In 2014 I was extremely fortunate to go on a tropical field course as part of my undergraduate zoology degree at the University of Reading. In what I expect will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, we travelled to Madagascar - a country containing some of the most biodiverse and threatened ecosystems on the planet. In all honesty, it was essentially a very privileged, university-subsidised wildlife-watching holiday, with a small bit of "research" tagged on, but as part of the coursework write-up we had to keep a day-by-day diary of events. What follows is a lightly edited version of that diary. In the nearly ten years that have passed since I wrote this, both my writing style and world outlook have changed, so please be kind when reading the thoughts of teenage me on my first fieldwork experience.
Day 1
We landed in the capital Antananarivo and were driven straight from the airport to the hotel in the dark. The roads were winding and the streets were busy, but the darkness combined with my tiredness from the flight meant it was hard to take anything in. With the sunrise the following morning came my first proper views of the country I'd be spending the next two weeks exploring.
It's September, the end of the cool dry season, and as a result the weather this morning was a mixture of strong winds and heavy rain. Hopefully, this won't be a regular occurrence for the two weeks we'll be in Madagascar, otherwise, it's going to be a very wet trip. Fortunately, the skies began to clear as the day wore on and we were able to load up the minibus in the dry, ready for our journey to Ramanofana National Park.
Leaving Antananarivo, it wasn't long before agriculture took over from housing, with terraced fields and rice paddies covering most of the available land. The clay-based soil is heavy and hard to work with, particularly as much of the work is done by hand and in many of the fields teams of three turned the soil ready for cultivation using thin shovels in what was clearly slow, intense work. The further south we travelled, the sandier the soil became and the smaller the teams of men became, as the land became easier to work. Throughout the day we could see attempts to improve soil fertility using slash-and-burn techniques or 'tavy'. Plumes of smoke occurred sporadically across the landscape, from the roadside all the way to the horizon.
We stopped for lunch where we were entertained by a group of musicians one of whom played a plucked string instrument the Valiha, the national instrument of Madagascar. Other than quick bathroom breaks, lunch was the only stop on our twelve-hour coach trip to Centre Val Bio research station. We arrived late in the evening were shown straight to the food hall to refuel and then given a tour of the facilities. It quickly became obvious that staying here would not be a hardship, with prepared hot meals, hot showers and comfy beds. For fieldwork, this was luxury living.
Day 2
The second day consisted of low cloud and drizzle, with odd periods of sun or very heavy rain dispersed throughout. As we watched the rain sweep through the valley the weather couldn't dampen our excitement of seeing the rainforest in the daylight for the first time. During the morning a member of ValBio staff volunteered to give us a brief lecture on the Centre and its aims. Initially, the main conservation focus was lemur populations, but this expanded to include other native plants and animals. ValBio aims to work for both the benefit of biodiversity and for local people, by providing employment and investing in local education and sanitation.
Two more lectures followed; one on Madagascan biodiversity and one on photography. The latter included a crash course in shutter speeds, apertures, metering and histograms, which resulted in each member of the group having newfound confidence with our cameras. Using this freshly acquired knowledge we were able to take fully exposed white images, completely black underexposed images and several extremely blurry pictures of motionless pieces of furniture. I switched my camera back to automatic for the remainder of the trip.
By early afternoon the weather had become slightly less wet, and the decision was made to don ponchos and head to the nearby village of Ambatolahy, where many of the Centre staff live. We were welcomed by a teacher who showed us around. The emotions of the villagers varied. Children excitedly followed us on our tour, showing a particular interest in one student's great big bushy ginger beard. In contrast, young men and elderly members of the community were less enthusiastic about our visit. Their homes and way of life were being put on show, scrutinised and commented on in front of them by a group of rich Western tourists. At the end of the visit, our lecturers gave out small gifts to the children, which served as a reminder of why we were welcomed at all. Whilst there may be some resentment of tourists, the benefits brought by ValBio and the national park, such as improved sanitation and education, are seen as an acceptable trade-off.
We returned to ValBio for the evening meal, followed by a lecture on native carnivores and the effects of cats and dogs on these species. We were warned before the talk that we would be unlikely to hear a more depressing lecture over the next two weeks, possibly ever. The researcher began with a rundown of the native carnivore species on Madagascar and which ones could be found in the national park. After this, the buzz was comprehensively killed as he explained how the presence of cats, dogs and invasive species was having a devastating effect on native species. Some efforts are in place to mitigate these effects, but it's a losing battle in many cases. The lecture ended on a high followed by a crashing low as the researcher picked his favourite carnivore on the island, and then told us it would probably go extinct in the near future. We left the lecture room depressed, but it didn't take long for people's spirits to lift, because tomorrow we enter the forest.
Day 3
We were briefly delayed entry into the National Park and had to spend a short while outside of the reception building waiting to be let in. This was no bad thing, as in that time we saw a Malagasy Green Sunbird (Cinnyris notatus) and a Crested Drongo (Dicrurus forficatus), which is considered the king of birds in Madagascar owing to its ability to mimic the calls of other species. When we did enter the park, we crossed over a large, recently built iron and concrete footbridge. The previous bridge had been washed away during a particularly strong monsoon season. Our guides went ahead to look for species and in no time, one found a couple of leaves that upon closer inspection turned out to be Satanic Leaf-tailed Geckos (Uroplatus phantasticus).
A short while later we came across our first lemurs - a family group of Red Fronted Brown Lemurs (Eulemur rufifrons) that passed over our heads in the canopy. As the walk continued, we quickly added Red Bellied Lemur (Eulemur rubriventer) to our species lists. The highlight of the day though was the Greater Bamboo Lemurs (Prolemur simus), one of the most endangered lemur species with fewer than 200 individuals left in the wild in 2011. We were lucky enough to be meters away from the only two individuals in the area (a father and a daughter - presumably there had been a mother at some point as well, but this pairing doesn't bode well for the immediate future of the species in the area). The daughter was quite content to sit and eat as we watched, clearly used to the presence of humans in the park. After a while, they both moved on, the female pausing only to urinate on one of our group before leaving.
Continuing the walk we reached a low-lying stream system, where our guides found several frogs with different patterns and colours. We assumed that they were all different species, but in fact, all of them turned out to be Boophis madagascariensis, a highly variable endemic species that can be identified by a distinctive spine on its elbow. We moved on from the streams into a drier area. Here we were taken off the main path by our guides who had found some Golden Bamboo Lemurs (Hapalemur aureus) in the canopy. The discovery of this species in 1986 was one of the key reasons for the creation of the Ranomafana National Park.
We stopped briefly at a viewpoint in the forest, from where we could see down the valley to where Val Bio was nestled in amongst the trees. Here we were shown several Peacock Day Geckos (Phelsuma quadriocellata), a species so brightly coloured that my poor photography skills just don't do them justice. We headed back to the centre for the night, after what had been an awesome first day in the forest and a perfect introduction to tropical ecology.
Day 4
We entered the park again this morning and split into smaller groups to reduce our levels of disturbance and see more wildlife. That was the theory, but in reality, we saw less than when we'd been out as a larger group yesterday. We could hear the constant calling of birds in the canopy but saw relatively few species on our walk. It was only as we came across some of the other groups in the Park that we found we had been unlucky. We had started the walk in a known territory of a family of Milne Edward's Sifaka (Propithecus edwardsi) but were unable to find them. It turned out that the other groups arrived sometime after we'd left and saw the sifakas, seemingly making us the only five individuals in the park that day not to see them. Nature is fickle.
That afternoon we travelled southwest via minibus to Anja Community Reserve where we would spend the next day. We had a relaxed evening at our hotel and a few of us spent some time looking for chameleons, by which I mean, we looked in every bush and tree within the hotel grounds and completely failed to find a chameleon. One of our lecturers then joined the search and found a sizeable Malagasy Giant Chameleon (Furcifer oustaleti) in the first bush they looked in. Not only was this annoying because we had only managed to find a small gecko, but this was also embarrassing as it happened to be the first bush we looked in. Prides damaged, we retired for the night.
Day 5
A 6:00 a.m. start this morning, earlier than we'd been used to, but worth it. By reaching the reserve early we were able to observe Ring-tailed Lemurs (Lemur catta) at their most active. Anja is a community reserve, with all the staff and guides employed from the local area and revenue from tourism invested back into the community. We set off with a guide, while a team of spotters went ahead to search for species and it wasn't long before we were taken off the path and brought to a tree to see a chameleon. After walking what can only have been a few hundred metres from the reserve entrance we encountered a group ring tailed lemurs. As with the bamboo lemurs a couple of days ago, they were obviously used to human presence and moved out of the trees and onto the exposed, open farmland and towards a single tree in the field, stopping at points to feed. Completely unphased, some walked within metres of us, including mothers with small babies. The group stayed within the general area for some time feeding, sitting on rocks and in trees. Our guide informed us that there were around 400 individuals in the park, living in groups of 25-30.
After some time, and after a brief distraction by a kingfisher and some frogs, we were pulled away from the ringtails in order to continue the walk and began the rock scrambling part of the day, which took us past the caves the lemurs use for shelter at night. We were then taken up to a plateau, providing us with an incredible view of the surrounding area where a large valley had been carved out of the rock, leaving large boulders protruding from the ground at various points. Climbing down from the plateau we were taken back to the reserve centre before boarding the bus and heading back to ValBio.
That evening it was my group's turn to check some of the small mammal pitfall traps that had been set up around the centre. All the buckets were empty, but we would have another check in the morning. We spent the rest of the night discussing our upcoming research project.
Day 6
We re-checked the pitfall traps at 7:30am. There was only one small mammal -a shrew- caught along the entire transect and we left feeling a little deflated. It was only when we returned to ValBio and showed our pictures that we found out what we had seen was, in fact, a Shrew Tenrec (Microgale sp.), one of a species belonging to the endemic Tenrec family, and that we should have been far more excited than we were.
The rest of the morning was spent collecting data for our project. Our research plan was to carry out a basic test of the intermediate disturbance hypothesis by measuring bird biodiversity along a transect going from the village out towards the rainforest. Reaching the village, we were greeted by a group of children who followed us as we walked our transect. Not long into data collection, one child found an ant to show us which led to all the children catching and bringing us wildlife. This was a problem as far as our project was concerned as we now became a large walking disturbance that would influence our results. Fortunately, after a few bird point counts the majority of the children became bored and went to find frogs with one of the other research groups.
After returning to ValBio for lunch we went back to the village to carry out the transect again, this time in the opposite direction to the morning. We saw fewer species during the afternoon, most likely because of the heat at that time of day. We headed back to the centre and spent the evening looking at our initial results, relaxing and playing cards with the rest of the group.
Day 7
Today was relatively similar to yesterday, rising early and leaving for the village at 7:30 AM to begin our transect. This time however we were lucky enough to have a guide (Deno) with us. With an ability to identify birds by call as well as sight, Deno allowed us to be more confident with our recording, some of which had been dubious at best the day before. During the morning session we were more successful than the day before - seeing and identifying a greater number of species. As well as the birds we were recording for our project we also saw a Madagascan Tree Boa (Sanzinia madagascariensis), large numbers of butterflies and dragonflies, as well as Giraffe Weevils (Trachelophorus giraffa), an utterly ridiculous but fantastic insect.
The temperature had steadily risen throughout the day, meaning that the afternoon surveys were predictably quiet. Returning to ValBio at 4:15 PM, we were given an hour to relax and then went to set up camera traps baited with banana at the back of the food hall. The evening was mostly spent analysing our bird data and preparing our project presentation. This was interrupted by two ValBio scientists who were researching the genotypes and phenotypes of brown mouse lemurs. In small groups, they took us to a red-lit room where individual mouse lemurs were being microchipped and having their measurements recorded. The mouse lemur we were shown turned out to be a trap-happy individual who had been caught almost nightly for the past 20 days. After a number of tests including measuring the grip strength of each individual, they were taken to be released. As soon as they left the trap they were gone, darting along the branches and out of sight. Watching these tiny lemurs skipping through the trees above our heads would have been the perfect end to the day, but there was still data analysis to be done. Back to work.
Day 8
Today was a big day. In the evening we would be meeting Pat Wright, the researcher who discovered the golden bamboo lemur and was largely responsible for Ranomafana being classified as a national park. Before then, however, we would have to present our project to the rest of the group, which required another couple of hours number crunching and sorting to get it ready. Safe to say by 11:00 AM we had produced an absolute world-beater of a presentation, but there's no way of proving this as our file was somehow corrupted. We ended up using an earlier version of the presentation to deliver our findings (which were not very interesting). After the presentation we collected in the camera traps, having left them out longer than intended. This was a fortunate turn of events as it meant that the cameras captured full-colour images of a Ring-tailed Vontsira (Galidia elegans) that had visited the baited area that morning.
The afternoon was spent on a final walk in the national park before we had to return to ValBio and freshen up before Pat Wright's arrival. After dinner, she gave us a talk on conserving lemurs in Madagascar, encompassing Madagascar's formation and isolation, species diversity and the arrival of people. She also told the story of the discovery of the golden bamboo lemur and the subsequent creation of the park. In a lucky coincidence for us today was Dr Wright's birthday and much to her surprise a large cake was brought out by ValBio's staff to wish her a happy birthday and to say goodbye to us. A party broke out and a band including the head chef played traditional Malagasy music and we were taught traditional Malagasy dancing. By the end of the night students, staff and researchers alike were singing karaoke in what has to be one of the most surreal moments of my life. We had seen some truly unique wildlife in Ranomafana, some of which I will probably never see again, but one of the fondest memories of our stay at this world-famous tropical forest research centre will be finishing the night with the singing of the zoological classic, karma chameleon.
Day 9
Today was the low point of the trip. Having grown to love the centre over the past week, leaving ValBio was hard. But leaving at 5:30 AM seemed like a cruel joke. This early start was necessary if we were to make it back to Antananarivo before nightfall. After a long, uncomfortable and uneventful journey, we arrived back in the city. Coming from ValBio to the capital felt very claustrophobic, but it was just for one night. We'd be on our way again tomorrow to another environment. That evening we were informed that AirFrance were going on strike, which meant we'd have to find an alternative way to get home at the end of the week. This was met with mixed emotions from the group. Some people were ready to go home and others (myself included) were not too fussed if it meant more time in Madagascar.
Day 10
The group mood lifted quickly as we moved on to Andasibe Resort the following morning. Upon arrival, we had a quick lunch and then went straight into the park. Andasibe is the main location for the Madagascar Parks organisation and was originally a research centre for agro-forestry. In 1989 the area became a conservation site with a focus on lemur conservation and tourism due to the presence of Indri and Sifakas.
We split into our smaller groups and set forth. We were seen as the unlucky group after the Sifaka incident in Ranomafana, but we were happy to shake that reputation as we saw species after species on our walk. First, we came across a sleeping Madagascar scops owl and not much further along the path, we came across a mother Eastern Woolly Lemur (Avahi laniger) with two young.
As our route began to increase in elevation we first heard the call of the indri. We followed the calls and joined the other groups and a number of other tourists watching a group of three or four indri calling and feeding. It's a hard task to describe an Indri call. Our lecturer described it as a sound that "makes your hair stand on end and stays with you as a moment you'll never forget". The call is a simple ascending note so loud it travels around 2 kilometres through the forest. You feel it as much as you hear it.
We returned to the resort and took the opportunity to relax, enjoying the view of the stream, wetlands and rainforest as the sun began to lower. Here we spotted a White-throated Rail (Dryolimnas cuvieri), and whilst we were watching this something moved out of the forest edge on the other side of the stream. An American tourist dismissed it as "probably just a big rat", which we thought was an odd attitude to take for someone on a wildlife holiday in one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. The "rat" turned out to be an Eastern Grey Bamboo Lemur (Hapalemur griseus), but by the time we had identified it, our American companion had left.
That evening we gathered for a night walk along the road. As we waited for everyone to arrive I spotted a Fat-tailed Dwarf Lemur (Cheirogaleus medius) moving along one of the electrical cables that runs through the resort. The guides then took us along the road in search of species, using torches to search for eye-shine. One of the first species we came across was a Mossy Leaf-tailed Gecko (Uroplatus sikorae) at the end of a branch. After another kilometre of walking, and seeing many other species, we reached the border between the native trees and the introduced pines and eucalyptus. Here we turned back as the guides explained that we would not see much more. On our way back we caught glimpses of eye-shine in the trees, but the brightest lights were those of the fireflies that flew around us.
Day 11
We headed back into the park as a whole group with the hope of seeing Diademed Sifakas (Propithecus diadema), among other species. During the walk, we came across two groups of Indri and were able to watch them grooming each other for a while. We learned from our guides that there are 62 families in the park with over 200 individuals in total. We were also told that their long limbs, grasping hind feet and prehensile big toe allow them to live a largely arboreal existence. This was perfectly demonstrated by the lemurs themselves as they moved from tree to tree in a fluid, seemingly effortless way.
One of my highlights of the entire trip occurred when a troupe of Common Brown Lemurs (Eulemur fulvus) came down to ground level where we were standing. They came so close that you could smell them as they scent-marked the trees. This was another group of animals that seemed well-acclimatised to humans as they took their time moving along the ground and through the trees.
Further along the path our guides became very excited and pointed out a group of six Diademed Sifakas, including two babies. What then followed was an example of a dilemma in conservation - a problem that we were very much a part of. Ours were not the only guides who had spotted the sifakas and a large group of people were taken off the path to follow them through the trees. This continued for some time until finally, the Sifakas stopped moving. At this point, some people attempted to get as close as possible to get a photo. This was the most apparent case of crowding an animal that we had seen, but it had been visible at other points in the park, along with other ethically questionable moments. For instance, Indri normally only call for a few minutes each day, early in the morning. However, mimicking their calls will set them off, meaning tourists can hear them at all times of the day if a guide is willing to call. It's easy to say that the guides should do more to stop this, but in reality, there is a responsibility on tourists to respect the animals they have come to see, rather than doing anything they can to get the best view or picture.
Day 12
For one final time, we were given the opportunity to enter a rainforest in Madagascar. This was optional and as a result, some of the group stayed behind to relax. This seemed like madness to me as there was no way I was missing out on this last chance. Fortunately for those who stayed behind, we didn't add any new species to our list, but we did manage to see great views of some of the species we'd come across over the last couple of days. We also saw another example of overcrowding animals by tourists. On this occasion, both Diademed Sifakas and Indri were present in the same area, in the same tree in one case. We tried to keep our distance from the lemurs and stood away from the main gaggle of people who were right under the trees the lemurs were in. A Sifaka then moved away from where the majority of the other tourists were and came to rest in the tree we were standing under. For a moment we were able to get a beautiful view of the animal, but as more and more people moved over to our location, we decided it was probably best to move on. We decided to ask our guide what her views on the issue were. She said that she didn't like the crowding of animals and felt that more needed to be done, but was in a position where if she brought it up was at risk of losing her job. It's not a simple issue and one that just by being there we were contributing to.
Day 13
The AirFrance situation had actually worked out quite well for us as a group. We ended up taking an AirKenya flight to Nairobi where we had a 12-hour layover. During this time, we had a mini-holiday (yes, I'm aware that the field course was essentially already a holiday with a little bit of coursework thrown in) and were taken to hand feed giraffes, on a safari around Nairobi National Park and even had time to squeeze a visit to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust to see orphaned elephants being fed. We then boarded a British Airways flight home.
Reflections
It's a fairly well-known fact among my friends that I can be a hard person to get an emotional reaction out of, however, even I couldn't help but be affected by both the beauty and turmoil of Madagascar's environment. Whilst there was a huge amount of joy in seeing the wildlife and the environments, there was always an undertone of 'how long will this last?'. The ecosystems and habitats on Madagascar are under huge threat. We saw first-hand the vast areas of land used in agriculture that thousands of people depend upon for their food and livelihoods. Conservation is complex and needs to consider the needs of both people and nature if it is to be successful.
ValBio was incredible. There's no other way of putting it. The facilities and equipment housed there in the middle of the rainforest make projects far more accessible, meaning more can be done to promote conservation. The ethic of including local people reduces resentment and creates an atmosphere of conservation. Locals now see their home as both an income and a refuge for animals. The discovery of the Golden Bamboo Lemur by Dr Wright galvanised the creation of the park, but the work of one woman cannot hold back the flood of threats that are faced by thousands of rainforest species. There were many conservation positives to be taken from the trip, including the visit to Anja where we saw how a community can run a reserve, both for the benefit of animals and people. We also saw how emotional a subject it can be, with many contradictory situations. The best example of this being the problems with ecotourism witnessed at Andasibe. Whilst the trip was spectacular, I will always remember the impacts of humans on such a precious environment.