My job

As I have been emailing and talking to some of you, I realized I haven’t been clear about what my job actually is and what I do all day. Basically, I follow monkeys . . .
This project has four focal groups that have been habituated. That means they are used to being watched by people like me, so they don’t run away or act differently when we are around. The groups are called PA, PB, PS, and PO. PA and PB have around 25 individuals each, while PS and PO have around 15 individuals each. Each group is made up of at least one male, multiple females, and younger monkeys (subadult, juvenile, infant II, and infant I).
We are with each group for six consecutive days every month. The first day we follow a group we go out in the afternoon to search for the group. This involves walking the trails in the “home range” of the group, and looking/listening for monkeys. Normally we find our monkeys because of the noise they make as they move from tree to tree, but sometimes you just see monkey shapes in the distance. Since Mai Sot Yai (our study site; the name means “big forest of bamboo” in Thai) is home to more than just our four focal groups, we have to make sure we have the right monkeys once we find them. Being in the home range of a particular group helps, but it is no guarantee!
Once we find the monkeys on a search day, we follow them until they go to sleep. Our monkeys are creatures of habit and have pretty well established “sleep sites,” but we can always take the GPS location of the group to make sure we can find them the next morning. The next morning begins five consecutive days of following the group. One group of researchers, normally one ranger plus one or two field assistants, goes out in the morning to be with the monkeys before they wake up. Right now that means you get up around 4:30, are on the bikes by 5:15, and are with the monkeys before 6:00. Sometimes you get up earlier or later based on where the monkeys sleep (nearer or further away from the road) and how long it will take you to get there in the morning. Walking into the forest in the morning in the dark isn’t as bad as it sounds; I prefer it to walking out at night after an afternoon shift because it gets lighter as you walk in in the morning.
Before noon, the second crew of researchers leaves Baan Ling. We all meet up in the forest (morning crew, afternoon crew, and monkeys) and then the morning crew goes home. One of my favorite small pleasures here is when I can drive myself home after a morning shift. When you are with the monkeys, you take GPS points every half hour. This ranging data is useful because you can put many months of it together to determine where the home range is, how far the monkeys travel in a day, seasonal differences, sleep sites, etc. Besides ranging, we collect ad libitum data throughout the day, such as sexual behavior, agonistic behavior, interactions between individuals, etc. Right now our rangers also do focal sampling, which involves watching a single individual for a certain amount of time at different times of the day. Rich, Zach and I will learn how to focal when Carola comes back in November.
When the sun starts to go down, our monkeys get ready to go to sleep. Sometimes they are already at a sleep site, but other times they quite literally run through the forest to get to one. Once the monkeys have stopped moving, we get to walk out of the forest and drive home. These “night drives” are great opportunities to see wildlife- I really enjoy when there are porcupines, though they seem to be attracted to our headlights which makes for some interesting situations . . . After dinner at Ba Thong’s it is early to bed because at least one person from the afternoon shift is on the next morning! : )
So far I am having a great time learning about primate ecology. Our groups are becoming easier for me to distinguish and each group seems to have its own personalities based on the individuals in the group, how well habituated it is, the area of the forest in which it lives, etc. I am also enjoying being out in the forest, improving my orienteering skills, and watching what goes on around me. There is always a lot going on in the forest- gibbons singing, spiderwebs the size of archery targets, lizards and salamanders, croaking frogs, and crazy birds like hornbills and drongos. Keep watching for more pictures!