Jojo

Jojo is an adult female baboon from my troop. She was found a couple years ago being chained to a tree in someone’s backyard. Unfortunately, not an unusual story for baboons here in Africa. You can watch her rescue and the beginning of her rehabilitation story here:

 Jojo's Story

Jojo was the lowest-ranked baboon in the troop. She’s very sweet but often spent time by herself. When we put the baboons into their release enclosure for a few days prior to the release in order for them to slowly get acclimated to their new surroundings, Jojo unfortunately became the target of some aggression stemming from the stress of a new environment. Her injuries prevented her from being released and she was taken back to the Centre for some treatment and recuperation time. After a few weeks there, she seemed back to her old self and we traveled to Lilongwe to pick her up.

The troop was still hanging around the release enclosure area and using trees in the vicinity as their sleeping site, so it was an ideal time to reintroduce her to the troop. Luckily, everything went very smoothly. She spent a day and a half in the enclosure again, to allow the troop time to say hello and for her to again acclimate to her surroundings. Everyone greeted each other happily, which was a delight to see. There was lots of grunting and lipsmacks and grooming.

When we opened the enclosure she ran right out and up a nearby tree. She seemed a little apprehensive at first about where she was, just as the other baboons had on their first day. She quickly joined her friends and has been living her free life in the bush ever since! In the following few weeks, she has done remarkable well. She doesn’t pay us, the research team, any attention, she keeps up with the rest of the troop, and she eats plenty of the good natural foods around. She gets particularly excited when finding seed pods that grown near the ground. She is already gained weight and body condition and is looking as healthy as ever. 

Initially, we weren’t sure the whole process was going to work. Was the troop going to accept her again? Were they going to be aggressive towards her? Was she not going to want to join her troop again? Would she not be able to keep up with the others? But Jojo has absolutely excelled in all areas. It has been a joy to be able to give this kind baboon yet another chance at being free. To me, it even seems like that the rest of the baboons were waiting for her to return. As soon as she did they became more vocal throughout the day, and they began to explore their home range further. The very next day after Jojo's release the troop began to expand their foraging areas and started sleeping at different sleeping sites.

February in Kasungu

I’m sorry I haven’t written in so very long. There’s so much to catch up on now, I don’t know where to start!

The Release

The release got off to a rather rocky start. Immediately the baboons shot off in the opposite direction than we thought and than we anticipated. The next day we found them, but they had split into two groups, one of 9, with the two adult males, the one subadult male, a juvenile male, four adult females, and one infant, the other of 12 baboons, made up of two adult females and ten juvenile males and females. Both groups travelled enormous distances for baboons, around 20 km a day, but unfortunately in the wrong directions. We kept track of the two groups in hopes they would reunite, but the next day the group of 12 ran into a very large troop of wild baboons, about 70 individuals strong. I watched as the wild troop chased off my small group of 12 young baboons. The 12 scattered and basically that was the last we saw of them. We, then and now, searched the area far and wide for any sign of them. A week or so later, one of the juvenile males was spotted with another wild troop, looking happy and healthy. So that was great news!

Lately

Now my days are spent focusing on the 8 baboons I have, John, Bruiser, Chip, Wendy, Tosca, Bobbit, Jilly, and Brian. They are finally behaving like we anticipated and spending time around their release site. I am still provisioning the troop with some food to ease their transition into the wild. They spend their days in an absolutely beautiful area that is ripe with all sorts of natural foods. They eat grass and mushrooms and grasshoppers, and even some bird eggs. It is awesome to see them taking advantage of all that the bush has for them. It has been the height of the rainy season so everything is in full bloom, the grass is as tall as I am, and the clouds are always amazing. All the baboons are doing really well, eating lots and growing rapidly. They’re slowly expanding their range that they explore everyday. It’s tiring work though, I’m in the field when the baboons get up and leave when they go up in their trees to sleep (roughly 6am-6pm), but it’s all good fun and for the best cause ever!

Health

A few weeks ago I had a crazy health thing. No, not malaria again, thank goodness. I had a nasty bacterial infection just next to my knee. It was rather red and painful. I came back to Lilongwe to get it sorted out. Sorting it out turned out to be quite unpleasant. The doctor here had to slice my leg open a bit and squeeze a bunch of nasty stuff out of it, root around in my knee, and then leave it open so it could drain and heal. Sorry if that’s too much information, but it was really gross. I spent the next week hobbling around on crutches while the gaping hole in my knee slowly closed up. It was such a bummer to miss a week of work, but it was nice to be in Lilongwe again. Apparently the rainy season affects people in crazy ways! But good news is that the weeks since have all been fine!

Birthday

For the 6^th year in a row, I spent my birthday in a foreign country. My friend Kat from the centre came up to Kasungu to surprise me the weekend before and we had a nice little party with the just the few of us. It was unexpectedly very fun. The next day we all hung out and then climbed Black Rock, which is, well, a large rock. It overlooks the whole park; trees as far as you can see, which includes over to Zambia. We drank some beers as the sun set. Unfortunately, and at the same time fortunately, our car broke down a few days later and we had to return to Lilongwe to get it fixed. So I was able to spend my actual birthday here at the centre amongst friends and going out on the town. It was a great way to bring on 28!

Jojo

I’m writing this from Lilongwe now, where I’m preparing to bring Jojo back for re-release. She was part of the original troop, but sustained some injuries in the release enclosure and was taken back to the centre to recuperate. Now that she’s all better I’m going to bring her back up to Kasungu to rejoin the troop and get another chance at living in the wild. Very exciting!!!

Kasungu

Sorry about the delay in updates!! Life here has been insanely busy! (we've also had a new policy in talking about projects in social media). A real update with shortly follow this one, I PROMISE. But for now, here are some photos of where I live now, Kasungu National Park, some of my released baboons, and some of the various other creatures I've encountered around. Hope you like em!

Release Preparations

This past week has been absolutely crazy. We had to catch all 22 baboons from their pre-release enclosure and transport them to smaller interim enclosures around the centre. In between, some needed health checks and to be fitted for their fancy new radio collars. This might seem like an easy task, but it is not. In the beginning, some of the friendlier baboons come eagerly and easily, mostly the juveniles, and Marta and I were able to catch and move a lot of monkeys quickly. The second half of the week proved more difficult. The more human-fearful baboons were quickly on to our little game and didn’t come anywhere near the night rooms. This now involved a lot of creative trap techniques, early mornings, and extreme amounts of patience, usually hours, just waiting by the slide in case one baboon came into the night rooms. These usually proved fruitless. 

Transporting Chip

Sally getting a health check

Finally we were down to Big Foot, one of the two adult males, who had to be darted. It took three days of trying to get him in a good position to dart. Interestingly, it happened while I was half in the enclosure trying to move some food, apparently not-so-sneakily. He saw me and came close, and provided a good view for a dart shot. And it was perfect. I was so happy we were able to dart him!! I feel much better going into this with two adult males rather than just one.

Big Foot getting a health check and collar after being darted by Dr Amanda Salb (pictured in back) 

However, during the darting, the remaining four females jumped over the fence and out of the enclosure. The next three days, (we postponed the release two days as a result), were spent with Marta and I trying to catch those four wily baboons. This involved even MORE patient hours spent sitting in the woods with a rope attached to a door patiently waiting for baboons to walk inside to get the pile of food that awaited and baited them. For example, it took 14 hours to catch two of them. 14 straight hours of sitting and waiting. The baboons would get so close to the door so many times and my adrenaline would start pumping only to have them turn around and my hopes were dashed. Over and over. It was quite demoralizing at times, but in the end we did manage to get them. The last day possible, we caught the third baboons in the morning. The fourth baboon that was still out and about was the most elusive and cleverest, Sally. We tried about 6 different types of traps for her and she wasn’t even the slightest bit interested in any of them. Late in the afternoon, Jasper, the boss here, devised another plan, which of course again required sitting patiently in the woods with a rope. Neither Marta nor I were at all hopeful that this would work. But lo and behold, Sally walked right into the trap. I was all over the rope system by now and we got that damn baboon. 6 pm the day before the release. It was a miracle. It is the first time the release is going ahead with all the monkeys caught!

14 straight hours of this 

All of the differnt traps we set

Jojo is ready to go! 

Today is the big release day. It was all hands on board today as we re-caught all the baboons from their temporary enclosures and put them into their transport boxes. Once they were settled, we had a ten-ton truck come and we loaded all the baboons in boxes onto it. Now they are patiently waiting on that truck. 

Marta and I happy after catching all the baboons (and wet from the all the rain)

John in his transport box 

Jojo checking out the scene

We are all set to leave the centre here at 1 am (as I write this it’s 11pm and I’m so tired), so that we drive through the night and first thing in the morning we can put the baboons in to their pre-release enclosure at the release site in Kasungu National Park, my new home. From there they remain in that enclosure for just a few days before we open their doors for good! And then my real job starts of trying to get them to survive in the wild and record everything. So for now, it’s been an incredible, and definitely at times boring and frustrating, week, but now it’s on to the incredible task of re-releasing rehabilitated baboons back into their natural habitat. Wish us all luck!

Internet in the bush is limited, and I will be working from dawn to dusk, but I will try and make time to write on her when I can.

Kasungu

I just spent the last three days in Kasungu National Park, home to the baboon release site and where I’ll be living for most of the next year. After a 3 hour journey in a bus crammed full of people, and a very bumpy two hour drive along dirt roads, I finally reached the park. Firstly, this place is REMOTE. I think it will be the most remote and rustic living I’ve ever done, if you can even imagine that. There is no electricity (no lights, no fridge, etc), with just one small solar panel with one plug from where to charge things. Keep in mind as well, that this is the start of the rainy season, so the sun might be scarce to power the solar panel! I will have my own large tent  which is great. We share the space with the campground of a nearby lodge, which apparently scarcely has visitors. The “stove” is gas-powered. Hot water for showers is heated by making a fire and waiting an hour and a half. The camp itself though is situated right on a dam, which is home to loads of hippos and tons of birds. It is very, very beautiful.

The kitchen

Very high-tech stove 

The solar panel 

My tent! 

I spent my first day up there walking around the release site with a guide/assistant and a park scout. We walked all around the area that the baboons will likely use, pointing out where other baboon troops are, which trees are good to sleep in, and which plants and fruits they will most likely eat. The forest there is beautiful. The trees are not too tall, maybe about 8-10 meters and there is a fresh layer of secondary growth trees sprouting from the ground. I kept expecting to see a unicorn walking around or something; it is such a beautiful place.

Building the pre-release enclosure

My second day was once again spent getting to know the area, and also learning how to drive a manual 4x4 truck. Prior to this, I had spent two afternoons driving a manual car. Ever. Let alone a rusty truck and on dirt roads that could barely be called roads. For those of you who understand this reference, I would say the road is worst than the Grietjie/CARE road, and for the even fewer of you who will understand this reference, not as bad as the Lajuma road. But luckily, Dan was patient with me, and I seemed to do okay! I only stalled the vehicle once or twice, didn’t get stuck in any ditches or potholes, and didn’t completely ruin the transmission! I drove for a few hours and again the next day as well. That afternoon was exciting because as I was driving all the workers back to camp, from where they were building the release enclosure, the scouts in the back spotted some poachers. Kasungu NP has a big problem with poachers. They sneak into the park and kill everything from hares and small antelopes to elephants, of which only about 40 exist when there used to be thousands. It’s a real shame that Kasungu now has virtually no wildlife. While I was walking around it seemed like the perfect place for elephants and rhino and buffalos and cheetahs, but sadly non exist anymore. I kept expecting to run into something around every corner, similar to what I experienced in Botswana, but there was nothing. It’s a real real shame. So I slammed on the breaks and the two scouts and the workers jumped out of the back of the truck and ran across the field chasing and shooting at (or around) the poachers, who dropped their supplies and ran. We saw that they were carrying the larger pellets which indicates they were looking for elephants. But those of you who are now worried, don’t fret; I will be accompanied everyday by a scout with a gun for this exact purpose. Besides, poachers aren’t really looking for baboons.

My vehicle 

Checking out the poachers' supplies 

The view from the camp

Release Update

Now, unfortunately, there hasn’t been enough rain in Kasungu yet. We want to release when there is water in the river (dambo), so that the baboons don’t go too far from the release site, and potentially get trapped on the other side. So the release, which was supposed to happen on the 8^th is going to be postponed at least a week. This also means that I’ll still be at the centre / civilization for another couple of weeks.

Lake Malawi

My day off last Sunday was spent with three other girls here at Senga Bay, Lake Malawi. It’s a huge freshwater lake that takes up like half of this country. It was about a two hour drive from the Lilongwe. We spent the day lounging on the beach, swimming a bit, and getting spectacularly sunburned. It was a nice little vacation, with some spectacular clouds. I've been just trying to take advantage of this semi-cushy life in civilization before I head to the bush soon.

Interestingly, the lake is swimming, no pun intended, with a parasite that can easily just absorb through your skin. So about three months after swimming in the lake, everyone is advised to take a special anti-parasitic drug.

On the way back home, we got a call about a sick duiker from a nearby park, and picked him up. Sadly he was in rough conditions and died upon return to the centre. Even on days off, we rescue animals!

Rainy Season Has Arrived

It seems that the rainy season has officially begun. For the past few days it has poured rain for an hour or so in the afternoon. It has been a welcome respite from the blistering heat, even though I got absolutely soaked. So far, the rain comes in the afternoon for just a bit, but I have been assured that in a few weeks, when I’m out in the bush all day, the rains will continue for hours and even days at a time. Not 100% looking forward to that, but such is life in the bush!

Pre-release observations are going well.  I’m pretty confident now in identifying them/knowing their names. We did carried out some Predator Awareness Assessment the other day, which involved hiding (as best as we could) a paper-mache leopard in the forest outside the baboon enclosure and then recording their responses. We want to make sure they know what to do when they see predators in the wild. They have done this assessment before with the leopard and also with a fake snake. Responses were okay. The baboons alarm called and quickly climbed the trees. Now I know what they will sound like should we see a real one in the bush, and I’ll be sure to also climb a tree. I definitely don’t want to be the last one on the ground! It was a quick but fun and new exercise for me and baboons! Hopefully they’ll do just as well in the wild, or else someone will have to learn the hard way.

We’re almost in the final stretch here, which is exciting and nerve-racking! The release is scheduled for the first week of January, so just after Christmas will be a big time for catching and checking and final preparations for the big move. Speaking of the big move, I found out some things last week about the living conditions out in Kasungu. There’s limited electricity because there is only one solar panel. Considering it’s the rainy season now, and solar power doesn’t work much without the sun, there will be even less power. They don’t even have enough power to run a refrigerator. So goodbye everything cold! But I’ll have my own big tent with what looks like a great view. Apparently there is decent cell and 3G service there (again, all dependent on solar power) but no wifi. So basically, it’s very rustic. Not sure what I’m going to be eating there! Or when I’ll be able to be in touch!

But until then, I’m still her at the centre. I’m enjoying continuing to get to know my baboons! Two nights ago, after the first rains, winged termites hatched. I got to see the baboons do something I haven’t seen them do before, which is always exciting for me. In the evening they were jumping feet in the air, super goofily, to catch these flying insects and eat them. They were all so excited and grabbing the termites out of thin air for a nice protein-rich snack. Last night there were even more termites so there was less jumping to catch them. I hope they come out again tonight! I love seeing baboons do something new! I got some good video of it, but I’m not sure about the wifi’s ability to upload it.

Tomorrow is my day off and a few friends and I are renting a car and going to drive to a nearby town on Lake Malawi! I’m stoked to see this lake and just relax on the beach. And hopefully to practice some of my manual driving. I will hopefully post some pictures of that in the next couple of days. I’m trying to take advantage of some of the luxuries of civilization and people while I’m still here before I go off into the bush for months and months.