Animal Encounters

So I am back in the city after another month of hard field work in the forest. This past month I have completed density transects. Density transects can be used to determine approximate population densities of mammals in the forest. Typically, researchers walk transects and while doing so they are looking or listening for any animals. Accordingly, Helen and myself walked every transect twice (60 transects in total = 30 km transect distance), once in the morning and once in the afternoon, and we looked for any primate species and upon a sighting we recorded a bunch of data, such as height above ground and distance to primate. This sounds fairly simple and easy to do; however we finished with little data as the primates fled upon hearing us approaching. Furthermore, both of our focal primate species, the Thomas langur and gibbon and siamangs, are highly arboreal species and consequently they behave cryptically in response to human presence. So even if they were close to our transects they made it impossible for us to spot them. After finishing our transects, our bodies are sore and we are completely exhausted, since on average we walked about 10-15 km a day in rough terrain, mainly hills and steep slopes.  All I can say is that I felt my buns burning while climbing the hills and the only way I got through to completing the transects was thinking about the thighs of steel I must be getting!! The lack of success on our density transects dampened our mood at times, however, we bit the bullet and finished them.  On the bright side, we strengthened our friendship even more (if that’s even possible since we are practically attached at the hip 24/7) and also gained some incredible memories with some close animal encounters!

Enjoying the torrential downpour 

Helen and myself experienced one particular animal encounter that was both fantastic and terrifying. We were returning from a density transect that was particularly difficult and we had no luck in finding any primates. We walked in silence back to camp, as we were annoyed and frustrated with our fieldwork. As we were walking, we heard a loud crashing nearby. We stopped dead in our tracks and took a look around. To our surprise, there was a herd of WILD elephants only 10 METERS away from us. The herd of elephants included about 4-5 adults and 2-3 young. The presence of the young elephants made this situation much more dangerous as the mothers can become aggressive. Without thinking properly, we remained silent (you should make noise to alert the elephants of your presence) and watched the elephants eat. However, in the midst of eating a plant, the elephant closest to us turns its head and stares straight at us. Next thing we know, the elephant is trumpeting and within seconds the entire herd charges. It is by the grace of god that the elephants charged in the opposite direction of us or else we would have been trampled and possibly not alive. Our hearts were beating wickedly fast as we ran for our lives away from the elephants and once we stopped running we both looked at each other in disbelief and laughed nervously. 

This experience was an important reminder for Helen and myself – we are working in a forest with many wild animals and we must remain informed as to how to behave if and when we encounter any kind of animal. Putting the element of danger aside, I must say that this experience was life changing and will be a story I tell for many years to come. What strikes me the most is the simple fact that it is possible to encounter wild animals, such as elephants, in this forest. This makes me tingle with excitement from head to toe and gives me hope for the future towards conserving forest habitats for all animals.

An orangutan casually passing by camp!

 After being in the forest for so long, we sometimes forget all the magic that the forest has to offer us, as well as how lucky we are to be surrounded by the wonderful works of mother nature. Living in the forest isn’t always a breeze -- compromises have to be made to survive, such as having cold showers, eating a monotonous diet of rice, being sweaty 24/7 or best of all being revolted by your own smell. On the other hand, what the forest gives back to you is much much more rewarding and the drawbacks of forest life become negated. One particular morning I woke up on the ground, my body aching after a rough night sleep. My bed (air mattress) had broken for the second time within 3 days of purchasing it, whilst all the mattresses’ of everyone else were perfectly fine. The mattress breaking AGAIN makes me infuriated for some reason and I decide I need to be by myself for a little while. I gather all my dirty clothes and go down to the river to wash them by hand. After an hour of scrubbing and rinsing my clothes I am finally done...that is until a bunch of butterflies come over and decide to poo all over my clean clothes. My day off has not started on a good note. I decide to just rinse them and let them be. I go back to camp and begin organizing my field bag for the next day and while doing so I drop my Swiss-army knife on my big toe. I moan in pain and decide to sit still by the camp kitchen for a while. After a few minutes, I begin to calm down and soon I hear a rustling in the trees. I immediately think it’s just a squirrel and pay no particular attention to it. It is only until I notice the branches moving wildly that I notice it is a wild orangutan, approximate 5 feet above me!!! WTF, how can this be happening!?!?! The wild orangutan moves from tree to tree, directly in front of me in clear view, like its no big deal. It even decides to rest in a tree and look directly at me. As the orangutan looks at me, I realize how silly I was acting for being angry over little non-important things. I decided to embrace this orangutan encounter as a reminder that life could be worse. I am incredibly blessed to be in such an enchanting place and I have been offered an opportunity of a lifetime. I am also so thankful for having such a supportive family that encourages me to follow my wild dreams of working with primates. 

Another, but similar encounter I have experienced relates to a siamang, which is one of two primate species I am researching. Siamangs are highly arboreal primates and are typically found in the higher canopies of forests, which can reach heights up to 60 or more meters. Siamangs use brachiation as their method of locomotion, and accordingly move swiftly between trees with gracefulness and ease. 

photo credit: Thomas Geissmann Gibbon Research Lab, www.gibbons.de/

The siamang ready for its photo shoot!

This primate encounter starts off once again with Helen and myself walking towards one of our transects for a morning walk through. As we are walking, I hear a very faint rustling above my head. I look up and it is a bloody siamang hanging right above my head. I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS!! This primate encounter is very special for me, as I have only seen siamangs on few occasions in the forest and for only brief seconds before they brachiate away. This siamang is hanging by its obscenely long-arms (an important anatomical adaptation for this species related to brachiation) and looks at us like it is ready for its photo shoot. I continue to take pictures for 10 minutes or so until Helen has to pull me away so that we can continue going towards our transect. I am unable to put it in words how heart-touching this moment was for me. In a way, this encounter validated all my hard work thus far and gave me a new wave of energy and motivation for the next phases of my fieldwork.

All in all, this past month has been incredibly difficult for Helen and myself; however, these numerous animal encounters have made every moment in the forest special and memorable.

Living the Jungle Life!

So a month has passed and I have been living the jungle life. A month in the jungle seems a lot longer than it really is but it’s an experience I wouldn’t trade for the world. This month has been hard work but we have made lots of progress with our research.

Going into the field
Top Left: our 8 month supply of stuff. Bottom Left: My custom-fitted mosquito net!
Right: Opening my backpack that has been packed from Canada for 6 months already! It has been on 4 planes in this condition! 

For a quick recap, my research is interested in determining the densities of gibbon and siamang groups across 3 sections of different forest types. Once we determine primate densities in each forest type, our data will help elucidate if they prefer one forest type to another and higher densities in said forest would demonstrate this. We are also collecting vegetation data within each forest type so that we will be able to characterize the types of trees found in each forest and what tree characteristics the primate may be actively selecting.

Spatial organization of our 30 vegetation transects in three different forest types

That is the premise of my research and so what have we done during this month? Well, so far we have completed collecting the vegetation data. We spatially organized and laid out 30-vegetation line-transects (10 in each forest type). For those who don’t understand what I mean by a transect: a transect is essentially a straight line that is cut through the forest. However, the cutting of transects is very minimal and it is just enough to be able to walk. Each transect is 500m long and on each transect we collect vegetation data for 40 trees. Examples of the type of data I collected include: tree height (some reach heights over 50 m!), canopy width, % canopy connectivity, branch sizes etc…. This means we have collected data for a total of 1200 trees! The work itself is not laborious but it is time consuming as it takes us about 6-8 hours per transect. Also, getting to and from each transect can be a nightmare as we are going off-trail the majority of the time and have to work our way through fallen over trees, massive spines, tangled vines and much much more! On average, we walked approximately 6-8 km a day, however it was not a straightforward path like one would walk on the road. Our 6-8 km hike entailed climbing and descending steep-vertical slopes, walking across landslides with fallen debris, walking through knee-deep mud, hopping over or crouching under fallen over trees (some trees can have diameters over 3 meters!), and fighting your way through walls of entangled vines. To top this off, we hiked in 40°C heat with high humidity and a limited water supply. However, a valuable field lesson one learns while in the field is that half the battle of the getting through difficult field days is remaining mentally strong. As one can imagine, these hikes change you as a person and they help build your mental strength in times of giving up.

A typical field day.
Bottom right photo: I am looking worried because I
had to collect data amongst thorns and spines that were at least 2-3 inches long

Many people ask me what a day in the forest for me is like? Well, a day in the forest for me is not complete without ants in my pants (literally, and ant bites are VERY painful, more so than wasp stings, but I have also experienced those in the forest), losing one or both rain-boots (wellies for those English folks) in the mud, getting entangled in vines, and subsequently landing face first on the ground. As those of you who play soccer (football) with me or have watched me play, I spend a good majority of my time rolling on the ground and bouncing back up. Well, not to worry, this has also been happening in the forest. The field assistants simply laugh at me and don’t even bother to ask if I am ok as it happens so frequently.

After a long day of work we finally return back to our camp. Our camp is simple, yet so wonderful. Our camp is a wooden cabin alongside a beautiful river. The first thing we do when we return to camp is take off our sweat-drenched clothes and jump into the river for our daily bath. We relax and decompress in our natural bathtub! After that, we go back up to camp and we usually enjoy a nice bowl of mie (noodles, even though I am gluten intolerant! Hahaha) and we spend the rest of our evenings listening to the field assistants playing guitar, reading a book, playing with the field station’s cats, Raquel and Lucy, or watch a movie on our laptops. Lastly, my time spent in the field has allowed me to form special bonds with the field assistants. They are able to relate to my field experiences and the daily struggles I encounter more deeply than the average day person would and so these bonds between us eliminate the need for vocal communication. Instead, a simple gesture like a grunt, or a smile, or a tired nod of the head will deliver and express a message and we are all comfortable sitting in each other’s presence without speaking and just enjoying the sounds of the jungle and the peacefulness of it.

Top Row: Helen relaxing after a long hard day, Lucy in a rainboot, Logga playing guitar
Bottom Row: Ricky by the fire cooking our dinner, and Irfan and I getting ready to go out far into the jungle.

As I have described above, life in the jungle is simple and basic, but so relaxing as it is free from drama and the everyday commodities that tend to make our lives more complicated like the Internet. It is rare that we have any truly exciting events such as special animal sightings, however, one did occur while we were sleeping. To make a long story short, a wild elephant tried to break into our camp during the night!! As we were sleeping we heard crashing sounds and at first I thought it was thieves trying to break into our camp as our wood wall was smashed in and our clothing lines outside (with all our clothes) was destroyed. Only later did I understand that it was a wild elephant that did the damage. This sneaky elephant also happened to bugger off with our papaya plant! This is both exciting and scary news because wild elephants are very dangerous and encountering one in the wild alone is different than the elephants we see in the zoo. However, I find this event to be more exciting than scary as it reminds me that we are living a jungle with wild animals even though we don’t get to see them very often. 

A wild elephant's footprints in the mud

For those of you interested in wildlife and conservation, attached below is a link to a documentary about Indonesia's orangutans. My research is made possible by the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP), which is the NGO featured in this film, which is called: The Last Orangutan Eden. 

Please watch and enjoy! :) 

http://video.pbs.org/video/2365432375/

Visiting the forest

Helen has successfully seated herself inside the boat

After being in the big cities for over two weeks, our supervisors, Amanda Korstjens and Ross Hill have come to visit us in Indonesia! We meet them at the hotel we are currently staying at and our adventure with them begins. We are off to the forest for a few days to check out the base camp, which will be our new home for the next 7 months. We will also be practicing some of our field methodology. We will be staying at another camp just outside the national park. To arrive at the field site, it is about a two and a half car ride and then a 15-minute boat ride. I will ask you one thing and that is what image comes to mind when I say the word boat? Well, throw that image out the window and picture a basic wooden canoe twice as long with a motor attached to the rear.This was our type of boat and we had to load ourselves (5 individuals) plus all our luggage (including laptops!) into it as well.

The boat was not very well sealed so the wooden sides were leaking, thus there was a gentleman at the back bailing out all the water that entered the boat. What was even more exciting was when one of us would move slightly in our seat, the entire boat rocked unsteadily for a few moments and I couldn’t help but picture all of us plunging into the river. Despite all these little technicalities, the boat ride down the river was serene and peaceful. We got to see a monitor lizard and even some long-tail macaques along the riverside. Best of all, I am happy to report that we all arrived at the campsite with all our belongings, safe and dry.

After a few moments of rest, we took our first steps into the forest and all of my Costa Rican jungle memories came flooding back to me. The forest’s smells and sounds provide me with an inner peace I am not able to get anywhere else. This will be my first time inside Asia’s forests and I am looking forward to making new memories and experiences!

Back to our forest hike... we start off with a slow and steady hike into the forest and halfway towards camp our guide asks us if we want to meet James (a PhD candidate researching orangutans) and trek through the forest to see an orangutan. Well, our answer is obvious and we were all pumped for our first primate sighting. Our trek towards the orangutan was off-trail and involved lots of bushwhacking, jumping over fallen trees, slipping in mud and best of all, us being drenched from head to toe in our own sweat. We finally come to a stop and in a tree above us there is a WILD orangutan that is curiously checking us out. As we wait in silence, the orangutan feeds on various food items and moves from tree to tree for approximately an hour.

Top Right corner: We are drenched in sweat as we watch the orangutan. Middle Left Photo: Our new home for the next 7 months.

A leech attached to Helen's ankle

The Suspect

 After our time watching the orangutan ends, we continue onwards to the Sikundur campsite. When we arrive, we are all pleasantly surprised with our new living arrangements. As we are taking off our shoes to look inside, Helen and I notice that both our socks are bloody…. OHH NOOO, WE’VE BEEN LEECHED!! It sounds a lot worse than it really is and we got over it pretty quickly, but the photo is pretty epic. I have a suspicious feeling that the leeches of Sikundur will be pretty fat with our blood by the end of August…

Our first day was filled with excitement and I couldn’t have asked for a better adventure. The next few days will involve Mandy and Ross helping us implement our field methods. I must say, when reading the method sections of academic journals, it sounds and looks all easy on paper but once you are asked to actually carry them through, it is very difficult. We are very fortunate to have our supervisors by our sides as they help us step by step with our methods. I don’t think we could have continued without Mandy and Ross’s help. It has been a wonderful experience having Mandy and Ross come out to Indonesia with us. 

Personally, I believe that conducting fieldwork out in the wild allows you to become closer with the individuals you are working with. In my case, while working in the field with Mandy and Ross, I noticed that the title of ‘professor’ or ‘supervisior’ became irrelevant and the boundary that normally separates students and supervisors in academic settings was broken down. Without these distinctions, I was given the opportunity to strengthen and develop deeper and more personal relationship with my supervisors. This experience of being in the field with my supervisors has made my Master’s experience so far very rewarding and unforgettable. However, I generally feel that fieldwork unites everyone together and you become comfortable talking about all different kinds of things that you otherwise would not discuss, such as digestive problems, because everyone is in the same boat! By the end of the field season we will all smell, we will all be covered in bug bites and itch like crazy, and we will all have discussed which foods we are most excited to eat when we get back to the real world.

The Crew. From left to right: Ross, John, Helen, Matt, Me, Mandy