Surviving the fragments

5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2010 – La Casa, Palenque, Mexico

***

Monday was the start of my first full cycle with Chiara. Her project has to do with male-male interactions and stress levels in groups living in the national park versus surrounding forest fragments. Therefore, we only really need to focus on monkeys with Y chromosomes. But most of the groups in CBETA (one of the forest fragments) spend a lot of time separated, so we’ll each watch one of the males and switch off to rotate focals. Most of my time working with Chiara is spent searching independently, with us within “woo-ing” distance but split up and exploring a broader range.

Woo Key:

-Woo once: Where are you?/I’m here

-Woo twice: Found the monkeys!

-Woo thrice: Emergency

I have spent a lot of time on my own tramping back and forth between monkeys, creating new paths and following old ones. The result is I already feel like I know my way around CBETA better after three days than I know Palenque National Park (PNP) after ~20 days. While PNP is less dense and has more maintained trails, it is a much more extensive area. Also, since I work with a larger team and am therefore less essential, a side effect is I tend to follow and not pay as much attention to where I am going. In the fragment it is just Chiara and me so I know I’m needed to find the monkeys and collect data/samples. Basically, I have to be on top of my game. I have to learn faster and pay attention to every slight detail of the forest because I’m on my own to get back.

On days when it takes us hours to locate them, I feel all of my senses tensing up and becoming super sensitive. I notice every potential grunt, leaf munch or branch break. I can tell whenever they’ve defecated and urinated in a spot in the past two days, and where they’ve been feeding. The downside to being über aware is a lot of false hope followed by let down. When it’s 11 a.m. and we know we absolutely have to find them in order to complete the six hour daily minimum of focals, every promising sound and movement that turns out to be a bird or squirrel (huge, black squirrels with long tails that look convincingly like howler monkey juveniles) is a heart-breaker.

There are days when I question why I got myself into this mess, mostly having to do with encounters with swarming ants, being caught in prison of thorny lianas and chochos (evil spiky palms who's spines break off in your skin and irritate for days), chiggers in unfortunate places and finding no safe sanctuary in which to answers Nature’s call. A really low moment happened the first day with Griffin, when Chiara and I went through a thick tunnel of vines and came out with our arms and hands covered in swarms of little, red, stinging ants. We got about 20 stings apiece. As you have probably gathered by now, ants are to Peggy as snakes are to Indiana Jones—my only weakness, my Achilles heel and the one thing that can make me scream like a little girl.

Despite all of these constant struggles, most days I return exhausted but satisfied with the work. And the result is I feel like I’m actually cut out for this job. Yesterday we left for the field at 6 a.m. but didn’t find the monkeys until 12 p.m. The two males (Bro and Peter) stayed split for most of the day, but we stilled managed to collect fecal samples from both of them. We didn’t return until after 5 p.m., and then had to enter data and process the fecal material, but we had accomplished it so much and it felt great.

Depending on the day it can be all walking and fighting through thick brush with no chance to sit, eat, think or relax. That was how yesterday was. But the first day with the Griffins was great, with them separate but resting for hours on end. I had time to sit and think, and enjoy other aspects of the forest. When I get the chance I like to photograph or sketch all the critters I see, so I can go back and identify them later. I’m not used to not recognizing the majority of animals I encounter, so the first thing I want to do is figure out what species they are. I have also been using the time spent alone and resting to brainstorm what possible research I would want to do for my PhD. I’ve narrowed it down to dominance hierarchies and mating systems of lemurs, but I should really have a better idea before I start applying for funding.

But either way, resting with the monkeys or traveling with them, the work is definitely heavy. I have been so stressed about applying for graduate school, but working on it any time other than the long breaks has proved to be nearly impossible. All added up our work days are 12-13 hours and by the time we finish we have little time or energy for anything beyond showering and making some food. Tomorrow was supposed to be the first day of the four day break, but Sarie’s group is still missing some data and needs to go back for another half day. I decided to go with them because I felt bad resting while my comrades were working, but I’ll bring all my camera gear to make it worth while.

Today I discovered a new technique--binophotography: photographing through my binoculars. Creates some harsh vignetting, but works much better than I expected.

Pardon the shakiness of the videos, binovideography is taxing on the arms!

***