We have to move fast in order to stay with the monkeys. We can't wait around for anyone because the monkeys are lacking in social graces (ie. won't wait around for us). When we lose someone it's constant radio calls and whoops (we make this loud whoop; animal-like call to locate each other in the forest because we more often than not have no radio contact). Last week, I was out in the jungle when the monkeys went bounding up the side of an extremely steep mountain. We plodded along behind them trying to keep them in sight but got to a point where it was just completely sheer cliff.....no way up. So this one guy goes one way, and the other two of us traipse along below the ridge to find feasible way up. I find a not so generous crack in the face of a cliff and decide to try it. Granted, it's ugly and doesn't look safe by any stretch of the imagination, but this is just the sort of shit we have to do day in day out...so I head up. While I'm climbing, my partner clams up, mumbles a bunch of shit about how she doesn't think it's safe, about how she can't do it, etc.
"Sorry, but I don't see any other options. You can look for another way up if you want." I was in no mood to lose these fucking asshole monkeys. We were observing a group that lives in treacherous territory that's either dangerously steep everywhere or full of extremely dense undergrowth.....and they're IMPOSSIBLE to find once you've lost them. So while I do acknowledge how bad an idea it was for me to climb up where I did.....as the ''rock'' on one side was actually just thick mud that looked like rock, and it crumbled under my weight half way up, leaving me clinging to little fucking roots and spiky plants that were impaling my hands, but instead of a) doing her best to follow or b) sucking it up and finding her own way up, she stood there stuttering and wasting precious time, then begged me not to leave her once I climbed up.
If you waste time you lose the monkeys, and therefore are not collecting data, and then, when you get home for the night, you have to explain to everyone why you have no monkeys and that they will have to search tomorrow. This is no good. I thought people were harsh when I first arrived, but after a few months I understand. It's necessary.
I have a terrible cold. One of the many common health issues prevalent here because of constant dehydration and being soaked to the bone for 14 hours a day during rainy season.
On the lighter side of things...... One of my favorite monkeys migrated and instantly became alpha male of the aforementioned clan. That's pretty unique. Usually migrating males have a long and difficult time getting a new group to tolerate their presence, let alone welcome them as alpha male right away. He must have either killed or beat the shit out of the previous alpha male because he's not been seen at all. All the females are grooming him and the babies twittering at him as though he's been alpha forever. So that's interesting to watch. Two females are heavily pregnant though. Which means they are obviously not his babies.... Which means he'll slaughter them once they are born. I have not witnessed infanticide yet, and I'm not looking forward to it.. They usually wait a little while, until after we have named the babies, they've been around a few weeks, and we've fallen in love with them..... Then the killing begins. The mothers will try and stay away from the alpha protect their babies, but if a male is infanticidal, he won't quit until they're dead. Every now and then an alpha won't kill another male's baby, but that's rare. Wow, this paragraph started light. Ended heavy though.
My espanol, that's Spanish for Spanish, is improving lately.
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