Canada combined. And our birding destination: Shiripuno Lodge is located right in the middle of all this biological richness. Visitors are limited to only 500 people per year to insure that the area is maintained in pristine condition. Shiripuno Lodge is not your typical tourist destination; the forest there is the real deal.
Each year about 12.000 to 15.000 tourists begin their trip to the jungle by flying into Coca airport. Most of these tourists are destined for the high-volume lodges, which have been built along the majestic Napo River. We also begin our trips in Coca, but after that, all similarity with other tours ends. From Coca, we head south into the heart of the Waorani territories, leaving the degraded forests of the Napo behind. Once we leave town, we won’t be returning until the end of the trip. If we forget something, we’ll just have to live without it.
We drive south on Auca Road for about 120 km until we reach the Shiripuno River. The road was originally built for oil extraction, but settlers soon followed to take advantage of the easy access it provided to new land. Farms and ranches now line both sides of the road, with a couple of small boom towns thrown in for good measure–all of very recent origin. Given the limitations of the soil, it isn’t surprising that local agriculture fairs poorly, which makes the panorama of activity here is very dynamic. Auca Road is a microcosm of what is happening to the Amazon wilderness on a wider scale. First, a road built by the government or large corporation, and then people quickly use the new road to raze the forest and extract natural resources at a furious pace. The signs of destruction end at the banks of the Shiripuno River.
The forest downstream is largely unexplored. This is because the land is owned by the Waorani who have not always welcomed the outside world. For most of human history, very few people were allowed entry into this part of the Amazon. As a consequence, the range maps in The Birds of Ecuador show many question marks as to which birds are to be found in our area. Each year we learn new things about the birds to our forest.
Travel on the Shiripuno is by motorized canoe. piloted by skillful Waorani boatmen. This is the start of our adventure into the last pristine forest left in Ecuador. While the wildlife that we might see on any given trip is uncertain, there are a few things about each trip that we know for absolute certainty. Gone are the concrete of cities and roads; gone are the noise of radios and TVs; and gone are the distractions of cell phones and the internet. Here you are unreachable and completely off the grid. Normally we kept under the spell of human society, but the Yasuni brings a different reality. In the forest, we feel like a tiny grain of humanity in the midst of a mind boggling profusion of other species. The Amazonian Wilderness overpowers us, making us feel insignificant in the face of its dark depths and mysterious creatures.
Under normal conditions, the boat trip to the lodge takes about 4 hours. The Shiripuno is small river, generally no more than 50 meters wide. It makes its way through the surrounding hills in an intense series of hairpin turns, doubling back on itself over and over again, from one turn to the next barely making slow progress toward its ultimate journey, the Atlantic Ocean. The birding begins to pick up as the sun gets a little lower on the horizon. Flocks of Casqued Oropendolas rush in and out of the forest; they are nesting this time of the year. A White-throated Toucan perches in the dead branches of the canopy; a Magpie Tanager crosses in the front of the canoe. We find out the canoe driver doesn’t stop for all species, and so try to identify birds with the canoe in motion. Later we understand why the driver doesn’t stop: because he is aware that its better to arrive at the lodge while its still light.
Peaceable canoe ride, and as the sun begins to fade behind the Andes, the clouds start exchanging their stark whites for golden yellows, blood purples, neon reds, and electric oranges. The last rays of the sun light up the forest and passing flocks of Macaws.
Items you must have in your day backpack when you travel on the river:
• Reusable Water Bottle, Minimizing the containers we bring in, minimizes the trash we have to take out.
• Sun Protection. The higher the SPF the better.
• Hat. Protect yourself against the sun and rain.
• Quick Drying Clothing. Avoid sunburn. Wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts.
• Sun Glasses. Equatorial sunlight is intense.
• Wind breaker. A moving canoe can be quite chilly at times.
• Rain gear or poncho, Remember that the canoe is not covered and that it can rain at anytime.
• Sandals or light shoes, Hiking boots can become really hot or hard to dry. Bring something that you can not only get muddy but that will also dry quickly.
We made it to our destination. The Shiripuno Lodge is a place to rest, to recover your energy, to focus your thoughts, and, of course, to swing in the hammocks! Its purpose is to free us from the necessities of life so that we can direct maximum attention on the forest, exploring the lodge’s 30 km of trails in search of birds.
A few of our special birds include: Nocturnal Curassow, Salvin’s Curassow, Wing-banded Antbird, Rufous Potoo, Collared Puffbird, Fiery Topaz, Yasuni Antwren, Black Bushbird, and Black-banded Owl. On most nights, the mythological Nocturnal Curassow can be heard from the cabins; the record so far is seven. But sometimes its not enough to just hear these strange birds calling in the night, sometimes we have to go out and find them. We listen carefully and make our decisions where to move. Slowly we make our way closer and closer to the calling bird. The unmistakable call of this creature has lend us to the base of large tree. Nocturnal Curassow likes to sit on bare, exposed-horizontal branches near the very top of the tree. Clear nights seem to work best. So now we have to find it; all flashlights are on and directed overhead! Everyone is craning their necks skyward and playing their flashlights back and forth, searching the highest limbs. And there it is, and everyone gathered around for a good long look. Perfect night.
Shiripuno Lodge isn’t blessed with an observation tower, but we have adjusted for this by using our topography to the same advantage. The trails of the Shiripuno lead us to the canopy in a different way. Some of our trails are cut along the ridge lines of hill with a fairly large elevational gradient. So, what we did was cut observation windows so that birders could look out over the canopy at various points along the trail. In this way, its possible to see species of birds which specialize at different elevations within the canopy. Another way we explore the canopy is to drift downstream in a canoe early in the morning. In this way, its easy to see Blue and Yellow Macaws, Scarlet Macaws, Black-banded Woodcreeper, Spangled Cotinga, and Fiery Topaz.
But our goal today is to find, the Salvin’s Curassow calling in the distance. We hear it, but can we find it in this amazing forest? We land the canoe and walk into the forest. There is no trail here. We concentrate on the source of the sound and soon find ourselves in a dense, dark area of the forest. There it is whistling again, and we adjust our position and search the trees until we spot it only 10 meters away. It is fanning it tail up and down, and we see the snow-white vent and its bright-orange bill. When we find a species like this, we are reminded why they are hunted by native people: they are a huge meal! One bird and the entire family can have a nice feast. Guans and Curassows are very sensitive to human disturbance and habitat loss; they only live where the hunting pressure is low and the forest is pristine.
We are privileged to be birding in the last Wilderness of the Ecuadorian Amazon. As a bird watcher, we can live without basic comforts for few days, In fact, the less amenities we bring with us, the less of an impact that we will have on the forest. Its time that we started taking better care of our precious wild lands. It’s time for us to put the forest first.
The privileged location of the Yasuni between: the Andes, the Western Amazon Basin and the Equator make the Ecuador’s most interesting wilderness for Mankind: the Yasuni Biosphere Reserve; home of the extraordinary biodiversity and a recently contacted Amazonian indigenous group known as the Huaorani; relatives of the Waoranis, the Tagaeri and Taromenane, still live in voluntary isolation deep in the reserve.
The Yasuní Biosphere Reserve also sits atop large reserves of crude oil, Ecuador’s chief export, and contains an abundance of valuable timber species. This volatile combination has led to intense conflicts, and subsequently, increased international interest and concern.
In 1989, the area in and around the original limits of Yasuni National Park was designated as a Man and the Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). The Yasuni Biosphere Reserve. Now covers 16 820 km2, including a 5000 km2 core area. According to UNESCO documents, this core area is centered on the Yasuni and Nushiño Rivers in the northeast section of the park. The rest of the reserve (a 7000 km2 buffer zone and a 4820 km2 transition zone) includes much of the remaining park area and the adjacent Waorani Ethnic Reserve.
The Yasuni Biosphere Reserve is the core of a small, unique area where South America’s plant, amphibian, bird, and mammal species richness centers overlap. Furthermore, the reserve is located within the ‘Core Amazon’, an especially wet region to maintain wet, rainforest conditions as climate change-induced drought intensifies in the Eastern Amazon. Haffer (1969, 1997) postulated that the area in and around the Yasuni Biosphere Reserve was one of several Amazonian forest refugia during dry climatic periods over the past 65 million years, but this hypothesis has now largely been rejected (Mayle et al 2004, Maslin et al 2005).
The Waorani People
The Waorani are Amerindians from the Amazonian Region of Ecuador (Napo, Orellana and Pastaza Provinces) who have marked differences from other ethnic groups from Ecuador. The entire Yasuni Biosphere Reserve region is ancestral Waorani territory, which extends from the Napo River on the north and west, down to the Curaray River in the south and eastward into Peru. This vast territory, which stretches over 20 000 km2, underlies the current limits of Yasuni National Park and the Waorani Ethnic Reserve
Information on Waorani history and distribution prior to the twentieth century is scarce and speculative The Waorani were traditionally a highly mobile, semi-nomadic population of hunter-gatherer horticulturalists. They lived in four warring and widely dispersed groups located on hilltops away from major rivers; the headwaters of the Tiputini River constituted the core of ancestral Waorani territory. Other indigenous groups, mainly the Zaparos, lived along the Tiputini and Curaray rivers in essence surrounding the Waorani. When the Zaparos were suddenly decimated by disease and violent displacement during the rubber boom that hit the region in the late 1800s, the Waorani were able to expand their territory northward to the Napo and southward to the Upper Curaray and Villano rivers. Waorani territory likely reached its greatest extent at the beginning of 20th century.
At least two lines of evidence suggest that the Waorani were quite isolated, even from other indigenous groups in the area, for a long time:
1. – Their language, Wao Terero, is an isolated one without known congeners and with only two known cognates at the time of missionary contact in the late 1950s Wao Terero is considered unique in linguistic construction, with no known similarities with Zaparoan phonology or structure.
2. – The genetic homogeneity of The Waorani also points to a lengthy isolation of their population.
During modern history, there were four major periods of early contact between the Waorani —which translates to ‘the people’ or ‘true human beings’ in Wao Terero— and outsiders encroaching on their territory:
1. – The rubber boom in the late 1800s/early 1900s,
The Yasuni Biosphere Reserve is the largest track of forest in the Western Amazon, it lodges a amazing number of species of animals and plants.
With the data of today found on field inventory turns out that the Yasuni is among the most biodiverse place on this planet; with apparent world richness records for amphibians, reptiles, bats, and trees. Yasuní also protects a considerable number of threatened species and regional endemics.
At Shiripuno Lodge we have a Trap Camera and we intent to contribute with useful data for Conservation of the Yasuni Biosphere Reserve, Our trap camera will provide information for future mapping birds and mammals. Yasuni and the northern Peru are the only regions where species richness centers of four taxonomic groups overlap. This quadruple richness center has only one viable strict protected area (IUCN levels I–IV): Yasuní. The park covers just 14% of the quadruple richness center’s area, whereas active or proposed oil concessions cover 79%.
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