The End of PanamaCanallie and Grace.

After the spider monkey, there was a slight “lull” in the action of darting for Grace and me. We were still sent out each morning earlier than the rest of the group and came back often later in the evening. We were still “asked” to go searching for the capuchin groups, but we were usually forgotten in the forest or sent away to another group. This meant that we had 14-mile daily averages and extreme exhaustion. One day, in the morning, Grace and I came to a bench in the forest and sat down for a moment to catch our breath. Several minutes later, or possibly hours, we don’t really know, we suddenly woke. Once we groggily realized our surroundings, we burst out laughing at the thought that we’d both just fallen asleep sitting up in the middle of the forest.

A coati.

Bats in a hollow tree.

The next day, our team had severe bad luck in finding any monkeys. Grace, Lucia, Nohely, and I marched for six hours through the forest to no avail. Grace and I did the same three mile loop four times. So the darting team left the luxury of the labs five hours later and went to the spider monkeys. After walking 200 meters, they found them. One of the girls on the team made the mistake of complaining how tired she was from that small hike and we nearly attacked her. 

Mama and baby spider monkey.

Meg decided to try a new tactic with the spiders. We put a giant stuffed jaguar down beneath them to lure them lower. It worked, and soon there was a large group of spider monkeys alarm calling at the jaguar. For hours. Even after we covered it with a sheet, a couple of monkeys were still screaming. They almost rivaled the howler monkeys in volume. 

The first forest jaguar I saw.

Then suddenly, Bob lifted his dart gun and shot a dart at a female spider monkey. So half of us scoured the trees for the drowsy monkey while six people held sheets underneath the canopy. For the next thirty minutes, we panicked. One of us would spot a questionable movement of a monkey, and the three sheets would go running underneath her. Then another monkey would appear to be falling from a branch, and the sheets would go running to her. In the middle of this, a father and son come wandering up the path. So Grace and I panicked thinking this is the worst possible time for a tourist group to walk by in case a monkey falls and went to go head them off only to learn it was Roland and his son Eli, one of Meg’s collaborators on this project. Eventually, we determined Bob must have missed, but those thirty minutes were the most stressful not knowing if or when a monkey would fall from the sky. 

Bob and Meg looking for the spider monkey.

In total, we darted and GPS collared 4 spider monkeys and 2 capuchins. A much needed rest from eight straight days of intense physical exhaustion was upstaged by a sudden fever and vomiting spell on my part. Grace of course panicked and caused Hilda (the office lady) to freak out and almost knock down our door demanding to see me in case she needed to helicopter me away (not even close to needing that). She also caused all of the cooks (who are my favorite people here) to worry which resulted in them making me a Panamanian rice drink which sooths stomachs. Basically I think they just gave us a pitcher of half boiled rice in the water it had been soaking in. Not something I would recommend drinking. 

 

12 hours after I recovered, a film crew hired by the Smithsonian to make their version of BBC Earth came out with us to film Grace’s research. And as is the common theme with every non-Panamanian we’ve met here (literally every one), they were from Colorado.  It was kind of sprung upon us, so we put our sweatiest foot forward and lead them off into the forest in search of our capuchins. Not long into the jungle, Katina started screaming. She’d placed her hand on a log for balance and was stung by a bullet ant. She tried to brave it out, but the moment she said her arm was numb, we sent her back to the labs to wait the flu symptoms and further suffering to hit. Ben had managed to get sufficient footage of us “sliding gracefully through the jungle,” the capuchins feeding, and Grace taking data. We’ll make a formal announcement when the final product airs and/or is available for purchase (this is actually real. I had to sign my life over in a waiver).

I forced Grace to give me one last real day off. We woke up bright and early and headed off to the canal locks on last time to watch the morning’s load of boats pass through. We got to see five ships pass entirely through the locks and then Grace toured the museum. We took a taxi up the road to a shwarma place previously found by our father (if you read Sabbaticallie, there is a theme here). Then we saw a nice bus coming, so we hopped on only to realize that real busses require tickets instead of a random handful of change thrown at the driver. A kind woman came to our rescue and paid for us. But, we missed our stop and ended up right back at the locks. Thankfully, we were able to use our Spanish to so thoroughly confuse a taxi driver that he brought us to the Gamboa Rainforest Resort for a steal of a price. On the way, we saw our first armadillo! We didn’t stop for pictures though, which was ok since armadillos apparently have leprosy. I’m learning there is no tame creatures here anywhere. We spent the afternoon lounging at the pool and drinking lemon water before heading back to the island.

Grace and I participated in yet another resume-boosting activity this summer. A Canadian researcher was taking a weekend off and asked Grace and her trusty field assistant to check his beehives. This involved more hiking and sweating up hills. His little bee traps were essentially little planks of wood in which bees had hollowed a small nest inside. You plug the hole with your finger and then count the number of bees (and gender—which apparently is determined by a “crease” in their antenna, which are barely visible) and holes inside. Very exciting stuff here. 

 

Our last Tuesday adventure to the City began with a thrilling talk on “novelty” in butterfly wing patterns. Basically this man talked about genetics of butterflies and completely lost me after “Hello.” Grace and I made our usual loop up Avenida Central and down into Casco Viejo. We found our way to one last rooftop meal of fish tacos, guacamole, and margaritas before heading back to the island one last time.

The peak of my time spent here was when we were in a taxi in Panama City. The driver, especially machista and creepy, was telling us how he hates monkeys and wants to kill them all. So I defended the monkeys and told him about our project studying group decision making in foraging and movement patterns in Spanish. It shows how far I’ve come when I mistook my first monkey sighting for the discovery of the Panamanian Emu.

 

Cumulatively, Grace and I have spent no more than 10 hours apart in the past six weeks. We share a room, share an office, do all meals, field work, and leisure activities together. The full effects of this came to light when we were walking back to Gamboa and broke into the exact same part of a random song at the exact same time. We’ve started reading each other’s minds with 100 percent accuracy and haven’t had a single thought unique from the other (this is typical anyways for us, but it’s become actually kind of scary how often this happens). 

The last morning spent on BCI was not a relaxing morning of sleeping in and packing and farewells. Grace forced me into the field to the surprise of even Meg (that’s when you know you’re working too hard). It was entirely worth it though because just as we were heading off to find the monkeys, Raff (Meg’s postdoc) called us and told us they’d trapped a kinkajou. So because the one thing I hadn’t done yet on the island was run, we ran from the labs up Donato (the steepest path) to Donato 5 to see the kinkajou collaring. They’d caught an older adult female in a little trap high up in a tree. They used a rope pulley system to lower her to the ground. A similar process to the monkeys followed: her measurements were taken and a collar was put on. Except this time, Meg swabbed her armpits for 45 seconds to get armpit bacteria samples. I’m horrified for whoever has to test that one. Kinkajous are nocturnal, so they were one of the few animals remaining that I hadn’t yet seen. Not only did we see the sweet girl, we got to hold her before she went back into the trap and up the tree. Adding that to the list of things I never thought I would do. But as I told Meg, still not quite enough to convince me to change career paths and become a tropical biologist. 

Now that I’m on my way home, Grace needs a new field assistant for the remainder of this field season. She’ll be accepting applications at ghdavis@ucdavis.edu. If this blog doesn’t serve as a warning, I don’t know what will. 

I spider Capuchinabag.

Prefacing this post with this: no animals were harmed in any way in the making of this post. I was actually extremely impressed with the professionalism, respect, and humane treatment of the monkeys for the entirety of this experience. All darted individuals were very healthy upon inspection and successfully and safely returned to their groups. 

Many things have happened thus far that I never expected to experience in my lifetime. It’s a little surreal to stand in the middle of a tropical rainforest and actually participate hands-on in a monkey darting, especially when your entire biology career is contained to one class sophomore year of high school.

Darting, while one of the most physically exhausting activities due to the hours of tracking and miles of walking, is also one of the fastest ways to overcome fears of giant golden orb weavers (spiders the size of your hand). I’ll never forget the moments immediately following our first successful “hit.” Grace and I had left first this morning out of our darting team of ten. We were to go to the 50 hectare plot (an area where every single plant is documented and routinely monitored so scientists can research tree population fluctuations) and find “Top,” one of the Capuchin groups. We were told to follow them all day, but not to expect anything since Meg wanted to give Grace a few more days of uninterrupted data collection and keep the monkeys from recognizing our faces and associating them with darting. But, just one hour later we spot Meg and Bob (the darter) slowly walking through the forest underneath part of the Top group. Meg called us over and we started helping spot adults from the group and following those individuals so Bob could know who to target. 

After about twenty minutes, I see Bob raise his darting rifle. Bob does not even raise his rifle unless he knows he has a guaranteed perfect shot. I looked back to see the monkey, heard a soft pop, and then Bob goes, “I got her.” An adult female, Olga, was trailing behind the group and was happily eating in a tree with her back facing us. Within a few seconds Olga started stumbling in the treetops. Usually, there is just enough time between the hit and the drugs taking full effect for the team to run underneath and catch the monkey in sheets before they fall to the ground. In this case, Olga had been climbing up a particularly viney section of forest, and the undergrowth was extremely dense. She started stumbling lower. The next thing I knew, Meg was right behind me holding sheets and then we were running towards Olga. Running towards Olga meant I basically just barged through the forest with no regard for spider webs, trees, plants, or other obstacles and just smashed my way through. I ended up losing my camera lens cap in the process and was thoroughly covered with spider webs and a small population of poisonous spiders. But there was no time to panic about this. When we were about fifteen feet from Olga, we looked up and saw her falling from the tree. The next seconds happened in slow motion. She starts falling and there was no way we would reach her, but thankfully there was a patch of Liana vines right underneath her that broke her fall. Basically picture a lot of leafy greens and pretty much the thing you would pray would be beneath you if you were falling forty feet from a rainforest tree. Sweet little Olga was completely unharmed from the fall, and as we retrieved her, we noticed that Bob had hit her perfectly. The spot you aim for when darting Capuchin monkeys is essentially their butt. If you’re off by just a little, the force of the hit could actually break their leg bone.

Olga was taken in the sheet (pink and with cartoons because that’s scientific and professional) to a clearer area, which would become her home for the next several hours. Meg had dropped her bag in the chaos, so I went stumbling back through the forest to try to find it. Mostly that just meant more poisonous spiders to the face.

Bob currently works for the Cincinnati Zoo as the Director of Animal Collections. He has been darting animals for 25 years, 15 of which he has known and worked with Meg. Meg did her PhD and post-doc research on BCI, so Bob has also been traipsing through the jungles on this island for 15 years. He began his darting career after Hurricane Andrew when a primate center was damaged and over three thousand (THREE THOUSAND) monkeys escaped from the facility and just roamed freely in Florida. He literally just learned on the fly and darted macaques and hamadryas baboons out of people’s houses or off building tops in the city. From what I’ve witnessed, his 25 years of experience means that he’s perfect and one of the few humans capable of darting Capuchins. According to Bob, those are the hardest animals to successfully dart because of how high they are in the trees and how small of animals they are. BCI, with its giant hills, terrifying ecology, massive humidity and heat, and dense forests makes it particularly difficult. 

Olga's weighing.

Bob brought a small team with him from the zoo. Dan, the Director of Education, came along and was given the job of Gun Boy. Basically, he was just forced to carry the second gun in case Bob had gun failure (which hasn’t ever happened in 25 years). Megan and Michell are two Keepers who finished undergrad a couple of years ago.

The post-darting panic then ensued. It’s actually the most perfect example of organized chaos that I’ve ever seen. Olga was laid out on a pile of spread newspaper while her vitals (temp, pulse, etc) and body measurements were taken. Megan and Michell then got the thrilling task of combing her for parasites (thankfully, clean). Meg fit the GPS collar on her and made adjustments to keep it secure. In all, the process was significantly shorter than I expected. At the end, we got to hold Olga. When she was handed to me, she promptly started peeing. Grace immediately whipped into action and collected a urine sample, some of it coming from my boots. Then we noticed a giant pile of her poop, so we collected that too, and Meg was kind enough to wipe some on my hand. 

 

 

Then sweet Olga was put in a literal potato sack and hung from a low branch for about three more hours until the tranquilizer had worn off and she was sufficiently alert to climb and rejoin her group. 

Meanwhile, Grace and I were sent off into the forest to track Top for the rest of the day. They teased us by spending a nice hour resting and feeding in a flat section of the plot not far away from where Olga was. Then, we came to the edge of a cliff and the monkeys crossed a ravine high in the trees, totally ignorant to the physical torture they would now put us through. So we followed them. Down the ravine, into a giant hole in the island and miles away. Farther than Grace had ever seen them go. I again had some of my worst fears realized when, not once, but twice, the vines that I planned to rely upon for support and the future of my life, ended up being snakes (still not poisonous I think, but this hasn’t been confirmed). Finally by about 3 pm, Grace and I determined that no way would anyone be able to find us and it was too late to dart a new monkey and wait the requisite time for them to be able to climb again, so we marched back to the labs. 

 

On the way, we had the wonderful fortune of seeing a fledgling owl and its mama. This day was probably the best day for wildlife. We saw about ten peccaries (basically little warthogs) whose smell precedes them. We saw a group of coatis, an anteater, bullet ants, a sloth, mating neon beetles, toucans (threecans actually), howlers, lizards, toads, falcons, and several other unidentifiable birds. We finished the day with rum and coke at Dan and Bob’s little apartment house on the island listening to zoo stories of escaping red pandas, lions rescued from junkyards, and humans being dragged behind rampaging armadillos. 

 

 

The next day, we set off with the same plan and the same high hopes for a successful monkey darting. We got slightly distracted leaving the labs though, when I discovered that the thing I had been seeing for a couple of days that I thought was a small rat was actually an infant agouti (spelling finally correct…after six blogs). There are two baby babies living right near our room and are the most precious of creatures. 

Again, we found Top rather quickly and called Meg and Bob and Dan to our location. Dan and I stayed back to not scare the monkeys away too quickly (they were already clearly jittery in comparison to the previous day). I occupied our time by impressing him with my ability to identify fruits the monkeys were eating based on the sounds of them falling to the ground and various other plant identifications. Honestly, we exhausted my four plant library of knowledge in under sixty seconds, but it was enough to impress him before we got distracted by the sighting of a snake catching and then eating a lizard. 

We then moved off to find the monkey and darting group again and within a matter of seconds, Dan managed to get hopelessly separated from us. I spent about 45 minutes retracing our steps and marching back through the forest to find him. Although unsuccessful, I did learn that my jungle navigational skills are quite impeccable. Just using a compass, I was able to basically cross exactly the way I came, to the accuracy of climbing over the exact same termite infested treefall. Up until today, termites were one of the few insects I had no real fear of in the jungle. Then, upon Alan telling me of how horrible it was to accidentally hit his head on a termite nest and get ferociously stung, and then upon me hearing the noise of feasting termites, they’ve joined the remainder of jungle creatures of being a menace to the human race. Grace and I spent the next eight hours praying we wouldn’t have to go out on a recon mission for Dan in the evening because honestly I don’t think my legs would have allowed it.

A coati.

While Top proved impossible for Bob to reach the rest of the day, and basically ran from us at every opportunity, we did get to see Olga. She has successfully rejoined her group and while slightly more wary of us now, she’s acting completely normal and feeding and flying through the trees like a good little Capuchin does. 

A rodent skull. Probably agouti.

A tarantula skin, complete with fangs.

Today also proved to be very successful. The most successful event was when Lucia saved me from sitting on a bullet ant, which would have marked the end of my biological career. The second success was that Bob darted a male spider monkey (7.9 kilos) within twenty minutes of marching into the forest. Grace and I were following the Capuchins and messengering radio antenna all over the jungle, so we didn’t get to see the male. We followed the spider monkeys for the next couple of hours, but they were feeding on spondius trees, meaning they were extremely high up in the canopy. Thankfully, they crossed to another trail and swung through lower trees. Bob darted one of the few females without a tiny infant on her back, but upon inspection we discovered that she’s pregnant. 

Mama and baby.

Like the Capuchin, this spider monkey appears to be very healthy. We took her measurements and vitals and a blood sample, then Meg fit a GPS tracking collar on her. We let her lay on the sheets for a couple of hours, but when she was getting a little too alert to be contained easily on the ground, we put her in the sack of potatoes bag. This proved mildly difficult since her tail is 76 cm long and she’s got a decent grip on her and grabbed everything but the bag. She also had managed to get a nice helping of her poop onto her tail and was kindly teasing Dan’s face with that specimen. But into the bag she went, and out of it she safely came a couple of hours later to rejoin her family.

Each day of darting so far we’ve walked at least 12 miles up and down hills, through the forest, into and out of ravines. I think I may never walk again, but getting to see the process and observe the monkeys up close is totally worth it.