And Two Years After That
A larger group of scientists returned to the rain forest for five weeks during the summer of 1998, to participate in various conservation activities. "The World Wildlife Fund, which helps manage this area in Dzanga-Sangha, wanted us to come in and do better sampling," says Dr. Cracraft, codirector of the expedition. The group was looking for birds in particular, "and until we went there, other than a few bird watchers, no one had really looked at the avian fauna of this forest." They recorded 112 bird species, 18 new to the area.
This time the group included eleven scientists, from the departments of ornithology, mammology, ichthyology, entomology, and invertebrates. "Expeditions are collaborative in nature," explains Cracraft. "We had people who work on fish, who work on mammals, who work on insects, who work on spiders, who work on birds, and in the field we help one another out."
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