Friday, December 31, 2010

A Year in Review

Well in the tradition of sentimentality, I have decided to bypass my feelings that this is too cliche, and share what I got up to this year in the course of my primate research! I hope this gives you a taste of what it is like to be a primatologist!

The research team (3 on the left)
This time last year I was packing up all of my field supplies, saying goodbye to friends and family and my little pomeranian as I was setting out on yet another research adventure. I was flying off to Belize for another 8 months to conduct the field work for my MA in Anthropology.  Overall the fieldwork was extremely challenging but rewarding! The field conditions at our research site are fairly difficult as the spider monkeys move fast and aren't afraid of climbing quickly over steep limestone hills.  After the first couple of weeks getting my "forest legs" back, it got a lot easier! I started getting better at collecting fecal samples and discovered the best way to do get them is to follow the monkeys until they fell asleep, note their locations, then get there early in the morning before they wake up and just stand under their sleeping trees.  Sounds easy, but it invloves waking up at 3:45am and leaving for the bush at 4:40am in order to drive the 20min and hike 15 - 30min into the forest depending on where they bed down.  Over the next few months I was able to collect plenty of data from the howler and spider monkeys with the help of three amazing field assistants (thanks Stevan, Patrick and Franck)!

View from the top of one of the ridges at RCNR
Unfortunately living in another country isn't always easy. In February of last year I lost a friend to gang-related violence in Belize City. He was gunned down  as he was riding his bicycle down the street and to this day his murder remains unsolved. As well, I managed to acquire a staphylococcus spp. infection in my kidneys. I swear this is from swimming in the local river during the dry season, but regardless...it was resistant to various antibiotics and as a result I had it for four months of my field season.  It was extremely exhausting and painful, but I worked through it and still managed to collect enough data!


Japanese macacques at Arashiyama
After a short return to Canada, I headed off to Japan for the International Primatological Society Congress. The meeting primarily took place in Kyoto, which is one of the main cultural centres in Japan. I learned a lot by attending various talks and got to meet a variety of primatologists with varying specialties.  I presented a poster on infant handling by adult males in Ateles geoffroyi, and got a lot of positive feedback. Aside from the meetings I also got to visit Arashiyama monkey park to visit a group of free-ranging Japanese macacques.  We also spent a day touring Kyoto and saw the beautiful Kinkaku-ji (Golden Temple), the bamboo forest, Gion the Geisha district and a variety of other temples dispersed around the city.  Afterwards a friend and I took the shinkansen (bullet train) to Hiroshima in order to visit the museum and exact place that the atomic bomb hit. It was an extremely saddening, but educational experience. We also visited the island of Miyajima and took the gondola up to the top of Mount Misen for an amazing view of the inland sea and were surprised to also see a bunch of wild Japanese macacques.  It was truly an amazing trip.

Some of the damage at RCNR
I was set to start my labwork in October however on the 24th, hurricane Richard hit Belize and our field site directly (see blog post http://bit.ly/h5wIlY).  That night I actually received three texts from the other researcher who was down there and proceeded to worry that something was terribly wrong.  I had heard via twitter that there was a hurricane heading there but it was supposed to be a category 1 and downgrade to a tropical storm at landfall. Unfortunately the hurricane actually gained speed and was more around a category 2 with winds reaching almost 100km and hour. After a little discussion it was decided that I was to fly to Belize the next day and help to assess the damage and find the monkeys.  This was one of the most stressful trips I have taken to Belize. As well we lost a friend to a hurricane-related accident, which was extremely unfortunate.

After returning from Belize I started working in the lab analyzing the fecal samples for parasite cysts, larvae and eggs.  So far I have some fairly interesting findings and I am excited to continue working on the samples in the new year!

Overlooking the inland sea on top of Mount Misen, Japan
Overall, the year was full of excitement and adventure. I can't believe that I have actually only spent 3 months at home! Over the next year I plan to finish my analyses and defend my thesis by August. After that my plans are up in the air. Who knows where this job will take me! Maybe back to Belize for 7 months, or perhaps to another field site...I am not too sure. Whatever I do though, I know I will enjoy every minute of it!  Thanks to all of the people that touched my life this year. I appreciate all of the support, friendship and advice that you give!

3 comments: