Inter-Group Encounter: Barn VS House troop

Last week, I was following House troop and we were getting close to the Barn, when half of my monkeys ran towards me. I was kind of excited 'An inter-group encounter?Finally?' The only inter-group encounter

I had seen so far were when I wasn't following or when they found each other in the sleeping sites, but not a full one from the beginning.


Soon, I saw 3 monkeys coming, open-mouthing to mines. I radioed the Belgian to confirm, and she told me that she was with most of the monkeys of Barn troop at 150-200 m. But I knew that it was that, these evil monkeys are always extremely spread.

Few minutes later the little battle started, after my troop decided to stop ignoring the other (see video). However, while most of the visible members of Barn troop were, at least, paying attention to the battle, most of mine were some meters behind feeding. 'F^@ck, guys! What are you doing? We are more, let kick their as{^s!' But they didn't give a sh@t! Then I saw Babootie, who was been groomed by 3 adult females 'WTF, girls? He is useless, stop that and go to support your fellows' But, once again, ignored me.

20 minutes after, the fighters got tired of agonistic displays and went to their corners to get involved in an orgy of grooming, just to restart some minutes later.

The baboons came over. I guess that the e evolutionary roots of disease are deep, but at least the baboons instead of coming running and screaming 'fight, fight' are far more elegant and pretended that they just came to feed...but I saw you looking, guys!

When we thought that the issue would last forever, a peace-mediator came: Gunter. He appeared running crazily, slobberying all on his way and making the two parties to split and run away to their sides.

Naming The Monkeys

Some weeks ago, as I said, a different research group came to trap samangos to take genetic samples and to see how isolated this population is to all the other ones around. As a part of their job, they tagged on the ears all the monkeys already caught. As a result, now I've got in my troops some individuals that I can recognize individually for certain (Finally!). So, what better than starting to give them names. As the tags are two colors on the ears, we have named them on the data collection as the initials of those, so we have BB (blue-blue), RR (Red-Red) and so on...but I though that would be funny to give them real names. So, I started, even though I only got a couple of days left and I only have 3 names!

Babootie (BB)

The samango with the honey badger aptitude

Babootie was the male that I used to call Greg, name that I didn’t really like but that made sense given that was the male of House troop. But with the BB tag I thought that Babootie, a typical SA dish, was much funnier and appropriate! Babootie is like that famous honey badger of youtube, a pretty bad dumbass. He doesn’t give a sh&t about humans, and sometimes, if we are distracted, he comes inside the Barn and steals food. When most people try to scare him away, he open-mouths them (but not me, I open mouth him first and he just looks around and pretend to be a good monkey munching grass…guess that my macaque style is kind of gansta). The other day I surprised him looking on the containers of the workers; he ended up with a huge piece of bread on the top of a tree eating for one hour and a half. We are trying to fix the situation, but it’s hard to make everybody to be careful all time with the food in their own houses.
But he is not only a nightmare for humans. Some days ago the Belgian was quite upset because Babootie had attacked one of the females of her troop and the poor monkey was bleeding from an arm! And two weeks ago, I was following the troop, that was around a road, which is great, cause you see them really well, not too frequent, and then some baboons appear. They were feeding around and all seem to be peaceful between the two species, as usual…until some came too close to Babootie and he, of curse, lunged and open-mouthed them, made the baboons to run away.

Roibos (RB)

 Juvenile male

 

Pap (PP)

An Adult Female

The kodamas-like forest and the 'mimic-your-favorite-animal' day

Another misty and cloudy day in the kingdom of samangos and, I don't know if is because of this or because of the fact that in that last 4 days I had been working around 40h on the field, plus several hours of computer work and around 15-20h of sleep, but the thicket looked like a magical forest.

The wind and the fog make all sounds coming from further than some tens of metres to disappear and the samangos seem more relaxed...apart from more likely to vanish on the mist when this turns too dense, fortunately, not too often.

If one of the most shocking things of the first misty day was the almost absence of inter-specific encounters, last day was marked by them.

First were the baboons, who slept close to the troop and were around for a couple of hours (congratulations new chacma mums, your babies are extremely cute). After they left, my samangos seemed to think that the baboons had a point on being on the ground and spent a great amount of time with Papio-complex, feeding on grass, herbs and leaf litter.

When was I attacked by a terrestrial lamprey?

Then we had a pair of guests trying hardly to fit on the troop, feeding among it (even nearly touching the samangos), following us for hours, grooming each other and even letting me be as close as 5m from them! It was a couple of bushbucks!!!

Additionally, as I said in previous posts, new season usually is synonym of changes on ranging patterns, so they frequent areas that they used very rarely in the months before. This day they took me to the furthest side of the Bushbuck trail where I have ever been with them.

Bushbucks trying to be adopted by the troop

Along our way, and after some hours immersed in the acacia forest, we dived in a very (x5) thick thicket where, as one of the baboon people told me the other day, the prickles have prickles! In the heart of the mess I found the ruins and leftovers of a lost civilization, one more technologically developed than the Bush man...the former owners of the property. Well, ok, is not as interesting as finding a Mayan pyramid, but after hours of vines and thorns is kind of exciting!

Mysterious ruins

With less than two hours left before dusk, I was expecting that the samangos, finally, showed me their secret sleeping site of the Bushbuck trail…instead, they preferred to run away and go all the way back to the area of the settlements, traveling 500m in 30 minutes (they normally walk less than 1km per day!!). When I finished the last scan, I started to prepare the equipment for the sleeping site data collection…but they were gone. I couldn’t see nor hear any monkey and the mist was thicker than ever. I ran around all the sleeping sites nearby, only managing to get lost in the forest when it was already dark and the fog didn’t let the light of my torch to reach beyond a couple of meters.

By the time I arrived to the Barn, I saw that the stuff of the Belgian weren’t there. I called through the radio (We finally have!) but she didn’t replay, so I ran to Bush Camp, imaging her in the middle of the evergreen forest trying to make her way home… But no, she was in the kitchen chatting with the Germans and the Vendas. At least, as a compensation for my heart stroke, I had a nice piece of apple cake. Fair enough.

Trailer of the wet season

Dry season is supposed to end between October and November. However, we are getting some advances on how wet is like with the arrival of spring.

After a really misty day, which I spent doing phenology (The evergreen forest acquires a disturbing look with the fog, even more if you are listening to the BSO of The Princess Mononoke), came a night of heavy rain and lightnings which showed us that our roof not only amplifies the sound in a way that makes you feel as the Apocalypses has just started, but also that it has sieve-complex. My room is rather fine, only one leak...just above the closet where I usually keep my laptop. Miraculously, it's still working.

Fortunately, 20 minutes before I had to go with the monkeys , the rain stopped, leaving behind a humid and misty day in which the monkeys traveled slowly and vigilant, even if we had no inter-specific encounters that day.

Spring here is, like in Europe, a little bit schizophrenic and, after a couple of days drowned in mist and cold came a extremely hot day that quickly evaporated the moisture on the soil, charging the atmosphere in water so you sweat even when doing computer work.

The end of the dry season brings some food scarcity, with all the seedpods that my samangos used to feed on, lying empty on the ground. Fortunately, there are still some leaves on the sweet thorns (Acacia karoo) which the monkeys chew joyfully, as well as herbs, grass and the delicatessen of Red sacred coral tree (Erythrina lysistemon) flowers. Guess that, as long as you are committed to eat whatever living been around that you can catch, you never starve.

Bonnie, my occasional field assistant

Other change along with the season is the ranging pattern. House troop, finally, took me to one of their, until now, less frequent sleeping site. This one is about 1km away from the settlements, near the road that goes to an impressive waterfall and some meters away from a stream. The only problem was coming back from there, because the vegetation was a maze, and of course, be there on time next morning. Somehow, I made it...though I loose them for an hour after the second scan. Nothing like going up and down climbing rocks and avoiding thorns at 6 in the morning, after having worked 12h the day before and slept 6 hours...if I can still do this might be than I'm not that old after all... I'm turning 1/4 century soon and I'm scared and paranoid.

Last but not least, warmth and rain are accompanied by spiders and snakes. A spider with the abdomen of the size of R2 (2 rands) insisted in taking a shower with me. It came back quiet sad to its hole when I rejected the offer. I don’t need more weird bites, I already have some since the second week that are still there ( I guess I should be worry, but if they are going to kill me at least it seems they will take their time. Fair enough). Nonetheless, I haven't found a snake yet in the forest, but I think that I will survive if I leave without that…

Back with the monkeys

My month on the predator side of the project expired, even if the plan when I got here was 3 months of each, but it couldn't be, c'est la vie.

Bye, bye to the walks under the sun, sleeping until passed the sunrise, social life and free time. Back to 12-14h of thorns and cute evil monkeys running away at the scan time. And now that the dry season is ending and the temperatures are increasing, the spiders start to set their webs on the forest (the veil in your face) and the likelihood of encountering a snake is much greater. Actually, some of the Germans saw a Spitting cobra last week when following my troop (great!).

After sleeping 5 hours, because an application for a job kept me awake until late, I had my monkey breakfast, which consist in porridge (people laugh at me, but one appreciates to don't need to chew to fill the stomach at 4-5 a.m) and coffee, this time mixed with chicory which, apparently is typical, and also much cheaper (best choice for a future pizza-maker).



Then I walked to the sleeping site close to the Owner's garden where the monkeys were already jumping from one branch to the other in the mist, pretending that they hadn’t missed me, ha.

Not much later, they went close to the Barn, giving me the chance of picking my camera up and take some pictures of them on the PhD student's roof or messing in the pile of ash of the braai.

Soon, I started to see the monkeys with the tags that a different research group put them last week. Now the Germans call Greg Jack because of Jack Sparrow...I don't think he gives a s^@t, so he has 2 or even 3 different names.

During the day we had several encounters with the local fauna, including dassies, bushbucks (daily) and tree funny warthogs a little bit unsure about if they should escape from me or not. The best was a lonely ibis that was on the ground doing the call they make at dusk and dawn, while the monkeys, chewing flowers looked at it like saying 'are you nuts, man?'


The sleeping time was crazy; first with Guinea fowl that came to sleep around and then I heard many of the monkeys vocalizing, booms, pyows and branches shaking. Trying to enter all the data, I managed to walk to the place without getting my legs broken (is a f&%cking stony place). The Belgian was there with Barn troop...and an eagle too! With so many emotions, it doesn't shock that the monkeys took nearly one hour after the sunset before to sleep.

Back at the Barn, the Israelian had prepared a sushi night which also served as farewell dinner for the last Frenchs, it's a pity that the long day transformed me into a grumpy zombie (It's not healthy to work the double of hours that you sleep).


Next 'morning', the Belgian and I went back to the sleeping site and dived to collect the data of each of our troops. Mines woke up early and started to walk towards the road within the mist. There we found one of the German students that was supposed to be following Barn troop. I told her that the troop around was House and she told me that she expected it, because Barn troop never went there. Never is a huge word when you have only been following the monkeys for 2 weeks, I don’t dare to say it after 4 months, but I guess that that explains everything.

After she went to asked the Belgian about the other troop, the monkeys and me had a peaceful cloudy-misty day without any bad encounter (now I’m all the time expecting a snake), while thinking in the meeting with the director of the project.




Around 15h, they left the acacia forest and went to the Owner’s garden to feed on a huge Broom-cluster fig. They were all perfect on the ground chewing figs when, suddenly, they started with their squeals and I felt something slobbery on my neck; Gunter, of course, the smelliest dog ever.

Close to the sleeping time, I stopped to watch some of the monkeys that, again, were feeding on figs; this time in the forest. It was pretty funny to watch them fighting with each other for the fruits, even if there were more than enough for everybody. Guess selfishness comes from far in our phylogeny.


Next day I only had sleeping sites, but on Friday I had to follow them again and it was a really weird day. It was raining all the night until 20 minutes before I left, and then the mist came, giving a kind of dream-like landscape, where the monkeys walked quietly and vigilant.

Trapping Nights

With the trapping of samangos, we took advantage and convinced the vets to stay and help in the leopard trapping.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t be involved in the samango trapping due to my current duties as assistant in the predator side and my unsuccessful race to prepare all the samango’s data before the meeting with the director. Nonetheless, the Belgian kept me up to date whenever she wasn’t carrying cases up and down or watching them to avoid the baboons to get caught. Apparently, the first naïve monkeys in being caught were the both males of House and Barn troop, that couldn’t resist the temptation of picking the oranges that rested at the end of the cases. Other 12 more monkeys were caught, tagged, their teeth inspected and several samples taken. The researches weren’t very please with the number of monkeys trapped but, to be honest, I was disappointed with my samangos for being so naïve!

Speaking about more spotted mammals; I recently spent two nights in a row with leopard trapping; in addition to one day at the beginning of last week in which we were setting up and pre-baiting everything.

The first night I was spotter and the Leader was driver. Everything was going fine until we wanted to check the second trap and we found ourselves trapped on the sand. After unsuccessful trials of getting rid of our imprisonment, we had finally to call for external help. When the co-leader arrived he found out the problem in a matter of seconds…just let’s say that I hope to never forget again how the wheels look like when they are in 4x4 mode… We spent the night on a tent close to the traps, sleeping while the bush babies screamed outside.  Up before 6h and check again, no leopards this night; but the few hours of sleep let me had if I had a great hangover.

That afternoon, the French-Spanish and I went to open the traps for that night. We used the quark bike and the French-Spanish was teaching me how to drive it; apparently I do it pretty well…and I enjoy it, F&%ck! That night, we came back, now with the car, to do the first check. Nothing, but some frights due to the huge size of the cow foetus used like bait, specially because now they are swollen and look quite scary.

Another night on the tent later and we woke up to check the trap which, again, showed no signs of leopards.

Now we are stopping for some days because the vet had to go to sort out some things and we appreciated because we are in a kind of party-days because of today’s wedding. I will have a busy day learning to cook a warthog! Write you soon given a food critic about the Mopane worms!

Samango kingdom hit by Belgian Earthquake; blue sky as aftermath

Two weeks ago, a new volunteer arrived to work with the samangos, the Belgian. After some research in primates as a part of her studies, she has been working in conservation for several years and decided to take a short break in her job to come back to the forest and crawling on the ground pursing elusive monkeys.

As a primate co-ordinator (sounds great, but only means that I have to spend lots of hours trying to disentangle and homogenize the mess of data we have and prepare the PDA and so on, not that I know much, unfortunately, though I do my best); I had to train her. So, on Tuesday 6:30, we started the training, just in front of the Barn, where the monkeys had been kind enough to appear. In a matter of minutes, she realized of all the pitfalls that the data collection. While the monkeys travelled slowly (very kind of them) towards Bush camp, I was telling her all the story of the primate side of the project since I arrived and my pretty useless struggle to improve the methods, gaining only a lot of stress, social marginalization and even some white hairs! By the second day, she was the one teaching to me about the monkeys. She not only realized of the different between sub-adults and juveniles, age-classes that I joined because there was a lot of disagreement between my old fellows, but was able to distinguish between male and female sub-adults by looking at the teeth, something that I hadn’t think about.

At first I was quite ashamed that she knew more than me, and felt sympathy for the Cardiffian, who probably went through something similar when I arrived but, in contrast to her, I felt, finally, relief.  

 Finally there was someone in the project that could teach me something about the monkeys and that agreed with me that we needed to improve the methodology (well, best of all, establish and objective for the data collection!!!). So , in some days, when the director arrives, we will have a meeting with him to try to make of this a serious project. But, even if nothing changes before I leave, it was quite good to see the Belgian crawling on the ground to pass a fence determined to don’t miss a single scan of the monkeys…while some of my fellows could loose one hour of data just because they couldn’t find a hole on the fence to pass. Finally, a real primatologist in the project, I missed to see someone dedicated so much after all the sloth that I had seen, suffering under the absurd dictatorship of undergraduate students with too much power and little knowledge… Summarizing, I am really glad and hopeful, maybe my time in South Africa is not doing to be a waste of time after all.

In addition, most of the people that were here before have left, and only the Belgian, The French-Spanish and me remain as volunteers of the project, so the average age and experience has increased dramatically and it finally seems that we are carrying out a research project and no a g&%dam summer camp.

Anyway; I am still with the camera-traps and so I will at least 2 weeks more, that I’ll have to come back with the monkeys because two new volunteers are arriving for working in the predator side. Until then, I will enjoy my walks with the French-Spanish up and down Lajuma and the surrounding properties checking cameras and tagging them after, finding surprises like crazy juvenile baboons shaking the camera on a daily basis or watching the battle between to porcupines. Additionally, the leopard trapping is re-starting in a couple of days and some people has come to tag some samangos to take samples for genetic analysis among other things, and the Frenchs are leaving and slowly being replaced by Germans (Prefer the formers, I was improving my understanding of French quite a lot, but c’est la vie). So, let see if the last month and a half that I’ve got here is, FINALLY, something worthy to tell, full of biology and only patched by social problems. Now the sky is bluer, the slopes less tiring and even the bushbabies sound like music.

The Cast Away and the troop of Wilsons

 

Last month I spent 144h following the samango monkeys, without counting the corresponding hours of sleeping sites data collection. The Minnesotan is close with 92h and the Cardiffian with 66h,...even if is this last one the one that sounds as if she knew everything about the monkeys…An empty vessel makes the loudest sound... 

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t complain about working hard, I came this far to do so.  In Morocco we worked much more hours, but we were all in the same “business”, with pretty much the same schedule even if some people worked in a different project. Here, many days I wake up when everybody still has a couple more hours of sleep ahead and I come back when everybody is making the dinner. Some days I only have a half day follow, and I leave while most are sunbathing…I know everybody works hard here, but sometimes just feels like I’m the only suc&%r!(pringá que te cagas, c&ñ&!). So, while everybody goes to have nice hikings through the mountains or to parties, I stand quietly in the forest surrounded by the little samangos who, as a consolation prize, uncover their world for me.

One of the funniest things of these little monkeys is, actually, the matings. The poor male of my troop, whom I call Greg (cause is the House troop, and I liked the series), tries to approach a female (or the female approaches him, rubbing her tail on his nose, just in case he doesn’t get it), and then they try to make it work…but then the juveniles run towards them screaming and jumping and Greg charges them while the female looks angry blaming the kids.

My little samangos, even if quite cute, doesn’t seem to be very smart…or maybe they have decided that they are too many in the troop, indeed. The other day, they spent one hour and a half screaming, with Greg with the typical ka-train calls, because a crowned eagle was around. Not only they didn’t move away, but they slept 10m from the place. Yesterday, the eagle was close to the cliff flying while the monkeys were feeding on the Owner’s garden. The females and the juveniles went into the bushes and started with their acute screams while scanning the sky…Greg, however, was in the middle of the meadow, chewing grass passively.

Sometimes, I have to spend half a morning looking for them and this gives me the opportunity to discover new places and even monkeys. Last week (if my 80-years-old-lady-memory doesn’t betray me), I was walking the Bushbuck trail, looking for the House troop when I heard some of their typical grunts. I walked through (i.e. fight against) the vegetation and suddenly I found myself in a kind of little heaven full of little waterfalls surrounded by waterberry trees and ferns…unfortunately that wasn’t my troop, it was a bachelors one; mine was further up, in the middle of the thorny thicket ( of course!).

Relatively often, we are not alone.  Some days ago, when was almost the sleeping time for them, I was following them while they were approaching the cliffs behind the Barn when the baboons appeared with their characteristic noises (and smell). I really enjoy watching them; so much that, sometimes, I’m close to loose my samangos…when is not a baboon juvenile that hides between my monkeys trying to appear in my scans…but I’m not that blind…yet.  That day, precisely, one of the baboon males was eating something fluffy and I waited, trying to figure out what was it. When he finished, he left the leftovers, but a bunch of juveniles wanted to take a piece; but they ran away when I came closer. I just saw a fluffy fur without any meat left and some cracked bones. Close, there was a hole on the rocks covered by blood, so I assume that it was a dassie, but…Then, I realized that my samangos wasn’t around, so I jumped from rock to rock (my knees and ankles are really hating me for this) until I saw some…but also to one of the French students. “This is House troop” I said “No, Barn troop” he replied “Fuck!” I thought…both troops were pretty much at the same sleeping site, so  ,                                                                                     were the baboons!

Actually, finding baboons while following the samangos is pretty much a habit, but a couple of days ago I was pretty excited. I was with one of the scans when I thought “wait a second, that juvenile is too white” sure it was, it was a vervet monkey! So there I was, with the vervets at my left and the samangos at the right and, if it wasn’t enough, a warthog came over, foraging beneath the vervets.

Last days I have been coming back especially late because we have to record when the monkeys stop to make noises after getting on the trees. This is how the other day, close to the Barn, I saw four couples of bright eyes in the dark looking at me from a tree. The eyes dispersed and a pair came closer; Greater bush babies! One would thought that they would be scared of the light of the torches, but they seem to be quite curios about them and this bush baby was staring at me for a while, before another one joined him.

And these are some of the things I get in exchange for my isolation. I guess I’ll miss it when I start to work in the predator side of the project soon, but I think I won’t miss track of the little samangos, even if I will be following them less often.

And well…in a couple of days I will be hitting Kruger...I really hope to see lions!

The thorny kingdom of samangos

“The detailed study of any animal presents
 its own peculiar problems, and the blue monkey (Syke's/samangos...)
is certainly no exception. The main difficulty
 lies in seeing the animals at all. 

 In parts of the forest where the canopy is 
thin enough for monkeys to be clearly visible,

 the undergrowth below is so thick that it can be

 penetrated only by cutting; the human 
observer can progress only at about 100 yards 
an hour, which is a lot slower

than a startled monkey. Conversely, in places where

 the canopy is sufficiently dense to suppress the undergrowth,

it is so thick that one cannot see anything in it anyway.

 There are intermediates between these two extremes,

but conditions of observation are seldom

better than indifferent.” Alrich-Blake, 1970

I have already described (i.e complained about) how the home range of the samangos is; but some pictures are much more explanatory than a million of words so...here are some details of the vegetation in which I pass several hours a day tangled, while the juveniles look at me biting their tails with curiosity. I'm getting a master in thorns and hooks removal, though... 

 

 ...and, not in few occasions, the vegetation around me is just like this...

To make it best, just imagine it at night!! Yeah, I had a extremely funny evening yesterday trying to come back after following the monkeys all day, with my shitty headtorch and the flashlight of my mobile. If sometimes the vegetation looks like a maze during the day, at night it simply looks like unpenetrable walls. To make things more interesting, just add  some enormous slippery rocks that avoid you to pass and the idea that a leopard could be watching you wondering how tasty you are...or maybe an angry snake from the ground (yeah, they can be active at night!!)...and all this without nobody knowing where you are...everything is by adrenaline...

Trapping and revolution

In my high school there was a boy famous for being the best writer of the institution; most of the times winning the yearly literature context. Then, I arrived (Muaahahaha). Depending on the year, we were on the same or different categories because of the age difference, and we disputed each other the prizes. I still remember the year I won not only in the prose discipline but in poem too, to see him sat on one of the green chairs of the conferences room, biting nervously his nails. We never spoke, even if we had common friends who insisted in that we had to talk; I guess it wasn’t the style of any of us. Until one night, in which I was taking the nocturnal bus back home after a fail party night and he came in a couple of stops after me. He sat behind my seat and we talked a little, don’t remember about what exactly but, since then, I have remembered a commentary. This was that it was difficult, if not impossible, to write when you were happy; sadness is a kind of muse.

For long I agreed with him; writing was almost the only relief I had during many years of darkness. Then the university came and the spare time ran off as well as my willingness to write. But the macaques in Morocco, among others, made me want to write again, even if it was in a language that would make things more difficult. This time, my inspiration came from happy moments, things about my outside world that I wanted to share instead of things of my inner world that I needed to get rid of .

This entire long story just to justify why I’m lagging behind with the posts and, it’s simply that I haven’t been very joyful these last weeks; but things are going to change…inshallah.

“I think I saw a pussy cat”

After some weeks of preparations in which we had to clear areas and do some pre-baiting (i.e. dragging pieces of beef fat, penises and testicles on the ground and hang them afterwards on the clearances); the Trap Master came and we were ready to start the leopard trapping. Each night, two people had to check the traps at certain hours, driving along them all by a predetermined circuit.

My first night was quite peaceful, with nothing remarkable. Then, some nights afterwards, it was my turn again, together with the French-Spanish to make the checkings.

She collected me at the Barn some before 21h and drove towards the bumpy area where the traps were. After checking the first trap, we continued until the one close to a little bridge, which we were supposed to check the last, but which is in a junction that you need to cross to go to the other traps. "Well, we'll check this one latter, it seems there is nothing" said the French-Spanish in Spanish when we were passing along...but just then we both looked again and realized of the two tiny round ears attached to a squared head which seemed grey between the bushes. She slowed down even more and the leopard stood up trying to escape.

She drove further to don't disturb the animal any more while we started the protocol, using the satellite phone to call the Owner.

After that, we had to continue our checking. The thing is that, as I said, this trap was just in a junction in which we necessarily needed to pass again and nobody had thought in this detail. So, we stopped around 50m before arriving to the trap and switched off completely the lights to see if the Team was already there or what.

Then we started to hear it...a kind of soft purring...leopards are big cats, after all, but they sound a little bit creepy when you don't see pretty much anything. For long we didn't see any clue of the presence of the Team; latter, we could see light sometimes. There were a couple of hours of confusion but, at the end, everything went fine, even with the typical unforeseen events of the first time.

The samango revolution

As I said in previous posts, I wasn't very pleased with how the things were done around here concerning to the primate data collection. After two weeks of really having a bad time because of this, thinking that was a terrible mistake to have come, a waste of time and money and even thinking of leaving, I tried to fix the things. Giving up is in my vocabulary, but till now the meaning has been always theoretical.

I dared to speak to the Leader and the Co-leader, giving my point of view on how the things should be. The outcome was surprising. Apparently, they had been so busy with the predator stuff that they hadn't really had time to review what the primate volunteers were doing and they were quite surprised that many obvious things weren't being done. Next day, we had a meeting the three of us together with the primate co-ordinator to speak about the protocol and discuss some of the several ideas I had presented. As a result, now I'm in charge of writing a new detailed protocol, as well as creating  new spreadsheets, ways of managing the data, etc and I also carried out a between-observetr reliability test which, even if it wasn't as good as expected (ever is?) gave us clues on many aspects that we have to work on and fix.

Well, it is something. It's true that I came here to learn, not to teach ( If I thought that I am  in that level I wouldn't be volunteering...though I know that the world doesn't follow my  standards). I'll do my best, hopefully counting with the help of the primatologists around here, the Scottish and the PhD student, but I guess that I will make some awful mistakes. Even though, it is a victory. I'm not only going to learn more than I expected but I'm going to do a kind of trial of how to manage a field study, which I hope it will be great to be prepared for a PhD...and WTF! I'm leading a complete group of English-Speakers (…even if I suspect that some don't understand a damn word of what I say...)!

Let's see how it goes...

"Training" the Minnesotan

Two weeks ago, a new girl, the Minnesotan, arrived to collaborate in the project and pretty much at the same time, half of the people left to have some holidays. With the Cardiffian, the Crossliner and the Cologner gone to Kruger and the Leader, the Co-Leader and the Predator Team to Botswana, I end up in charge of her training...even if it was my 3rd week.

Barn troop

The first day it was our turn of replacing the Cardiffian and the Crossliner in the follow of the Barn troop. Additionally, the Cardiffian had explained to me roughly the night before she left how to collect the data of the sleeping sites...

So, at 5 in the morning (aka d%ck o’clock), the Minnesotan came to the Barn and together, armed with our torches, went into the forest until we reached the sleeping site and sat waiting for the monkeys to give any sign of life, while Bonney the intrepid cat walked around with her bright eyes because of the light of the torches.

The sound of the pee and poo falling gave us the clue that the monkeys were awakening.

After collecting some data on the trees, I hurried up to follow the monkeys who quickly were leaving the Barn surroundings and going towards the road that goes to Bush camp. Anyway, we stayed for some hours with a kind of subgroup formed mainly by subadults.

That day I let the Minnesotan just to watch; it was too soon for me to "teach" and I think that she deserved a day of just looking, as I had in Morocco; though I told her to try to discover nipples on the monkeys, which is the only feature we have to tell apart adult females and subadults.

The monkeys made us follow them through an extremely thorny forest until we reached Bush Camp. It is amazing that, even when you wear long trousers, your legs end up like the scratching pole of Freddie Kruger's cat...but your trousers are still without a scratch!

The day finished with us trying to see what sleeping trees were the monkeys using to sleep and marking them.

The eco-ilogical plots

Next day, the Minnesotan had to help the Scottish with the buckets and then, come with me to do some ecological plots.

The GPS that we had with the points of the plots was completely crazy and we were lost in the bush for an hour, until we came back to one of the roads. Then, I took out a couple of normal compass that I had to measure the aspect and the slope of the plots and we saw how the GPS had the north right in the opposite direction of the compass...even if these two didn't exactly agree between them! At the end, somehow, we found one of the points and I could "teach" the Minnesotan all that I had learnt about the plots in the previous couple of weeks...which wasn't much and we both had a lot of queries, but we did our best. After lunch, we tried to do another one, but we couldn't complete it because I had to take her at 16h with the Scottish.

Around 17h, I was going to left the girls and the buckets to look for the House troop to follow it the next day when the Scottish made me realized that I had misunderstood the instructions of the Cardiffian and that the sleeping site data were collected the evening of the follow and the morning of the next day...Between this and our morning problems with the GPS, the Minnesotan should be thinking that I was pretty stupid, or at least I felt so.

But nothing better to cheer you up than found your little samangos preparing to sleep in bamboo poles, reminding you to the fight of the bamboo forest of the House of flying daggers.

House troop

This time, we woke up a little bit latter and went to the bamboo poles to find the samangos; which awake late, giving us the opportunity of watch them as small fury shadows hanging of the bamboo poles.

I asked the Minnesotan if she had already seen the baboons and, just a couple of minutes later, as an invocation, they appeared. They were among the troop half of the day, together with the PhD student and the Scottish, that had a day off and had gone with the PhD student to remember all times in which they both were assistants and followed these curious monkeys.

It was fun to watch the baboons, their interactions and to hear the bunch of vocalisations they do, and how, when they have to pass "close" (7m or more) to you, they look at you constantly and run. The samangos didn't seem to disturbed by their bigger cousins, but when these climbed to the trees in which the samangos were and these later jumped to another tree giving ground.

Concerning to the "training", I was testing the Minnesotan about the age and sex classes as well as the heights. I let her one of this fancy clinometer so she could practice alone the latter, and I let her in charge of the GPS points. I was expecting that she would have to expend a couple more of days training with the Crossliner and that she would have a real cultural shock...

Close to the sunset, the monkeys travelled to the Owner's garden...which is a garden near the house, but a thick thorny jungle downwards, where the monkeys made us stay for a couple of hours squeezing hour brains trying to find out how to follow them among the dense bush.

When the sunset came, we tried to find the sleeping trees, but Gunter, the massive smelly dog, was after us all the time, bordering especially to the Minnesotan. At the end, we couldn't find any thanks to the slobbery cub.

Next morning, I went alone to do the sleeping sites. I was relatively successful despite Gunter, the fact that the clinometer's batteries got exhausted and that I had to hurry up to meet the Post-Doc, the Cologner, the Neatherander and the Scottish to go to Polokwane at 8...well, to a Mall in Polokwane; it seems that this centre are one of the most exciting thing to do around apart from fauna watching.

End of training

The next House troop follow day, the Leader had told me to let the Minnesotan to do alone the second half of the day. So, I was quickly teaching them how to do the scans, and done a kind of "test" to see if we agreed. Fortunately, that was the case; she really wants to do the things right and is clever.

So, around 12h, I left her with the monkeys, sad, thinking once again that "my babies" were with a stranger...I guess a common feeling among "primate people".

Random stuff

Well, I have been here for a little bit more than a month and, sadly, I'm a little bit disappointed yet. I find that many things are not done as well as they could be done, especially concerning all the primate stuff. But I'm trying to change that. Thanks to the advice of the Boss in Morocco, and the discussions with the Scottish, I finally told my point of view in one of the group meetings and apparently, we are going to change the samangos data collection, so it is closer to a serious primate study...hopefully. I gave to the leader the protocol that we are using with comments, suggestions and ideas that the PhD student, the Scottish and I had and let's see what happen...But sometimes I wonder if it's the best strategy to make enemies during a leopard trapping season; I could end up like bait!

Apart form that, as I just said, we have just started with the leopard trapping to radio-collar them and tonight will be my first night checking the traps.

Yesterday, on the other hand, was my first day checking the vervet traps. I should say that I was glad that none of them got caught; I have many concerns about how ethical is to trap monkeys to radio-collar them, at least with the methodology we are using...but well, I haven't had the chance to read about the topic, so maybe it's just my impression, after all, I'm not an expert... Nonetheless, when I did the last trap check, one of the traps was triggered and without the baits and I saw, for the first time, the vervets, who were around 30m away from the trap, apparently very happy. They honoured me letting me stay with them for some minutes at around 10m, before they got lost on their nearly impenetrable kingdom.

I try to enjoy the experience, but the fact that I've got the impression that the things aren't done properly drains me out. I don't want to blame anyone in particular, because I think that probably all is a by-product of the "low-cost" science which is on fashion nowadays more than a matter of neglect...but... It doesn't help to remember Morocco everyday while wondering if I will ever have such a good times in my life again and the fact that, once again, my future is an unknown. I shouldn't think too much in this kind of things but, as I said, bad habits are difficult to give up.