Close encounters of the false alarm kind

            Today I had my first slightly frightening, but mostly just exciting, large animal encounter. At about 5pm, Nicola and I were sitting behind the truck, waiting for Nathan to finish his follow day. We were keeping busy by scraping caulk off of “temp balls” which are small devices used to record temperature at various places throughout the reserve. Anyway, all of a sudden we heard a low boom, followed by another. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. You get the point. Without taking too much time to debate whether it was buffalo or rhino, we threw our stuff together and scrambled to get back to the car (had we not been right next to it, we would have looked around for a tree to climb). I basically threw myself in headfirst. Nicola was still flailing around, packing up a couple things I’d failed to consider in my panic. The noise got closer and closer. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. Just when Nicola was about to hop in the car the animal came into view. And guess what it was? A woman on horseback. Yep. She seemed a bit confused by our hysteria.

            So that was a false alarm, but there was another encounter this evening. When we pulled into our driveway, there were elephants hanging around the house. This is fairly normal, and they were decently far away, so it wasn’t a cause for concern. We just parked and went inside quickly. About a half hour later we realized that the water pressure was down, so Nathan decided to go turn on the generator. Since there were elephants around, I went with him (because my presence would totally ensure our safety, right? But it seems like a good idea not to be alone in these situations). Even though the generator is basically in our front yard, we drove, since it was dark and we really had no idea where the elephants were. We walked into the small building that houses the generator. This building – more of a shack, really – could easily be the set of a bad horror movie. It was dark, we had one flashlight, and it seemed as if the floor could cave in at any moment. Nathan started to explain how to check the level of petrol and turn on the generator. Then, out of the partially-shattered, spider web covered window, I saw something moving. We heard some very heavy footsteps and chewing noises.

            “That’s…” I said, not wanting to make any stupid assumptions after the horse fiasco.

            “Elephants,” Nathan confirmed.

            We felt relatively safe in the generator shack (the door was wide open, but it wasn’t big enough for an elephant to get through, unless they decided to push down a significant chunk of the wall). So, we quickly turned on the generator and stepped outside to get to the car. There was one moment where we couldn’t see anything, thanks to the blinding brightness of our headlights, but we managed to make it into the car without literally running into an elephant.

            So, there you go. Not the most dramatic of encounters, but just enough to keep me on my toes.

Week One

Many of you are probably already aware of this, but I’ve arrived safely at the field site. I’ve been here since Sunday night, but I haven’t had much time to update this blog, as we’ve been following every day. Normally I’ll be out on Fridays, too, but I’m not feeling super well today (jet-lag and airplane germs had to catch up with me eventually) so I stayed in. I thought I would sleep a lot, but I think my internal clock is already set to not sleeping in past seven-ish. Oh well. Currently sitting on my bed with the cat, George. He’s lovely. This morning he greeted me at the door with a few feathers sticking out of his mouth, and then once I finally let him in proceeded to lick my hand incessantly. In all seriousness, though, I’m not sure I could make it ten months without a pet around.

Anyway, I should get to what I’ve been up to the past week. I’ve been going out into the field every day with another research assistant, Nicola, and a master’s student, Nathan. They’re teaching me how to recognize individual vervets – about 110 monkeys, split into three different troops. It’s been quite challenging so far. At first, besides the fairly obvious differences between males and females, they all looked about the same. After all, it’s not like they have vastly different hair, eye, or skin colors, the way humans do. Then Nicola and Nathan started pointing out ones with clear traits, like a stubbed tail or large scar. Those have been easy to learn, but for most of them you have to rely on more subtle differences, like a particularly curvy tail, a white dot under one eye, or a large forehead. Each person that follows them can rely on different traits (Nicola said she can generally pick out one female because she “walks like a lioness on the prowl”); all that really matters is that we can reliably agree on who is who. Right now I’m getting so many wrong that it’s a little overwhelming, but every time I start to recognize a new individual I get really excited. It’s like a puzzle that I’m very slowly putting together (generally it takes people about 3 months to learn all the monkeys and be fully trained in data collection protocol, so I might not actually be taking data until August). Knowing even just the few monkeys that I do makes following much more interesting, as it’s possible to pick up on patterns of how they interact with each other. 

Schmear and Bernie sunbathing.

Give me a couple months and maybe I’ll be able to say who this is…

Even now, without knowing all the individuals, they’re still pretty entertaining. The infant vervets are especially funny to watch; they will look super serious one second and then clumsily leap into the air after a butterfly the next. The infants are also very curious about us and human objects; one just reached out and stole my pen, and another snuck up behind me while I wasn’t paying attention and casually touched my ankle. I think that’s the first time any wild animal has touched me. Hopefully next time I’ll be a bit more aware and will be able to move away (not that I’m threatened by tiny babies, just because physical contact with your research subjects is a bit of a no-no).

Eh, I guess this tiny baby monkey is decently cute.

We live in a house on Asante Sana, which is a property near Samara, where we do our fieldwork. The field site is about a forty minute drive away, so with a ten hour work day, we’re gone for nearly twelve hours, five days a week. Evenings pretty much consist of a quick shower, checking email, dinner, and bed. In the summer months, the schedule will change so that we’ll work longer days but have Wednesdays off. People seem to be generally more enthusiastic about that schedule, so I’m looking forward to it.

I should mention that the whole area is really beautiful. We’re in a sort of valley surrounded by fairly impressive mountains. Sunsets are particularly amazing. While driving, we’ve encountered various types of antelope, giraffe, elephants, buffalo, and rhinos (fortunately, we haven’t yet encountered any dangerous wildlife while on foot). Sadly, a rhino was just poached on a property between our house and field site. I believe this is the first time, at least in recent history, that there has been a major poaching incident in the area. Hopefully it won’t happen again.

Today, two of our supervisors are arriving, and they’ll be here for a couple of weeks, while a vet puts thermoregulation sensors into some of the monkeys. Tomorrow, we’re going into town (Graaff-Reinet) for a grocery trip. I’ve never shopped for two weeks before, so I plan to make a pretty detailed list of what I’ll need. We’re also having the weekly braai, and there was some talk of horseback riding. It should be nice to have a bit of a break after so much traveling and then jumping right into following. It also came at a pretty good time for me, as I should hopefully be feeling better by Monday. 

So, I think that’s all for now. I’m missing home a bit, but I’m adjusting. Everyone I’ve met has been really welcoming, and so far things seem to be going fairly smoothly.  

Back to the field

Hey friends and family,

I thought about starting a new blog, but seeing as I’m returning to South Africa to once again stalk monkeys, it seemed appropriate to just continue with this one. This time around, I’m going for ten months instead of three. I’ll be working as a research assistant to Peter Henzi and Louise Barrett, following vervet monkeys at the Samara Game Reserve in the Eastern Cape Province (if “Samara” sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the name of the creepy little girl in “The Ring”). It’s a little daunting that I’m leaving tomorrow and won’t be back for almost a year, but I’m also really excited. I’m going to try and go to sleep now, as I’m not so good at doing that on planes, and I have a lovely 32 hour journey ahead of me (Detroit – Chicago – Munich – Joburg, then on Sunday flying into Port Elizabeth and driving to Samara). Yeesh. Anyway, check back here for updates and pictures. You can also subscribe to this blog to receive email notifications when I put up a new post. Have a great year, everyone, and please keep in touch!