FOSSA

LUKE Dollar was tracking a collared lemur, when he was surprised to come across the shredded

remains of the radio collar strewn in with the remnants of the lemur itself. His local guide informed him that the lemur had been attacked and eaten by a mysterious animal called a fossa. After Dollar asked around and learned of the fossa’s scarcity and persecution by local people, he shifted his research to this animal and committed himself to saving them. In this way, Dollar became the first scientist to launch a major study of the little-known fossa.

            By Dollar’s best estimate there are fewer than twenty-five hundred fossas left in the wild. The fossa is a medium-sized carnivore once thought to be a member of an ancient cat family, but has since been determined to be a close relative of the mongoose family. A fierce hunter, the fossa has the sleek build of a small feline, the muscled bulk and snout of a canine, the ambling gait of a bear, and the strikingly long tail of a cheetah or puma. It is found only on

the African island of Madagascar and is the largest natural predator in the ecosystem. Fossas hunt both during the day and at night and are just as comfortable stalking prey in the treetops as on the ground.

            Despite most local people having never actually seen a fossa, Malagasy children grow up hearing stories of their ferocity. Their parents also threaten that if they misbehave, the fossa will come and take them away. As a result, fossas are frequently killed on sight by local farmers and villagers. With this history in mind, Dollar started an education campaign to show the benefits of fossas to farmers. “In addition to lemurs, my research showed that fossas prey on rats and wild pigs two of the biggest crop raiding pests Malagasy farmers face,” explains

Dollar. “My slogan became ‘Save the Fossa. Save the Harvest,’ and it really resonated with locals. All they needed was to make that connection to have a newfound appreciation for the fossa.”

            When Dollar saw firsthand how education and outreach can change local attitudes and practices, he expanded his ongoing fossa research and conservation work to include a series of initiatives providing both formal and informal education opportunities to people who live near fossa habitat. With personal funds and money raised from friends and supporters back in the United States, he started a scholarship program for local villagers. The program allowed the first child in a village near his fossa research area to go to secondary school. Since then Dollar’s program has sponsored a dozen students, and now for the first time, a child from the village will be attending a university in the fall. The only stipulation Dollar puts on the funding

is that sponsored children pledge to go to work in the environmental sector after they finish schooling as a guide, a ranger, a scientist, or any profession that will benefit the disappearing

wildlife of Madagascar.

            In Madagascar, Dollar heads up a program for the Earth watch Institute, where he takes volunteers and scientists into the forests to do research on local carnivores. While fossas are the most notorious carnivores in Madagascar the fourth largest island in the world there are other predators as well. In addition to an introduced crocodile species, there are a handful of other carnivores endemic to the island that are as unique as the fossa, including the dark-red ring-tailed mongoose; the small, spotted boky-boky (also known as the fanaloka or striped civet), and the falanouc, which lives on a diet of worms and stores fat in its tail. These species are typically overshadowed by the fossa in local mythology and international mystique, yet they are perhaps even less known and studied than the fossa. Additionally, Dollar has himself added to the list of carnivores found on Madagascar. He was the first person to capture and study what appears to be an African wildcat a species suspected to have been introduced to Madagascar hundreds of years ago and until recently, incorrectly thought to be a feral domestic cat sparsely populating the island.

            As part of their work, when Dollar and his team of volunteers find a new threat to local carnivores, they also attempt to find answers to solve the problem. For example, in 2003 and 2004, feral dogs moved into the forest where Dollar was working. Immediately, the fossa population went down possibly due to transference of disease from the dogs, competition for shared resources, or direct predation by the dogs. To counter this, Dollar began a program to eliminate the wild dogs from the forest, and within a year the fossa population in the region resurged to earlier levels.

            While Dollar has spent enough time in Madagascar to feel at home there, he has also faced numerous challenges and perils. With little or no modern medical facilities where he works in the field, he has dealt with malaria four times, as well as cholera. He has painfully broken his teeth while eating locally produced rice (the regional processing methods allow for the occasional stone to come through with the rice). He also bears scars from being attacked by a fossa on which he was collecting scientific information (the animal came out of its drugged state sooner than anticipated).

            One of Dollar’s proudest accomplishments came about in 1999, when he was leading a team of researchers back from the forest and saw a group of local women pounding rice with large pistols; as they crushed the rice, they sang traditional folk songs to the percussive rhythm of the process. Dollar returned later and asked if he could pay them to sing for a group of eco tourists that were visiting the area. He then came back five more times that year with tourist groups, and after each performance began talking with the singers about how they could turn their efforts into income. At the time, the village was completely dependent on slash-and-burn agriculture that was rapidly destroying important fossa habitat. With 90 percent of Madagascar’s forests destroyed, habitat loss is the largest threat to the many endemic species of the island.

            Inspired by their discussions with Dollar, the women used the money he had been paying them to start a small campground on the site of the former village soccer field. Then Dollar worked with Earthwatch Institute to provide the women’s collective with a microloan to expand their campsite. Since then, nearly twenty-five thousand guests have stayed or eaten at the campground. The money from this campsite ecotourism has gotten all the village children into schools and built three wells to provide safe, accessible water. The villagers have also reroofed their houses with permanent materials so they no longer have to regularly take forest wood to refurbish their homes. The ecotourism site provides thirty local people with jobs, and the women who run the campsite still provide regular concerts for their eco-guests.

            “Problems and solutions begin and end at the grassroots level,” says Dollar, emphatically. “People who live their every minute surrounded by these natural resources make the decisions each day regarding how to use the resources. Providing the right alternatives can tip the scale in favor of sustainable choices.” Unfortunately, a new national political party has set back this progress with an aggressive resource exploitation philosophy  however, Dollar is hopeful that the long-term sustainable gains of ecotourism, like that of the women’s collective,

will come back into favor. And perhaps his education efforts will help make that happen.

            “It’s a two-pronged approach to conservation. We provide short-term solutions to the adults with an alternative income that decreases their impact on their surroundings. Then we provide a long-term solution to the children by showing them opportunities for education, skills, and awareness beyond the resources of the forest,” says Dollar. “The fossa need healthy and happy people in Madagascar; otherwise they will be forced out. No matter how fierce a species it is, it still needs a home to survive. And that’s what I’m trying to ensure the fossa has.”