(AP) Libreville, Gabon. ...terrible...,
...choking black smoke..., ...all
around..., ...rocks falling...,
...can't breath..., ...noise
giving me a headache.... Those were the last dramatic
words of Dr. Oondóué M. Boué, the man who made
the study and conservation of burrowing bluetail guenons his life's
work. Those were some of the few crackly fragments barely heard
on a ham radio by an out-of-work gobo root picker in Libreville, and
they were the last to be picked up from the world-famous Makokou Bluetail
Study Center as streams of hot lava from nearby Mt. Mkimanjuru appeared
to almost completely bury the area during last Tuesday's eruption.
Thus ended the long illustrious life and distinguished career of Dr.
Boué, and his like will not likely be heard of again, at least
not in the Old World anyway.
Dr. Boué was a graduate
of the Academie Republique Gabonaise, an institution that he has been
associated with throughout his professional life. He went on to establish
the Makokou Bluetail Study Area in the Makanza Mts. region of Gabon
in 1979. He is survived by two wives, Okoyo and Lukula, his
brothers Mweki and Bandudu, his sisters Dilolo and M'beya, his mother
Kabare, and twelve or fourteen children.
Any connection between this week's eruption
and last Tuesday's seismic disturbance in the Santa Rubia Straits,
which resulted in the unfortunate sinking of Santa Rubia Island, has
been entirely discounted. |