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.