Honorary Member of Elephant Herd/ Best Day Ever!

Date Written: 8/15

It has been an exhausting and exciting 36 hours. Yesterday after I finished writing in my journal we went for our very last habitat assessment. This wasn't going to be a normal habitat assessment though. Group 1 went out first to lay out the 50 meter rope and my group followed along soon after. We all didn't go out at once because other trucks had to bring the other uni students to the bush camp cause a church group was coming in to use the property. When we got to the site we proceeded as normal to laying out the first square. Colin (one of my groupmates) noticed that we didn't have the measuring tape, so Daniela, our field guide for the day, went back to the truck (which was about 60-70 meters away) to get it. We started to hear hhr calling our names very nervously, and we knew something was wrong. We all went back to the pick up trucks, and in front of us on the road we saw a whole herd of elephants cross! It was great to see such a large herd on our last day. We then watched them walk the the square we had started working on. I'm glad we didn't have to worry about having such a dangerous encounter.

(Just to the right of the tree was where our first square was)

The staff decided to nix the idea of doing any more habitat assessments, and to just go on game drives instead. We had to go back to the camp to drop of Kevin (one of our safety officers in Struwig) and Riian (Frickie's reserve assistant), and then went on our last game drive ever. We were phoned by the other group that was already on their drive that they had found a herd of elephants, so we headed in that direction. We reached the area they were in and saw a large group of elephants. Daniela stopped our truck a bit behind the other group's vehicle, about 40-50 meters, and watched the members of the herd. Behind us we heard some noise so we backed our truck up and found a mother on the opposite side of the road coming towards us.

We halted our vehicle immediately and watched her start to debark the tree. We were so close to her that you could hear and see the process in which they do it. They curl up their trunk and press it against the tree then press their tusk against the bark to strip it, while the trunk catches it, then feeds it into the mouth.

Soon after she started debarking, her calf came up next to her to try to debark as well. It was obvious that the calf had little experience debarking, and was constantly dropping its bark, and being unable to pick it back up. I was surprised that the mother didn't help the calf at all, and actually pushed the calf out of the way to get to the tree. It was actually quite amusing. The two of them were within 15 feet of our vehicle. It was as if they completely accepted us and didn't care we were there.

(Mother and calf debarking tree. In the bottom left corner there is a piece of the truck.. you can see how close they were!)

After about a half hour of viewing this mother and calf debark the tree, we realized that there were other members of the herd on the other side of our vehicle. It seemed that the herd had migrated from where the first group had seen them up towards us. 

There was a point when one of the mothers, possibly the matriarch, trumpeted and mock charged our vehicle. We had been mock charged before, but the unnerving aspect was that I was facing the first pair of elephants we had come across, the two debarking the tree, and this other elephant was on the other side of the vehicle (ie, the opposite side of the vehicle.. that I was not facing). We're not supposed to make any sudden movement for safety reasons. If we make any sudden movements we could possibly agitate the animals and make them aggressive. This is why I was scared; I heard her trumpet and rush towards us, but I couldn't turn around to see how close she actually was without endangering everyone else. Eventually she did back off and go about browsing on the bushes.

Now that it was safe to turn around, I slowly did. It took me about 2 minutes just to make a 180 degree turn because I didn't want to attract attention to myself. That's when I realized how close all of the elephants were to our vehicle. It was as if we had folded into the natural environment and the elephants didn't seem to mind  us after that last charge. It seemed like they had made us honorary members of their herd. It was an extraordinary experience that I will never forget. Thankfully I was able to get a lot pictures because I placed my phone on silent (making the shutter noise go away). No one else in my group was able to take many pictures because of the loud shutter sounds that would've been made. I guess my camera going bad the first day of the expedition was a good thing! I don't think I'll feel so small and vulnerable being so close to something that could kill me, while being perfectly okay with it. I mean that's a pretty unique way to go right? Getting charged by an elephant? 

Anyway after the herd had moved on.. a whole hour later, Daniela got out of the vehicle to tell us that people visiting game reserves that are 900 hectares in size have the slim possibility of what we experienced. The crazy part is that Struwig/Balule is a 2 million hectare area, where it's almost unfathomable for anyone to experience what we did, ever. I am so incredibly grateful to Daniela for keeping us all calm int he situation, and for placing our vehicle at the right place at the right time. 

That was the last time we saw elephants in Struwig. I think I learned more about the behavior and social dynamics, of a herd in those 2 hours that we were stuck in the middle of the herd than I did in all of the elephant lectures we had. It was so humbling, I'll never feel that way again. We then went back to bush camp to have dinner, roast marshmallows, and take our final group photos with the wonderful staff before we headed out bright and early the next morning.

Kenya Will Stay With Me Forever

August 30, 2013

I remember a student asking one of our instructors Dr. Hockings what readjusting to American society might be like, and she said, "You will realize that a lot of things you thought were important actually aren't."

It's not possible for me to describe how I feel about the entire experience any other way. Even reading my posts before I left, I am a different person now. I feel like I've grown up, especially academically. There's an enormous world out there to learn about, and here I was obsessing over the details of a shopping trip.

Over the past month I have realized that evolution, ecological science and conservation work is what I want to do with my life. It was magical - I felt just like Darwin when he was considering leaving science and medicine behind to become an Anglican priest, only to come to know his true passion while abroad. I've learned how important it is to say less and mean more, and to work really hard for something meaningful.

Think Globally - How important is what I'm doing relative to the world?

Act Locally - We are all within our means to do something.

Many thanks to the instructors: Dr. Jack Harris, Dr. Ryne Palombit, Dr. Luca Morino, Peter Fundi, Dr. Kimberly Hockings, Dr. Alfreda Ibui, Ellen Meulman and Stan Kivai. It was wonderful to get to know such brilliant people as intimately as this trip allowed.

Also, this trip would not have been a possibility for me without the scholarships I have received through the SEBS Office of International Programs and Rutgers University Study Abroad - Thank you!

I camped for a month in Africa with these amazing people!

- Alexandra Shishkova

Mombasa

August 25, 2013

Mombasa is a popular tourist destination along the Kenyan coast. It looked and felt unlike any of the other cities we had visited. Here Arabian architecture echoes the historic inter-cultural fusion of peoples that took place in Kenya.

Tiwi beach was an angelic place to enjoy the last few days of our journey. We set up our tents right on the sand. Falling asleep to the waves crashing in the Indian Ocean felt like a vacation paradise.

Unfortunately it was not all relaxation. Reaching Mombasa meant that we would soon be taking the final and presenting and handing in our papers. Through perseverance and lots of helpful advice, it all came together in the end. I felt releived because it would have been a disappointment to have traveled all the way to Kenya, gone through the lectures and field lessons and then not have been able to write about something that would reflect what I love to think about. That's just not what I'm about.

I knew I was interested in the ecology of habitat change and degradation, as it affects primates (this was primatology field school after all). Along the way I realized that there was a greater ecological phenomena in what I was looking at, i.e., the capacity of primates to control and/or disperse invasive plant species by means of their foraging behavior. It was relevant to conservation, too, because let's say a scientific study can demonstrate that a species of primate is a natural biological control for invasive plant species in its habitat, that primate would be considered a keystone species and therefore would be much more likely to be granted legal protection.

Above all, evolution is what puts all of these ideas into context and explains why my research matters to the future.

On the bright side, this was where we took the final!

Then we went out to 40 Thieves cyber cafe and beach bar to celebrate

- Alexandra Shishkova

Presentations de las Filtro de Agua a UTEC

Hola amigos,

The past few weeks in Peru's largest city have been an incredible experience, but it is time to move on.  I moved out of my apartment and spent two days in a local hostel (the one I first stayed at).  To my surprise Katia, the girl that works the desk, remembered me and was impressed by how much Spanish I have picked up.  That was really gratifying, to know that even though I feel like I have hit a plateau, other people are noticing that I am improving.  That is a good thing because I had a visit with UTEC to sit in on student's design presentations for household water filtration systems....en espanol!

Before I made my way to UTEC, I had made multiple attempts to visit UNI, a major university in Peru that focuses in the sciences, but was unable to make significant contacts.  Below are some pictures of the campus I took while walking around and talking to students of the architecture program.

When I arrived to UTEC I was greeted by Emir Vela, a professor of engineering, and the head of the department, Hernan Montes.  Dr. Montes is an interesting man, earning his doctorate in Columbia, taught by Tolstoy, and sharing some stories about his travels.  The faculty was very welcoming, gave me a tour of their temporary campus (while they await construction of the new building down the street from my old apartment), and took me to lunch.  They all had a very optimistic plan for the future of this new university, and are working hard to make contacts and collaborations with universities around the world.  

The students came into the jury room in groups of 5, and I was unexpectedly introduced to the students as a professor from the states (I think they just said that to make me seem more important to the students).  Each group had the same project requirements, to create a functional water filter that is cheap to produce, will last a long time, and capable of filtering water for an entire household.  They were allowed to use any of the materials and systems they were taught over the semester, creating variations between each project.  Considering these systems are intended for the poorer areas of Lima and Peru, budget was a main concern, and costs were as stressed as the materials used in the production of the filters.  Most filter designs were composed of varying combinations of carbon, ceramic, plastic, gravel, silica, and PVC.  Below are some pictures of the students displaying their designs.

Following the presentations the faculty invited me to the architect's unveiling of the plans for the new building.  This was unexpected, and I am just lucky that both presentations happened to be on the same day and did not conflict with each other.  The new builiding will be LEED certified, built to withstand earthquakes, composed of a series of in and outdoor rooms that are intertwined, and made to resemble the nearby cliffs.  

I am happy with the amount of connections I made, information I have learned, and tourist destinations I have seen over the past few weeks.  It's time for what I really came to Peru for, the countryside!

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Tana

August 24, 2013

Things got serious once we got to Tana River. We had 6 days of observation time with our choice of 3 primate species found within the Tana River Primate Reserve: the Tana River red colobus, the Tana River mangabey or the Ibean yellow baboon. They were so different with regards to the kind of data that each is best suited for. Baboons are a great model for looking at reproductive behavior due to their prominent sexually dimorphic swellings. Mangabeys displayed curious foraging behavior and were a little more aggressive. I picked the Colobus monkeys, whom not many other students chose because they tended to spend most of the day hiding at the top of the forest canopy. I like yoga, so I figured I'd be up to the binocular backbends necessary to observe these guys for 3-4 hours at a time.

At night bush babies would fall from the trees onto our tents

Safari ants! Stepping in them will likely lead to having to strip naked in the middle of the forest

Nile crocodiles in the Tana river

Hippos, too!

Studying in the rain forest

We did a lot of this

This was where my project for the final paper went from mostly conceptual idealism to quickly deciding what was actually feasible. Still, I was determined to do something interesting that would tie together everything I had learned about primatology, ecology and wildlife conservation. I had just taken a class in GPS and map making, so I decided to map the home range of the group I was following in order to look at the incorporation of invasive tree species into the diet of this critically endangered species.

Our guide John helped me so much. I would have been lost without him!

Tana River red colobus

More Tana River red colobus

We met up with locals at a Tana bar to relax after all those brutal days following monkeys in the forest.

- Alexandra Shishkova