The Next Two Months in South Africa

After spending some time in Skukuza working on the invasive snail project, we moved further north in the Kruger National Park to a camp called Tamboti. The plants and animals here were a little bit different; for example, we saw a lot more giraffes and zebras than in Skukuza. Tamboti was also where I saw my first wild leopards. On one sighting, the leopard got up and starting walking towards our vehicle and was right by the side of the road before leaving. In our camp, we frequently saw vervet monkeys (especially drawn to breakfast), and at night, we saw honey badgers (which have a very fearsome reputation) and a genet (a cat-like animal related to the mongoose). At Tamboti, we did a project on camera trapping in which we placed cameras at various places in the bush to photograph whatever animals walk past them. My group’s cameras picked up various animals such as impalas, elephants, a leopard, and a rare cat called a serval.

One of the leopards we saw near Tamboti Camp

 We later went to Shingwedzi, another camp in the far north of the Kruger. The landscape is much more flat and open up there, and one species of tree dominates. Our course carried out a few more projects in this area. Working with renowned South African botanist William Bond, we recorded the plants found in transects in different types of environment. This data will be used to compare the effects of fire and herbivory on the plants of a landscape, since the Kruger has exclosures in which both fire and large herbivores have been excluded for decades. Our other Shingwedzi project involved observing the feeding behavior of oxpeckers, which eat ticks off of various animals.

We left the Kruger National Park to go on homestays in the HaMakuya area. With three other students and a Venda translator, I went to a small village called Mukoma. The village had a great location next to a river and mountains and with lots of enormous baobab trees. We had a task to interview several members of the community about their access to water and their perceptions of its availability and quality. This region is very water stressed, and like most people in the village, we had to carry buckets of water back for our own use. The village’s many children loved drawing us into their games and showing us around, and they never seemed to run out of energy. On our day off after our homestays, our program visited a huge baobab called the Big Tree. Everyone could easily fit on the branches at the same time, and there were many branches to climb and walk on.

At this point in my program, we left the bush to spend some time in the cities. For our one day in Johannesburg, we visited Lilliesfield Farm, where Nelson Mandela and other African National Congress leaders hid out and were arrested during apartheid. After that, we went to the Apartheid Museum to learn more about the oppressive regime of institutionalized racism that governed South Africa until 1994. I enjoyed these chances to learn more about the interesting history of the country I am visiting. Following our brief stay in Johannesburg, we all flew to Cape Town for our mid-semester break. We had several days to ourselves to spend as we chose. Among other activities, I hiked Table Mountain, the iconic plateau that rises above the city, and I went snorkeling feet from Cape fur seals. As a group, we also visited Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in prison. Our tour guide was actually a former political prisoner who now lives on the island. His and others’ capacity for forgiveness was incredible to witness.

Some of us enjoying the view of Cape Town from a hill © 2014 Leigh West

The next place we visited was De Hoop Nature Reserve, which was quite different from the savanna we were used to. The habitat there is considered fynbos, which the term for a South African Mediterranean type ecosystem. This biome has over 9,000 species of plants, and even small areas have immense diversity. The reserve was also along the coast, near the meeting of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In addition to several academic assignments, I helped with two scientific projects. One involved looking in tidepools to see the factors that affected the number of species in the pool. For the other, we shone bright lights near a bat cave to see if the light pollution would affect their willingness to emerge from the cave.

Me enjoying the octopus we found © 2014 Caroline Schechinger

Now, we have all travelled back to Skukuza, in the Kruger National Park, where we will spend the remainder of our time in South Africa. In the coming weeks, we will design our own scientific studies, collect and analyze data, write a paper, and present our findings to South African National Parks. Time is going by really quickly, so I will have to take advantage of my last month in this country.

Madagascar, Mexico, and South Africa

For the majority of July, I spent seven hours a day in the bamboo forests of Antanetiambo Nature Reserve.  Working with Faye, Rabary, Jackson, and others, I observed the group of three northern bamboo lemurs.  Every five minutes, we recorded what the lemurs were doing using codes for different behaviors.  If they were eating, we also recorded the plant species and part.  Also, because we entered our data into a GPS, we were able to collect ranging data for where the lemurs spent their time in the reserve.  Faye and I made sure that the study could continue to run smoothly without us, so Rabary and Jackson will continue the observations until December.  We hope that this data will not only provide information about this understudied species, but also that it will improve ecotourism in Antanetiambo.  We now have a much better sense of where to find the lemurs, when they are likely to be napping, and what they eat.  Dwarf bamboo was overwhelmingly their most common meal, so they spent almost all of their time in the dense bamboo forest.  We also collected fecal samples from the lemurs over the course of the month.  We scooped the poop into vials, wrapped them up in duct tape, and sent them off to a lab at Cornell.  When the results are in, we will know which parasites are affecting our bamboo lemurs.

At the end of July, the time came for me to leave Madagascar.  The various final goodbyes were spread out over a several day period as I travelled from Matsobe to Sambava and then flew to Antananarivo and eventually home.  I had a full day layover in Antananarivo (the capital), which allowed me to do a little sightseeing.  We visited the Queen’s Palace, home to the rulers of the plateau until the French overthrew the monarchy in the late 19^th century.  We also got to see Malagasy animals at the Tsimbazaza Zoo and free-ranging lemurs at a place called Lemur Park.  Antananarivo was also a nice way to gradually readjust to seeing things I had rarely seen since the States: tall buildings, glass windows, intersections, white people, and so forth.

After only a few days at home in Nevada, my family left for a vacation in Mexico.  After flying into Cancun, we drove south to the coastal village of Akumal (Mayan for “place of the turtles”).  We have visited this town before, and it is a relaxing place to enjoy the ocean.  From where we were staying, we could walk right out into the water and go snorkeling whenever we wanted.  The coral and fish come in an incredible array of colors, and I also saw a few sea turtles.  We also discovered a nearby garbage can that was frequented by a troop of coatis (relatives of raccoons) and a lone agouti (a rodent that looks like a small capybara).  With the exception of the two times my sister’s feet got impaled by sea urchin spines, we had a very tranquil week.

In mid-August, I left the United States for the fourth time this year.  This time, the destination was South Africa.  I am participating in a semester-long program through the Organization for Tropical Studies.  My four classes are in Ecology, Conservation, Field Biology, and History and Culture.  I met up with the other 24 students in Johannesburg.  Since almost half are Duke students, I knew multiple people from back at school.  There are also students from other universities in the US and in South Africa.  We spent the first two weeks of the program at a nature conservancy called Pullen Farm.  Because Pullen lacks the big dangerous animals of some of our other sites, we were free to wander around on foot.  Just because there weren’t any animals that could kill me doesn’t mean that there was no interesting wildlife, though; I saw wildebeest, giraffes, zebras, chacma baboons, and many species of antelope.  In addition to our lectures, we got to do our first field project.  In small groups, we formulated a question, collected data for two hours, and wrote scientific papers on our admittedly scanty data.  My group looked at the sacred coraltree (Erythrina lysistemon) and whether birds are more attracted to red or pink flowers.  Although it is hard to draw conclusions from so little data, it looks as if we were right and birds prefer the brighter red flowers.

Last week, we left Pullen Farm to go to the Skukuza camp of Kruger National Park (KNP).  Since the moment I entered the park, I have seen my first wild hippos, Nile crocodiles, elephants, white rhinos, lions, Cape buffalo, vervet monkeys, hyenas, and a bushbaby.  After every two or three minutes on the road, we see a herd of impala.  Because of the dangerous nature of many of these animals, we are not allowed out of our vehicles without an armed game guard.  We have all been working in the field to gather data relevant to the management of KNP.  My group focused on a species of invasive freshwater snail that has been spreading through the nearby Sabie River.  We sampled from various sites in the river to count and identify the mollusks in our plots.  We have found an incredible variation in the number of snails; some plots have almost none, while others have hundreds per square meter.  Over the coming weeks, we will turn this project into another paper as well as a poster to present to South African National Parks (SANParks).  Tomorrow, we leave for another camp further north in the park, so I am excited to see more of KNP before eventually returning to Skukuza.

The Dwarves Delved Too Deep

After the fish harvest, Faye and I went back to Sambava to do some of our work there.  In the course of marking Antanetiambo's trails and botanical plots, we have accumulated many GPS points.  Coupling this data with satellite imagery, we were able to make a trail map that will be useful for ecotourism and monitoring, and also a map to show the botanist where to find the plots.  We also updated the reserve's boundaries to reflect the newest land acquisition.

The Antanetiambo trail map we made

Since then, we have also done several other GPS and map-making projects.  We have begun the process of mapping out the various types of habitat in Antanetiambo: bamboo forest, patches of invasive species, human disturbance areas, and more.  One of our guides, Jackson, also has his own small private reserve, so we marked out the boundaries of that as well.  Jackson's land also is home to a group of bamboo lemurs, so hopefully he will get some ecotourist visitors as well.  Another project was flagging and mapping some land near Sambava that is to be used as a tree nursery.  Various NGOs in the area have had great success at growing large numbers of trees for reforestation efforts, and many of these projects are supported by the Duke Lemur Center's SAVA Conservation Initiative.  We even helped to build the fence for a tree nursery at Antanetiambo, where we will grow Valiha diffusa (a native bamboo the bamboo lemurs enjoy).

While we were in Sambava, we checked up on two sites that Erik has known to have pet lemurs in the past in order to see the current conditions.  Unfortunately, the pet trade is a threat to lemurs; many are taken out of the wild and often kept in poor conditions.  While organizations like the Duke Lemur Center have the facilities and knowledge to care for captive lemurs, most individuals and businesses do not.  One hotel previously owned two lemurs, but we found our that these had been released into a forest nearby.  The other place we visited owned various lemurs.  We saw seven lemurs that appear to be Sanford's brown lemurs (Eulemur sanfordi), an endangered species.  They claimed to also have a bamboo lemur and a dwarf lemur, but we did not see them.  Most of the lemurs we saw were free ranging on the property, but one was kept in a small cage.  We were told that one of the adults had been attacking this one-year-old male, so he was caged for his own protection.  Without being bidden, some of the lemurs jumped on Faye's and my shoulders.  Needless to say, it was quite fun to have lemurs climbing on us, and we took lots of pictures.  However, I do have mixed feelings about the experience.  Even if our purpose there was to collect information for Erik, by responding positively and taking pictures of the lemurs, perhaps we are encouraging people to keep lemurs as pets.  I do not want people to take these amazing animals out of the wild and into potentially poor conditions just so tourists will come see.  On the other hand, I don't know that this particular situation could really be improved.  Pet lemurs do not usually fare well when simply released into the wild, and (with the exception of the one in the cage) the lemurs we saw seemed to have lots of space.  Perhaps the best thing to do is just to keep track of them and make sure their situation does not become worse.

I was thrilled when I found out that I had the chance to return to Marojejy National Park for another project.  One of Erik's associates, Dr. Marina Blanco, does research on the park's dwarf lemurs (Cheirogaleus sp.).  This type of lemur actually goes into hibernation for half the year.  Marina has put radio collars on three dwarf lemurs in Marojejy, which are hibernating right now.  Since she will be returning to the park and the lemurs will be waking up soon, we had the task of going into Marojejy to track down the hibernating lemurs.  This time, Faye and I worked with Dez Kely and Donatien, two guides who have worked with Marina in the past.  To operate the radio tracker, we had to point an antenna in various directions and listen to the beeps denoting a radio signal.  Then, it becomes sort of like a game of Marco Polo: going in the direction of the sound and checking the direction again.  It turns out that this is much harder than it sounds; oftentimes, the direction is hard to discern and the information can seem contradictory.  Nevertheless, we were able to narrow down the dwarf lemur's locations.  One radio collar gave off no signal, so we think the batteries are dead.  One of the lemurs seemed to be up the the treetops, and another seemed to be in the ground.  We found a few holes under one particular rock where the signal was especially strong.  Unfortunately, the dwarf lemur was too deep to actually see, but it is exciting to know that we narrowed its location down from a huge forest to one rock.

Using the radio tracker © 2014 Faye Goodwin

In general, Faye and I seem to be getting better at finding animals, even when they do not have convenient radio collars.  I noticed a group of silky sifakas (Propithecus candidus) and white-fronted brown lemurs (Eulemur albifrons).  Both of these species had to be pointed out to me the last time I was in the park.  Also, Faye found one of the tiny Brookesia minima chameleons all on her own; we had been astonished last time when our guide had spotted one.

That tiny brown twig I'm holding is actually a chameleon © 2014 Faye Goodwin

We made it back to civilization just in time for Madagascar's Independence Day: June 26.  Some of the English Clubs from the SAVA Region were having a meeting in Andapa on June 25-26, so we went down to meet with them.  The students seemed excited to have the chance to practice their English with visiting Americans, so we had lots of conversations.  Organizing the events were four Peace Corps Volunteers from the US.  Coincidentally, it turns out that one of them was even born in the same small Arizona town that I was.  With the English Association of the Region SAVA (EARS), we marched in an Independence Day parade, which, despite a several hour wait, only lasted about three minutes end to end.  It was interesting to experience another country's independence day.  Andapa was decked own in red, white, and green flags, and the population tripled as people came from the surrounding area for the festivities.  Since Madagascar got its independence from France just 54 years ago, the impact of colonialism can still be felt here.  I have noticed that independence day seems to be a much bigger deal here than in the United States, whose 238th birthday I will be missing tomorrow.

Andapa on Independence Day

After the holiday, we happily returned to Matsobe to do some bamboo lemur observations in Antanetiambo.  We have found that the group of three Hapalemur occidentalis consists of one female and two males.  At first, all the individuals looked the same, but now, we have become quite good at distinguishing the males from the female.  Telling the two males apart is much harder, but I have already started to pick up on subtle coloration differences on their backs.  Daily observations will continue even after we are gone, so hopefully there will eventually be enough data to tell the lemurs' range and dietary preferences.  This will have various applications, from informing us about which trees to plant to making it easier for ecotourists to find the lemurs.

Already, we have made some interesting observations.  On multiple occasions, we have seen one of the lemurs eat clay from a decaying stump.  Eating soil, or geophagy, is seen in many animals including lemurs.  This behavior is still being studied, but the benefits probably have to do with nutrition.  Also, we observed mating between two of the lemurs.  I will be interested to hear the updates from after we leave Madagascar; perhaps there will be a baby lemur in about 140 days.

Right now, we are in Sambava for a talk by a Duke professor, Dr. Charlie Nunn.  I have actually volunteered as a research assistant for one of Dr. Nunn's graduate students working at the Duke Lemur Center.  After Dr. Nunn's interesting and well-attended talk about the relationship between parasites and extinctions, he departed for Marojejy to collect preliminary information for his research.  Tomorrow, we will be back at Antanetiambo to continue with our bamboo lemur observations.

Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold

On the morning of June 1, we set off from Sambava down the road towards Marojejy National Park.  Faye and I were joined by Désiré, Jackson, and Lanto for this trip.  Erik accompanied us to the information center and also walked with us down the first part of the trail.  The walk from the visitor center to the park entrance took us through several villages.  We got to see a tree nursery supported in part by the Duke Lemur Center's SAVA Conservation Initiative, as well as the place where a local alcoholic drink called betsa-betsa is made.  Along the way, many children called out "Bonjour, vazaha!" (or "Hello, white person!") to us, which felt a bit strange but was meant in a completely non-derogatory way.

A view of Marojejy National Park from a distance.  The summit is in the clouds.

Almost as soon as we got into the park, there was a dramatic change of environment.  Instead of deforested agricultural land, we were in the middle of primary lowland rainforest.  Unlike Antanetiambo, this forest has never been cleared before, so the plant and animal diversity is even greater.  As we proceeded deeper and deeper into the reserve, we climbed higher and higher.  This meant that the forest around us changed into mid-altitude rainforest, high-altitude rainforest, and montane scrub over the course of the trip.  Each habitat has its own distinct feel in terms of the flora and fauna found there.  For example, the higher you go, the trees get smaller and the moss becomes more plentiful.

One of the primary objectives of the trip was to download climate data.  Research into how climate change is affecting Madagascar is an active area of study, but most of the temperature and humidity data comes from cities rather than primary forest.  Marojejy has five climate stations at different altitudes, and the DLC is downloading this data every six months.  We had the chance to help Lanto with this.  A Malagasy PhD student will use this data to analyze how climate change affects the moss in Marojejy National Park, so it will be interesting to see what we can learn from this data.

Faye and I GPS marking the climate station © 2014 Lanto Andrianandrasana

Marojejy has three main camps that are used by visitors and researchers: Camp 1 (or Camp Mantella, after a type of frog), Camp 2 (or Camp Marojejya, after an endemic palm), and Camp 3 (or Camp Simpona, after the silky sifaka lemurs).  We stayed in each of these camps over the course of the trip, and each was in a slightly different type of environment.  By far, my favorite was Camp 2, which is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life.  A small mountain stream runs over the rocks, and a green, rainforested peak rises up and towers above you.  It was really a breathtaking sight that pictures cannot fully capture.

Me at Camp Marojejya  © 2014 Faye Goodwin

I was of course thrilled that we were able to see so many amazing animals in the park.  There were many brightly colored frogs and lizards, including quite a few chameleons.  We even got to see Brookesia minima, the smallest chameleon in the world.  I have no idea how Jackson found it; he ran ahead, and when we caught up with him, he was sitting next to a tiny twig on the ground that turned out to be the chameleon.  Other amazing animals we saw include the leaf-tailed gecko, the red kingfisher, and a spider that throws nets on its prey.  Needless to say, though, the best animals we saw were lemurs.

Brookesia minima, the smallest chameleon in the world

Faye and I saw five species of lemur in Marojejy, each on multiple occasions.  The park's most common lemur is the white-fronted brown lemur (Eulemur albifrons), which have grey fur and (in males) white heads.  Twice at Camp 3, we caught a brief glimpse of a pair of red-bellied lemurs (Eulemur rubriventer).  They have reddish-brown fur and black tails, and this is one of the only monogamous lemur species.  One night, we got a long, close look at a mouse lemur (Microcebus sp.), which we had already seen at Antantetiambo.  This one sat still and stared at us for quite a while.  Near Camp 1, we also spent quite a while watching the northern bamboo lemurs (Hapalemur occidentalis), the other species we have seen on Désiré's reserve.  Erik wanted us to have the chance to observe them in Marojejy, since watching these habituated animals lets us practice for Antanetiambo and become more familiar with their behavior.  We tried to identify males and females, which turned out to be really difficult.

Northern bamboo lemur near Camp 1

My favorite lemur to watch, and the flagship species of Marojejy, is the silky sifaka (Propithecus candidus).  Most of what we know about this species comes from the research of Erik and his team in Marojejy.  Désiré was also very knowledgeable about them, since he worked for many years as a guide in this national park.  They have soft, white fur, sometimes with darker patches on their back and head.  Their faces are either black, pink, or a mottled combination of the two.  Sifakas are vertical-clingers-and-leapers, which means that they keep their body in an upright position as they bound between the trees.  Watching them, it really looked like they were flying.  We spent several hours watching them near Camp 2, and we also found a few more groups over the course of the trip.  Once, on the way to Camp 3, Désiré stopped and told us to look up.  Less than two meters over our head was a silky sifaka, looking right at us.  Although it quickly fled, it was an amazing moment.  At another point, we found an individual that Désiré and Lanto, recognized: Pinkface.  This male had previously been evicted from his group by another male, but he has since managed to find and join another group.  Seeing these animals in the wild was a truly incredible experience.  There are no silky sifakas in captivity, and this Critically Endangered species may only number in the hundreds or thousands.  The only way to see them is to travel to northeastern Madagascar and venture into the primary forest of Marojejy or one of several other reserves.  I am glad that by visiting this park, I was helping the local guides, cooks, and porters make a living in a way that requires the preservation of Madagascar's unique biodiversity.

Silky sifaka in the high-altitude forest

I also got to go to the summit of Marojejy Massif, the park's highest point at 2,132 m above sea level.  Unfortunately, Faye was feeling ill and was unable to come, but Désiré and Jackson joined me in the hike to the top.  Even though the trail was only two kilometers, it took three hours due because it was so steep.  Oftentimes, we had to use tree roots to pull ourselves up.  Jackson had asked if I wanted to watch the sunrise from the top; I didn't want to miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so we set out at 2:30 in the morning.  The sun was rising just as we made it to the summit.  We were essentially in a cloud, so you couldn't see very far, but I still thought it was an amazing view.  The clouds stretched our beneath us, and as the sun rose over them, they turned a bright orange.  For the first time since my plane landed in Antananarivo, I felt cold due to the wind and elevation.

Sunrise from the summit

After Marojejy, we returned to Andapa to continue working there.  We made it back just in time to help with the fish harvest.  The Duke Lemur Center supports a local fish pond as a sustainable source of food.  We hope that by raising local fish, we can decrease the incidence of bushmeat and deforestation so that places like Marojejy are not lost forever.  The fish raised are Paratilapia polleni ("fony" in Malagasy), a locally endemic species which had been believed to be extinct at one point.  The fish pond was drained, and all the fish were then caught by hand.  The adult fish were sold at market, the subadults were kept to repopulate the pond, and the juveniles were put into the local river system to restore the wild population.  All in all, 3,808 fish were collected (mostly juveniles).  We helped with the photo and video documentation and record keeping.

Fish harvest © 2014 Faye Goodwin

The day after the fish harvest, there was a big ceremony related to the fish harvest.  Many people, including local officials, gathered in front of Désiré's house for the "repoissonment", or release of the fish into the river.  Faye and I got to help put some of them into the water, where they will hopefully replenish the streams.  After this, everyone proceeded down the road to the community of Marovato.  Hundreds of people gathered as speeches were made and local performers sang about the environment.  Hopefully, this will garner local support for the fish farming project.

The Mayor of Marovato, Désiré, Faye, and Me © 2014 Erik Patel

Right now, Faye and I are back in Sambava.  We will download the GPS data we have gathered about Antanetiambo's trails, botanical plots, and lemur sightings.  Also, we will create an updated brochure about Antanetiambo.  Since it is one of Madagascar's only nature reserves created entirely by a local resident, it is a unique place that really deserves more publicity.  Once we have finished in Sambava, we will be back to Antanetiambo to observe the bamboo lemurs.

Lemur-watching © 2014 Faye Goodwin

Here Be Lemurs

Antantetiambo sign in front of Désiré's house

The day after Faye and Erik flew in from Tana, we made the move out to Andapa.  Specifically, Désiré’s house is in Matsobe, which is sort of like a small suburb just outside the main town.  It is situated at a crossroads and is along a river.  Our tents are adjacent to the kitchen, where Désiré’s wife Valerie cooks the meals.  A typical meal here is a generous portion of rice with some non-rice in it, topped off with more rice and with a hot glass of rice tea on the side.  I can’t tell whether I’ll love rice or hate it by the end, but right now I’m really enjoying Valerie’s delicious cooking.

Although we are obviously lacking a few Western luxuries, I am quite comfortable here and have no real complaints.  Désiré’s family has been incredibly hospitable.  From the house, we have a great view of the scenic mountains and golden rice fields.  On clear nights, the lack of light pollution makes for some of the best stargazing I’ve ever seen.  The Milky Way is very visible.  Since this is my first time in the Southern Hemisphere, I’ve been excited to see some of the things invisible from the north, such as the Southern Cross constellation, the Coalsack nebula, and many amazing star clusters.

The day after we arrived here, we started our work in Antanetiambo, Désiré’s nature reserve.  It is a green hill that rises like an island out of a sea of golden rice fields.  Our first project was to flag the trail systems, which will facilitate ecotourism as well as monitoring by the ranger.  We measured out and flagged every 25 m and also made a GPS map.  The two main trails, both just over 1 km, are named after the two types of lemurs found in Antanetiambo:  Tsidy (mouse lemur) and Bokombolo (bamboo lemur).  We also marked 24 smaller side trails named after other local plants and animals.  Faye and I have seen a variety of these during our work, including trees, insects, birds, snails, and a few chameleons.  But I was of course most excited when we saw the lemurs.

A small juvenile chameleon we saw while flagging trails

Our first lemur sighting came unexpectedly when marking a side trail through a dwarf bamboo grove.  Désiré pointed out a few nesting mouse lemurs (Microcebus sp.) in the trees above us.  Mouse lemurs are nocturnal lemurs, and this genus contains the smallest primates in the world.  The multiple species of mouse lemur all look very similar, so we are not positive which species these are (perhaps Microcebus mittermeieri).  Even though mouse lemurs come out primarily at night, these ones were awake and watching us.  Perhaps our noise woke them up.  After marking more trails, we returned to that spot at the end of the day to check up on them.  They were still there, and we also found another group.  The next day, we spent a little bit of time looking for lemurs, and we found three more groups of mouse lemurs.  One group was very active and was actually hopping through the trees.  I was surprised to see one individual leave one nest and enter another nearby.  That group of five eventually hopped away through the forest.  I’m also proud to say that I found one mouse lemur on my own.  Désiré had assumed one nest was old and abandoned, but I looked closer and noticed a small mouse lemur head.

Mouse lemurs!

That day, we also saw our first northern bamboo lemurs (Hapalemur occidentalis).  These were spotted by Jackson, the other guide we’re working with.  Three individuals were moving about and feeding in the trees above us.  Much of our project later on will consist of observing them.  Since they were hard to see up in the treetops, I can already tell that this will be difficult, but they were still a joy to watch.  Unfortunately, darkness was falling, so we had to return before long.

After the trail marking, our next project was to flag several 10 m by 50 m botanical plots in preparation for a botanist coming in June.  Since this required us to mark straight lines at right angles to each other through thick vegetation, this was much more difficult than the trails.  Still, we managed to complete nine plots in a variety of Antanetiambo’s habitats.  It looks like the botanist will have his work cut out for him, trying to identify every plant species in the 4500 m² of plots.  I am curious about the process, so it will be interesting to see how it goes.

Tomorrow, we are going to Marojejy National Park, an excursion that was one of the things I was most looking forward to about coming to Madagascar.  This mountainous reserve is home to incredible biodiversity, including an incredibly rare lemur called the silky sifaka (Propithecus candidus).  You can actually see the boundary of the park from Andapa; there is a distinct line on the mountains where the slash-and-burn agriculture ends and the protected area begins.  At the moment, I am in Sambava for the night, and we will depart for Marojejy early tomorrow morning.

My next destination: the mountains of Marojejy

Leaving on A Jet Plane... and Arriving, Too

I'm pleased to say that I have safely arrived in Madagascar. The flight from Reno to Chicago to Paris to Antananarivo was quite long, but fortunately I was able to sleep quite a bit on the plane, and Air France in particular really makes sure you're comfortable. When I arrived in Antananarivo (Madagascar's capital, known as Tana for short), I was met at the airport by my project coordinator, Dr. Erik Patel. Erik is the Director of the Duke Lemur Center's SAVA Conservation Initiative, and he has spent years living in Madagascar studying the silky sifaka (Propithecus candidus). Having Erik there to help me certainly made the entry a lot easier, and he saw that I got to the van for my hotel. The next afternoon, I returned to the Tana airport to fly to Sambava. Unfortunately, my project partner Faye had been delayed, so she had to catch the next flight to Sambava a few days later.

Me on arrival.  © 2014 Erik Patel

Sambava is a coastal town in northeastern Madagascar, and it is the capital of the SAVA region (an acronym of the four largest towns, Sambava, Antalaha, Vohemar, and Andapa). It is also home to the headquarters of the DLC's Sava Conservation Initiative. The DLC's other SAVA Conservation employee, Lanto, was there to greet me at the Sambava Airport. Lanto was very helpful in getting me settled in Sambava for the few days before Faye and Erik arrived from Tana. I have had the chance to explore Sambava a bit before we all make the move to our project site. Sambava is mostly built around one main road that runs parallel to the Indian Ocean. The road is busy with pedestrians, cars, bikes, and charming three-wheeled mini-taxis.  Dogs, cats, zebu cattle, ducks, and so many chickens can be found just about anywhere. One gas station is even populated by a heard of goats.

Goat station © 2014 Erik Patel

On Monday, I accompanied Lanto to my main project site of Andapa, a town about two hours away from Sambava. The curvy road was mostly devoid of traffic, but there were many small populations of people at various intervals along the route. I even caught a brief glimpse of a chameleon crossing the road at one point. The road took us past Marojejy National Park, a mountainous protected area home to the silky sifakas. Hopefully, we will have the opportunity to visit Marojejy at some point during our stay in Madagscar. Lanto and I visited the DLC's fish pond, and we stopped by two more fish ponds for Lano to meet with the owners. The DLC has been encouraging fish farming in the SAVA region as a sustainable protein source instead of lemur bushmeat, and some of the native fish are also reintroduced into local river systems. On the way back, we stopped by the house of Désiré Rabary. Désiré is the creator and maintainer of Antanetiambo Nature Reserve, where Faye and I will be working this summer. We will be living in tents just outside of Désiré's house for most of our project. Désiré proudly showed me around: the tents, the kitchen, the new well, the river, and the DLC-supported library across the street. I also met Désiré's wife Valerie, his son-in-law Nadege the librarian, and his dog Puppy.  After getting a feel for where I'll be living, we returned to Sambava.

Faye and Erik arrived from Tana yesterday. After I writing this blog at the DLC office, we will make the drive out to Andapa so we can get started with our project. To begin, we will mark a trail system through Antanetiambo to make it easier for ecotourists to navigate, and also to familiarize ourselves with the reserve. After that, we will proceed to the bamboo lemur observations! Needless to say, I am very excited to get started.

Faye and I at the DLC office © 2014 Erik Patel

Some Background

I work as a tour guide and volunteer as a research assistant at the Duke Lemur Center, the largest collection of lemurs outside of their native Madagascar.  In addition to caring for more than 250 lemurs in Durham, NC, the Lemur Center is also engaged in a variety of conservation projects to help protect them in the wild.  Because Madagascar has been isolated from other land for 90 million years, an incredible array of plants and animals have evolved there that are found nowhere else in the world.  This makes it an important hotspot for biodiversity conservation; if we lose these species in Madagascar, they are gone from the world forever.  While working at the Lemur Center, I learned that two Duke students went to Madagascar last summer to help with the DLC's conservation projects, funded by DukeEngage.  I knew immediately that I wanted to do the same thing.  Along with my friend and fellow tour guide Faye, I applied for DukeEngage and was accepted to go to Madagascar over the summer!

For the next eleven weeks, I will be living near the village of Andapa, in the rainforested SAVA region of northeastern Madagascar.  The Duke Lemur Center supports a variety of conservation efforts in this region, and I will have the opportunity to help with several of these projects.  The primary focus of my work will be at Antanetiambo Nature Reserve.  This reserve was set up through the efforts of a local Malagasy man named Désiré Rabary, and it is supported by the Duke Lemur Center and my project coordinator Dr. Erik Patel.  Very few nature reserves in Madagascar have been created by locals, so Rabary has won a variety of prizes, including the Seacology Prize.  Antanetiambo is home to a population of northern bamboo lemurs (Hapalemur occidentalis), which are popular with ecotourists.  By observing these lemurs, I hope to collect meaningful data that will make it easier for visitors to reliably find them.  Ecotourism is a promising conservation strategy because it allows local people to make a living in a way that encourages and actually requires them to conserve the environment, so I am thrilled to support this in my service project.

Assuming I get my passport back in time (it is currently being processed by the South African Consulate for my study abroad permit), I will be leaving Friday morning from Reno to Chicago to Paris to Antananarivo (Madagascar's capital) to Sambava, from which it is a two hour drive to Andapa.

Until next time!