Mission: Madagascar

Polson teen shares photos of enchanted isle

For many an avid birder, a trip to Madagascar would be an unforgettable life experience.

For Caleb Lashway of Polson, it was just part of growing up.

Lashway, 13, recently spent two years on the African island, where his parents worked as missionaries. He and his grandfather, Gary Swant, presented a slide show about Madagascar to the Mission Mountain Audubon chapter on Tuesday.

"Madagascar is often called the eighth continent," said Swant, a retired biology teacher from Deer Lodge. "It's a unique island. About 80 percent of all living things there are endemic. They can only be found on the island."

Located in the Indian Ocean, Madagascar is the fourth-largest island in the world, about half-again the size of Montana. It used to be sandwiched between the African continent and India, as part of the supercontinent Pangea. About 120 million years ago, Madagascar and India broke away from Africa. Thirty million years later, Madagascar and India rifted apart; it's been isolated ever since.

"One of the reasons there are so many unique species is because there are so many different ecosystems," Lashway said.

The island has rain forests, dry forests, "spiny" deserts where most of the vegetation has spines or poisonous thorns, coastal mangrove forests and a high, mountainous plateau.

"There are 12,000 species of vascular plants on Madagascar and 80 percent of them are endemic," Lashway said. "There are 33 species of lemurs in the world; all of them are endemic to Madagascar."

One of the lemurs "runs through the treetops and screams like a ghost," Swant said.

The island supports more than 240 species of birds. About half are endemic - a higher percentage than anywhere else in the world.

Lashway's favorite is the blue vanga, a finch-size beauty with a white belly and "an unnatural, electric blue" head, back and wings. Even its beak and eyes are blue.

"I think it's the most beautiful bird in Madagascar," he said.

Other notable bird sightings

for Lashway include a harrier hawk feeding on lizards in the thatched roof of a bungalow; a Madagascar cuckoo-roller, which rolls as it flies and whose call can be heard almost three-quarters of a mile away; a long-tailed groundroller, which can only be found in one, 200-acre area; and a Humbolt heron, which looks similar to a great blue heron but which stands about six feet tall.

Huge birds are part of Madagascar's evolutionary heritage. The island was home to the elephant bird, an enormous, shaggy, long-necked beast that's now extinct. It looked something like a two-legged camel and was the heaviest-known bird species.

Swant, who has been birding all over the world, spent a month in Madagascar with Lashway and his family in 2005. He took most of the photos shown at Tuesday's meeting.

Getting around the island proved to be something of an adventure, he said, given the limited transportation system. To visit all the different ecosystems, his group ended up traveling by plane, boat, dugout canoe, zebu carts - wooden carts pulled by zebu cattle - and a variety of motorized vehicles, including taxibes, which Swant described as "glorified SUVs stuffed with people." They cost 15 cents to ride.

The highway system was better maintained when Madagascar was a French colony, he said, but after independence the infrastructure collapsed. However, people said they'd rather have independence than infrastructure.

"These people will grab your heart," Swant said. "They're very friendly, but desperately poor. We saw men knocking rocks off cliffs, with women down below with hammers. They were making gravel. We saw people draining a rice paddy with hand-buckets. Being overweight is not a problem there, but they die young."

Although the country faces some immense challenges and is struggling with tremendous environmental degradation due to soil erosion and deforestation, Swant strongly encouraged birders to go visit.

A plane ticket costs about $1,200 and tourists can live there on about $30 per day, he said, "so don't think someplace like Madagascar is out of reach."

Lashway and his family will return to the island for another four years this spring. He's seen 162 bird species there to date, and has about 80 more to go.

Reporter Bill Spence may be reached at 758-4459 or by e-mail at bspence@dailyinterlake.com