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Elephants Foraging on Riverbank
Photograph by Michael Nichols
Viewed from a low-flying plane, elephants forage on the salt-laden banks of a river in Odzala National Park in Congo. Photographer Michael Nichols took this shot while accompanying conservationist Michael Fay on the Megatransect, his grueling 15-month, 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) trek across Congo and Gabon to chronicle the region’s pristine forests and wildlife and fight for their protection.
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Crossing Kongou Falls
Photograph by Michael Nichols
About halfway through his trek, Mike Fay crosses the surging waters of Gabon's Kongou Falls on the Ivindo River. Fay planned his transect to pass through 13 central African forests that constitute some of the richest and least explored ecosystems on Earth.
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Gabon Coastline
Photograph by Michael Nichols
Foam-crested Atlantic Ocean surf washes onto the beach in southwestern Gabon, where Mike Fay completed his Megatransect after 15 months. As a result of his efforts, President El Hadj Omar Bongo of Gabon set aside more than 10,000 square miles (26,000 square kilometers) of land to form a national park system protecting 13 separate parks.
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Great White Egrets
Photograph by Michael Nichols
A trio of great white egrets alights on a tree against darkening skies in Gabon’s Petit-Loango Reserve. These long-legged, S-necked birds live near water, where they feed on fish, reptiles, and small amphibians, which they snare with a quick thrust of their strong bill before swallowing them whole.
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Flooded Gabon Forest
Photograph by Michael Nichols
Just 20 miles (32.2 kilometers) from their destination, the Atlantic coast of Gabon, Mike Fay and his crew encountered a blackwater sump, a chronically flooded swath of forest. Fay’s team, including Sophiano Etouck, pictured here, risked encountering crocodiles undetectable in chin-deep muck thick with forest litter and tree roots.
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Kongou Falls, Gabon
Photograph by Michael Nichols
The churning waters of Kongou Falls kick up foam and spray as the 2-mile-wide (3.2-kilometer-wide) cataract slices through Gabon's Ivindo National Park. Actually a series of falls along the Ivindo River, Kongou Falls tops 185 feet (56 meters) at its tallest drop.
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Djoube Pygmies
Photograph by Michael Nichols
In the village of Djoube on the Motaba river in Norther n Congo Bambendjelle pygmies dance with the flooded forest spirit Mafoodya. Her e the Bantu villagers watch and often join the pygmies in dance.
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Western Bush Pig
Photograph by Michael Nichols
Snapped in Gabon's Petit-Loango Reserve, a western bush pig is recognizable by its distinctive white-tasseled ears and red hair. Found in the forests and scrublands of sub-Saharan Africa, the omnivorous bush pig uses its snout to root for food. Throughout the 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) Megatransect, ecologist Mike Fay painstakingly recorded "every pile of dung, every tree, every cry of a chimpanzee," to convey the importance of preserving central Africa’s rich ecosystem.
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Bai Lowland Gorillas
Photograph by Michael Nichols
A group of western lowland gorillas foraging in the bai.
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African Elephant on Patrol
Photograph by Michael Nichols
A wary African elephant keeps watch in an Odzala National Park bai, or boggy forest clearing, frequented by elephants and gorillas. Among central African wildlife, elephants are some of the most difficult to photograph. Photographer Michael Nichols got this shot in the Congo park by staying downwind.
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