From the field!

I glanced over the map on my computer screen: beige fields studded with green dots must be Miombo woodland and the dark green lines carving the map should be evergreen riparian forest. This mosaic landscape in Western Tanzania is home to a group of red-tailed monkeys, which I was fortunate enough to center the main topic of my master’s dissertation around. I wanted to examine patterns of habitat selection, specifically, how the study group at Issa uses the Miombo woodland habitat throughout different years and seasons. Naturally, I was expecting nothing less but sitting in front of my computer screen and looking over Excel sheets and codes in R. So, when I was offered to join the team at Issa Valley for a month to study the primates in person, I was, undoubtedly, up for the challenge. Although having lived all my life in Europe, the most biodiversity-depleted continent there is, and even more so in Lithuania, a small country where a career path oriented towards biodiversity conservation in tropical regions of the global South is largely unheard of, I felt first and foremost, confused.

 

Growing up, besides admiring the local wildlife that surrounded me outside, I was also fascinated by taxa in more distant regions that I would get a chance to glimpse at during animal documentaries on the TV or from the pictures of field guides and encyclopedias. Knowing how endangered some of those animals are, I was keen to somehow contribute to the conservation of biodiversity in those parts of the world. But people around me, my peers or adults, were not doing that, they did not exactly aspire to do that, and nobody could give me much advice on how to get where I wanted to be. When you get accustomed to seeing your study subjects only in lecture slides or textbooks, it's easy to forget that all these animals are lurking somewhere out there and not just parts of a distant mirage. The thought that I might get to see my study species, amongst other taxa, in their natural habitat in Western Africa felt surreal and distant at first.

 

But, in no time, I was there – at the camp in Issa Valley and heading out to my first primate survey to watch the group of red-tailed monkeys, or Kima, as they are referred to in the local Swahili language. My journey began before dawn when Rama, the local field assistant, and I left the campsite around six in the morning. It was not much later after the rising sun had painted the horizon bright orange when we reached the area where the group of Kima had nested the evening before. At first, I was quite skeptical - a simple grassland, swamp water sloshing underfoot, reminiscent of the wetlands we have back home, a few black patches in the distance, marking wildfires that have engulfed the dry grass. In front of us - a small stretch of forest trees. This landscape did not exactly resemble those seen while watching nature documentaries on television. At first, I was not even sure if we were going to see the monkeys. But soon my thoughts were interrupted by birds chirping... or so I thought. "Kima!" said Rama reassuringly. I was uncertain if I missed something important or whether he was referring to what I thought to be bird noises and before I could ask him, the animals emerged. Dark silhouettes the size of cats, diving between the branches so nimbly that all I could see in the dim forest light were flashes of bright red tails against the green foliage of the forest. "Koku, Doti, Kilungu, Mdadisi..." - my field assistant Rama began to confidently name the animals, pointing at different monkeys, much to my amazement. They all looked the same to me, especially in the dim morning light. But the more I watched, the more I understood that the animals differed not only in their appearance but also in their personalities. Koku has a collar attached to her neck, Doti has a small black dot on the tip of her ember red tail, while Mdadisi, translating as "the curious one" likes to come out of the thick foliage closer to humans to watch them, and when not foraging, it was showing more preference to watch me and Rama collect data, paying little attention to the rest of his group.

 

To my surprise, on the very first day, Kima's group went to Miombo woodland. "They will use it to cross to another forest strip" explained Rama. A large, dominant male soon bolted into one of the Miombo trees while the rest of the group still seemed busy in the forest. Hopping from one branch to another, the male surveyed the open landscape in front. Finally, after finding, as Rama explained, the most convenient place to cross, and making sure that the surroundings were safe, the group started their journey. The dominant male is in front, followed by the rest of the group. To my surprise, they did not show much difference in movement when being out of the forest, navigating the trees of Miombo. They progressed from tree to tree, sometimes performing funny-looking jumps, and carefully inspecting trees for potential prey. "In Miombo, they can find locusts and other insects that they like so much" - explained Rama. "That one just got a caterpillar" - he added, pointing to an animal, that was holding something in his arms and rubbing it thoroughly on a tree trunk. When the gaps between the trees became impassable, the animals had to descend to the ground. Here they moved quickly and coordinated, quickly crossing the ground on four legs, choosing the most direct trajectory to the nearest tree, as if the animals themselves knew that they did not belong on the ground.

 

We returned to the campsite after nesting the monkeys in their sleeping tree, soon after the sun had set. I knew that rest would not last long. After dinner around the fire and a short exchange of the day's stories with the rest of the team, I will head to bed and will need to be up around 5 am tomorrow again. But that did not discourage me at all. Because the new morning would mean a new survey and with that - opportunities to discover more about the valley. Be it fast and mysterious chimpanzees, baboons looking at the horizon from rocky outcrops, or maybe colorful turacos diving in forests of the valleys and chameleons, carefully, as if considering each step, navigating branches of the bushes. The time spent at Issa Valley gave me all of this, and so much more, but there would not be enough time to tell everything here. And maybe there is no need - if you are ever lucky enough to find yourself surrounded by those magical hills, you will see everything yourself, you will feel it, and you will take away from there what is the most important to you.

 

So, here's to the small boy in a small city in Europe, watching animal documentaries and timidly dreaming of someday being able to see those parts of the world with his own eyes. Now, having traveled all the way back to Europe, and typing this blogpost at a café in central London, I don't feel as distant from the primates and my dream of studying them. I also don't feel as alone in this field, knowing that I have found some of the most supporting and kind people in the forests of Western Africa. Sometimes I don't even feel half as bright and certain about things as I used to be in university halls. But uncertainty is the side effect of knowledge (or at least a necessary part of it). So, Asante Sana for everything GMERC, for some of the best memories yet, and for the impetus and motivation to go chase my future dreams (and primates!).