A Kat amongst the lions: Monkey Business

Hi all

I am so so sorry for the long wait for another blog, Nick has written a blog for me about a holiday we took at the end of May but has failed to publish it yet. In his defence he has been carzily busy at work and for two weeks was too busy missing me to possibly do anything else!

Yes I was lucky enough to escape the city of Pretoria and head to the Eastern Cape for 2 weeks. The trip was from the 9th June to 24th June and I was to help a student complete some field research on Vervet Monkey behaviour. This came about following a meeting with a very kind woman at the National Botanical Gardens in Pretoria and who works for SANBI (South African National Biodiversity Institute) and although she couldnt offer me any work personally she promised to email my CV to all the contacts she had in conservation in South Africa - which is quite a few! Robyn, a professor of Animal Physiology at the University of Witwatersrand (Wits), was one of these contacts and she emailed me with a very last minute request. One of her honours students, Jess (university students here do a degree in 3 years and then can do an extra year to get 'honours' which is generally regarded as necessary to show you have a decent degree and usually involves a research project) needed a partner to go and collect her data in the Eastern Cape, as the person who was meant to be going with her had dropped out as she had just had surgery. It meant leaving the following week but I rearanged things and having spoken to both Robyn and Jess I agreed that I would be very happy to join Jess.

To be honest I think I was needed largely to be someone with Jess for the long drive to the research station and to then stay with her throughout to give her some company and so she was not alone. However, I also wanted too help her as much as possible to collect data as she only had a limited amount of time and was worried about getting enough, I could relate!

So at 5:30 in the monring I left our flat in Pretoria, with a very generous and sleepy Nick who was giving me a lift to Northern Johannesburg to meet Jess and from where we would travel to the Eastern Cape (if she had come pretoria and then gone through Johannesburg it would have taken us a couple of extra hours due to the traffic that would have built up!). The drive took about 12 hours and we chatted most of the way with us taking it in turns to drive (having to negotiate the road works to which I have started to expect from long journeys here now). So we eventually reached our destination just as the sun was starting to set. Our destination was a series of 3 private game reserves near Graaff Reinet, which I didnt realise at the time but is actually a famous town for its old colonial architecture and being one of the oldest towns in South Africa (on my few vistits it seemed very old and very sleepy with little to do but eat in its many restaurants or visit one of its 5 museums). The three private game reserves were Samara (where the monkies were we studied), Mount Cambedoo (which we just drove through on a daily basis) and Asante Sana (where we stayed in a room in a little cottage with bunk beds and a bath room and then used a shared kitchen across the way in a seperate building).

Both Asante Sana and Samara are owned by incredibly rich South Africans, the owners of Asante Sana also own a winery called Constantia Uitsig (meaning "Constantia View") near Cape Town, so I dont think they are doing too badly for themselves! They only fly in to the reserve from time to time in their private jet and stay with their guests in a very luxurios lodge, nearby they also have a cricket oval as theiy are big fans of cricket and get lots of teams to come and visit. An absolutely fantastic couple, Kitty and Richard, manage Asante Sana for the owners and it was Kitty who sorted us out with our accommadation and warmly welcomed us into her beautiful old farmhouse home every evening for a cup of tea having returned from the field.

So t he research was basically into how the Vervet monkeys behave in the cold (as it is the southern most point of their range so the coldest part). This research would then be used by a a group who are trying to understand if the monkeys will adapt well to climate change or not. It was great watching the monkeys; they were quite entertaining as they groomed eachother and moved around and fed on the bushes and trees (all of which had huge thorns!) However, I felt I wasnt completely appreciating the experience in teh first week as we had to go out all day and watch monkeys for 10 hours and while this is interesting for the first few it soon got pretty dull, especially as I wasnt really collecting data; just holding a pole that measured temp and watching a particular monkey so that we didnt lose it. This wasn't helped by having to be in the field by 7 am every morning to see the monkeys at the coldest time (they often sat at hthe top of the trees in an open body position sunbasking at this time), the early start didnt bother me but there was always heavy due on the ground that instantly soaked through your boots (I soon started wearing plastic bags inside my boots) and it was very cold so I wore a silly number of layers. Also there had been a huge amount of rain in the last week in an area that had been suffering drought for the last 3 years, so there were rivers where there weren't usually and there was one smack bang between the monkey's sleep sight (a group of tall peppercorn trees where they huddle together) and their feeding sight (also the side where we arrived in the morning). This often meant that the first thing we had to do in the morning was cross the river - boots off and up to our knees. The water was running off from the snow on the mountains so you can imagine how cold it was. So the mornings were'nt the happiest times but we soon got used to it. The monkeys didnt have too much trouble with their new barrier to their feeding sight; they had a peppercorn tree they used to cross (see the pictures). The babies did often have problems following their mums though, if they were lucky enough to have caught a ride clinging onto her underside. Often they would be left screaming for their mums on the other side and eventually have to try to cross by jumping onto rock - this sometimes went wrong and you would see a baby (or actually sometimes a stupid adult) swimming across and not looking too pleased.

The second week was a lot better as I got to collect data and so actually engage my brain a bit and so the days went a bit faster. I also got to know some of the other people based in the reserve. There was a young South African couple on Samara, the girl, Hayley, was from Johannesburg and the guy, Alwyn, was from Cape town and a very chilled out surfer character as a result. They were both doing masters research but also running a gap year volunteer type centre for the owner of the reserve. They kindly let me join them on a couple of the activities they took the volunteers on. They took me on a beautiful hike up one of their mountains it was very hot and quite unstable ground as it is very dry and rocky in the Karoo. It was worth it though, at the top the views were stunning and we saw 2 black eagles at the top which were flying at the same level of us - amazing!!

Alwyn also took me and Jess out on a night drive as he is studying Aardvark, which are nocturnal. We were lucky enough to see one as it was crossing the road. They are so much bigger than I thought they would be; about the size of a large pig! He soon started running off into the bush and a couple of the volunteers ran after him so we could find out which hole he was living in for Alwyn's research. We followed them in the pitch black and of course I fell down an Aardvark hole, but it was fun!The holes are everywhere and very deep meaning I lost my entire leg for a moment before I pulled myself up.Hayley is studying cheetah and she and the volunteers went off to track a cheetah who had a radio collar on most days. I went out once with her and we couldn't find her, but the second time was absolutely unbelievable!!I saw a cheetah kill!!!!!!!!!It was so amazing, we walked to find her from the land rover and we eventually saw her a little way off from us ( she is completely habituated by the way so she doesnt mind us getting up close). Then Alwyn was apologising for the not so good view when he scared a couple of daiker (very small antelope) out of the bush and they ran straight for the cheetah! We were all wondering if she was going to see them when she suddenly turned, her tail went up and she was in chase! We were all completely in shock and then we heard this little scream from the daiker and the other one ran off. So then we slowly made our way over to her and we found her lying their panting away and then she moved over to the kill, dragged it back and started munching away. This was all a couple of meters away from us! I was annouced to be the lucky charm as even Hayley has never seen a kill and was just telling me that it was pretty unlikely before we got out of the land rover. So I felt very privileged.

Richard who managed Asante Sana also took us out on a game drive, he was fantastic at driving the big safari land rover, taking it where you would not believe a car could go! Me and jess were bouncing around in the back very happy, especially me as I had one of their lovely collies, Susie, curled up to me keeping us both warm as it was late afternoon and it gets very cold as you drive a long in the open vehicles. We saw all kind of things including springbok, a larger group of giraffe, gemsbok (which are beautiful), eland (also beautiful and very big) and elephants! We saw the huge bull elephant that they have and the herd of females and young ones - so fantastic and I thanked RIchard for showing me my first South African elephants! We practically had our on game drives every day as we drove to and from the monkey site. We saw ostrich, bat eared foxes, giraffe, antelope of various kinds including Kudu which are very stupid and have a tendency of running into cars (luckily jess was aware of tis and drove carefully). We also ended up seeing rhino on a daily basis! Kitty had told us that they hang out near her house a lot but had not been around since the rain. We didn't realise how close to her house she meant as one night we were heading out of her drive and there was one in her garden! Apparently this is a normal occurrence. Most of tem are very used to the cars and people but there is one that can get a bit grumpy. One day we came accross him on the road and followed him for a while ( the best kind of traffic jam!) He eventually became tired of this and turned off the road, as we drove past he did not look pleased, luckily jess started to drive away quickly as at that moment he began to charge at us and run after us down the road for a short way, by this point were were far out of his reach though.

By the time the two weekes were up I was dying to get back and see Nick but I was very sad to leave that beautiful place and particularly the wonderful people I had met. It was great to be around such like minded people again but also to meet some very different South Africans who were just so friendly and welcoming. I left very envious of Kitty and Richard's lifestyle. All I need now is to find a game reserve to run!

I promise to get better at blogging regularly. There will be another one soon.

Lots and lots of love,

Kat

Here you can see our communal kitchen and living room areas and also the bakkie (aka massive car) we used.

This guy is sun basking which helps keep them warm, in the early morning they would usually sit at he top of a tree doing this.

A baby feeding amounts the thorns which seemed to be on every plant. The monkeys seemed to just cope with them although I was told there was a baby with a missing eye, probably due to an incident with the thorns!