Madagascar 2007

When I learned that we were going to the rainforest island Nosy Mangabe I was immediately excited about the idea of seeing an Aye-Aye but I didn’t believe I would ever see one. When our guide Armand told us that he had spotted one in the pitch-black forest I was a bit skeptical, we only saw the eyes at first and they looked very similar to the mouse lemur eyes we had seen earlier. It wasn’t until I saw it closer that I realized this was one of the defining moments in my life. To be perfectly honest I stopped giving a damn about the film at that point, I just wanted to SEE this incredible animal and enjoy its presence. I stopped breathing when I saw him licking his long fingers and looking at us with those immensely strange eyes. He didn't seem to care much about our presence though and then decided he had more urgent business elsewhere in the forest ;)

The Aye-Aye is the mammal equivalent of woodpeckers. They are an endangered species of lemurs and look like lemur zombies :) Its a bit difficult to call them “cute” but they are definitely extremely interesting looking and very adorable. They have a big black bushy tail, big ears, strange red/yellow eyes and rodent like teeth. The strangest thing about them is the long fingers and the elongated skeleton-like middle finger. They tap on wood to find grubs and larvae inside and then use the long finger to extract them.

Interestingly the book I grabbed with me 5 minutes before I left home was "Last chance to see" by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine, which starts with their Aye-Aye quest in Nosy Mangabe. At that time I had no idea that I would be following in their footsteps shortly. This book is beyond amazing and you should all read it, specially since Mark and Stephen Fry are currently making a television series based on the book. I am soooo excited :)

To get to Nosy Mangabe we had to drive for 3 days from Antananarivo and in two of those days we only covered 100 km per day on the worst road I’ve ever driven. Lonely planet describes the road as “a collection of deep potholes joined together with dust or mud…. and is only to be attempted by the seriously masochistic or truly desperate.” So that’s where we went :) It was an absolutely beautiful route and I really enjoyed the ride. I stopped counting the river crossings and the bumps on my head caused by me falling asleep for a second and waking up when the car twisted and hit my head. All sleeping attempts were seriously brain damaging but it was all part of the adventure and I wouldn’t want to have missed it. But I also stopped counting the minutes/days/weeks my two travel partners (who both speak Danish and English well) mostly talked French together, knowing that I don’t speak French. I soon drifted away into my own world and started to doubt my career choice for several reasons. What is the cost of making wildlife films? You go into the deep dark forest with all your expensive equipment and place an animal on a branch. You take that wild animal and make it go where it doesn’t want to go, over and over again until it gets extremely stressed. That doesn’t matter because you still haven’t gotten that perfect shot so you keep on filming. The perfect shots give you money for your next film and without it you cannot sell it and all the money goes to waste. It is a tough competitive business and I don’t want to belong to it if it costs the lives and health of precious animals. Therefore I am seriously rethinking my future. My ultimate goal is to save species and fight environmental problems and Ive started to wonder: Is wildlife film making becoming an environmental problem?

I was extremely lucky to see the Aye-Aye and also fortunate to see many other species of lemurs (Brown Mouse Lemur, Greater Dwarf Lemur, White Fronted Brown Lemur, Black and White Ruffled Lemur, Common Brown Lemur and Coquerel's Sifaka) chameleons (Furcifer minor, Furcifer oustaleti, Furcifer pardalis, Brookesia species, etc.) leaf tailed geckos, frogs, snakes, birds, insects, spiders and plants. Im still sorting through my own photos but will put them online soon.

HAPPY NEW YEAR :)