So, I guess it has been a couple of months! So much has happened, although, interestingly enough my data set is still painfully small. My academic adviser pointed out to me a few days ago that there is the danger of getting home with no data. Okay, on that note I'm going to start collecting data on just about everything I see. I was thinking that I could probably scrape together some kind of really convoluted
connection between bearded sakis and jaguars if I wrote a chapter in my dissertation on jaguar predation of tortoises...I'm starting to realize that bearded sakis may be one of the most difficult monkeys in the world to study. Of course their is their sister genus, the uakaris, they live in flooded forests. I met a guy a few weeks ago who studied them for his dissertation. He spent 8 months looking for them, then another year or more following them, often having to swim to stay with the group. Talking to people like this guy is quite comforting! We ended up building a satellite camp about 7 kilometers from the main camp so that we can sleep as close to the
monkeys as possible. The camp is called Wan Daka Osu (One Day House) because we (okay, not exactly we, more like Timuti, one of the guys who works at Brownsberg) built the thing literally in one day. Of course, then it took one day to put up the tarp, one day to build the tables, and one day (for Andrew) to bring down the propane tank and the stove (that took about 2 weeks to acquire). The plan was for him to take the propane tank and stove down on his bike. If this is your first time reading this blog, you may not be familiar with our bike saga, but this was a classic day in the history of the biking adventures at Brownsberg. All I needed to see was Andrew returning that evening and flinging his bike into the forest. Having flung the bike once or twice myself, I could guess that things didn't go exactly as planned. It turns out that after riding along for only about a kilometer, the rear tire blew out. So, he ended up walking the remaining 6 kilometers, dragging the bike, since the rear wheel wouldn't really turn, with the 60 pound propane tank on the back and the stove on his back. I think it took him 2 days to recover--physically and emotionally. By the way, I wasn't just idly sitting by watching. I was at the clinic in the town near by dealing with a great eye infection (some mysterious poisonous bug threw itself into my eye and turned the whole thing as red as a tomato) that turned into a two-week long ordeal with my glasses--by the way, glasses and jungle don't mix. One day I found myself trying to get back to camp at dusk, in the rain, up a huge hill, after an exhausting day of monkey watching, with completely fogged over glasses. I was about 2 kilometers from any trail, so I took a look at my GPS unit and my compass, but when I realized a couldn't see either of them, I flung them to the wind and just started trudging up hill. I made it back long after dark. Fortunately, the infection passed.The idea with building the camp was that the monkeys would go to sleep about 15 minutes from the camp. Well, that was what happened the first time, but, being that we're studying monkeys that seem to have a range of about 6 square kilometers, the next day they were about an hour and a half walk from camp. We had to leave before 5 AM to get there before the little guys woke up. Needless to say, after
following them until 630 that night, we were a little tired. Well, the bus is about to leave...so I guess I better sign off. I included some photos of the guys at the park, Wan Daka Osu, a bearded saki (!!!), and our little mouse who lives at the Wan Daka Osu, he's very friendly, likes to be scratched behind the ear! Promise to write more in August! I hope everyone is doing well!
