Hello World Travelers,
Our fall meeting of 2026 is fast approaching: Saturday, Sept.19 at noon at the Hive offices — 950 Dupont St. Suite 300 in downtown Toronto.
Again, for those members who reside outside the southern Ontario region, we will be offering a virtual meeting option with a Zoom call scheduled for a 12:30 p.m. start.
I look forward to receiving your RSVPs. Please let me know if you would like to attend in person or via Zoom. I will send out a link for the meeting as we get closer to the day.
I am very excited to announce that Heather Watts, a longtime TCC Canada Member is going to share her incredible adventures in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Lomako National Park — the only place in the world to see bonobo great apes.
For those who have seen Mountain Gorillas in Rwanda or Uganda, did you know that there are actually five African great apes that can be seen in the wild?
In 2019, Heather traveled 1,080 kilometers by dugout canoe to Lomako National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo to see one of the most elusive on earth — the bonobo. Initially thought to be a smaller subspecies of the common chimpanzee, Bonobos were officially recognized as a separate species when their genome was sequenced in 2012. Much calmer than chimpanzees and known for their matriarch-led, highly sexualized groups, they are found solely south of the Congo River in DRC.
While Lomako boasts the only habituated group of bonobos in the world, the park’s lack of visitors means that they are still one of Africa’s most challenging great apes to locate and photograph. However, as is often the case with travel into remote places of great natural beauty, the journey itself can turn out to be the biggest reward.
Above and below are a few of Heather’s pictures from her adventure.
I look forward to seeing everyone again on Sept. 19, and I look forward to receiving your in-person and Zoom RSVPs for what will be a great meeting!
Warm regards
Rick Shaver
TCC Canada Chapter Coordinator
