beast ape and the bleeding heart baboons

The End Is the Beginning Is the End

Beast Ape — Thu, 12 May 2011 13:29:44 +0000

I’m back from 10 plus months of fieldwork. Regrettably, my time in Ethiopia ended on a sour note (well more of a spicy note but it upset me nonetheless, I’ll explain later). As I had mentioned a few months ago, I was invited to speak at a youth conference in Addis Ababa on April 30. The conference was a major success with over 600 high school students from Addis attending. Together with my friend Shif (owner, operator, and chief guide of Simien Trek), I spoke about the Simien Mountains National Park. We talked about our work with ecotourism (Shif) and primatological research (me). Our goal was to get the youth of Addis excited about the unique animals and plants of their country, and to hopefully inspire just a few to go into wildlife biology careers. After all, when I was their age I wanted to be a medical doctor and look at me now.

Back to the ‘spicy’ note of my departure. Ethiopian is known for its delicious (and very spicy cuisine). My favorite Ethiopia dish is doro wat, which is a spicy chicken stew consisting of chicken thighs, hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, and onions seasoned with berbere (combination of traditional spices), fenugreek, garlic, ginger, and (tinish= Amharic for ‘a little’) lemon juice. Now, Ethiopia is mostly Orthodox Christian which means they abstain from eating meat (or even killing an animal to sell to a faranji) for over 50 days during Lent. Needless to say, by the time Fasika (Easter) was over I wanted nothing more than doro wat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

The day before the conference, we had all decided to go out for lunch and I was working on my third straight day of eating doro wat. Little did I know, a tinish (there’s that word again) bone was hiding in my stew. Savoring my meal, I bit down and CRACK! My molar was broken, the back half was sheered off right down to the gum line. Breaking a tooth in a developing country is quite an ordeal and can rapidly develop into a serious infection. At least I was in Addis where there were dentists. I scheduled an appointment for later that afternoon and managed to get half of my tooth pulled and filled before dinner that evening (with bitam tinish “very little” anesthesia). I’ll spare a discuss you all a discussion of the pain.

All looked well for the conference. My tooth was fixed, my talk was prepared, and I had showered everyday that week (I usually shower 1/ week in the mountains). However, at breakfast the morning of the conference the temporary filling along with another part of my tooth fell out exposing my root. I feared developing a serious tooth infection while in the mountains (and days away from Addis), so I made the hardest decision of my life and went home ending my trip a few weeks early and without goodbyes to the geladas or my friends.

I’ve been home one week now and I already miss the mountains, the monkeys, and the people that made that place my home for nearly a year. Its time now for me to transition in to that final stage of graduate school-analyzing and writing up the dissertation. I’m excited to uncover answers to all those burning questions of my proposal, yet I proceed tentatively. Part of me wants to get on the next flight to Ethiopia, grab a bus bound for the Simien Mountains, trek up to the gelada’s sleeping cliffs, and see my old bachelor geladas. However, I know that a dissertation the first chapter of my academic career. While it feels like an end, it is just the beginning.

On that note, I’m officially ending this blog. Its been a great few years, but I’m ready to move on to the ‘real world’ of publishing, getting rejected, making revisions, and nitpicking every statistical test and graph and I put together. To all my readers (there are at least 3 of you), good luck in your future careers be it primatology or something else. And please, feel free to comment.

Domino Theory

Beast Ape — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:45:06 +0000

I’m tapping deep in to my memory with this post, so if anyone that reads this blog is better versed in U.S. history please forgive me. I’ve titled the post “Domino Theory” after the pervasive Cold War thought that if countries fell to communism, surrounding countries would also fall (like dominoes) shortly thereafter. I’m pretty sure I learned about this in my freshman year of high school (a long time ago), so I forget all the little details (who came up with it, blah, blah, blah). It was the reason we went to Vietnam, and (in my personal opinion) is the reason we continue to intervene in conflicts around the globe (substitute communism for fascist regime, terrorism, radical Islamists, etc.)

Enough geopolitical banter. Last week I mentioned that Dikos had taken over a unit. Now, like dominoes, two more leader males have fallen in the past week. Quasi (named for his hunchback) overthrew Whale (a male twice his size) and Maylet (my number one studied bachelor) took over an unknown unit of seven females and two unit males (presumably the ex-leader and the ex-ex leader) all by himself. Quasi was a former member of the same all-male group as Dikos, and likewise observed how his friend commenced his reproductive career. Did that influence his decision to try and tackle Whale? Maylet was the dominant bachelor in his group, and also the most social. Yet, none of his bachelor buddies entered the unit with him. Did he truly ‘go it alone’ and defeat two males by himself? Or did his bachelor friends help him out, only to be excluded from the unit by the new leader/their former groupmate? As I didn’t directly observe either of these takeovers (they likely occurred on the sleeping cliffs the night prior), I cannot tell. What I do know is that the bachelors are ‘graduating’ at an alarming rate, and I need to start adding more animals to my study to keep up.

Saving the Simiens

Beast Ape — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 22:31:32 +0000

In other news, I’ve been invited to speak at a Youth Outreach Conference in Addis Ababa in late April. The conference is tentatively scheduled for April 30 and will focus on conserving the biodiversity of Ethiopia. I’ll be speaking to mostly high school students (something I’m used to given my previous profession of high school biology teacher) about my research and efforts to conserve the geladas and other endemic mammals of the Simien Mountains National Park. I’ll update this blog with more as the conference takes shape and I figure out how to persuade the youth of Ethiopia to get involved with conserving their endemic floral and fauna.

Dikos triumphant!

Beast Ape — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 22:28:59 +0000

It took 7 months and change, but a known (though not well-followed bachelor) overthrew one of the project’s unit males. Last Saturday my colleagues and I were separated in the field studying our respective geladas, when they called me on the radio.

“Matt’s females are here. And Matt is nowhere to be found.”

“What does the new male look like?”

“Nondescript. No major scars, broken fingers, kinda young actually.”

“I’ll be right there.”

As it turns out, this young, nondescript male was Dikos. Dikos is an early prime (estimated to be ~9 years old) male and former bachelor in a group with Dracula, Quasi, Igor, and MeanGuy. The former leader male (Matt) was indeed nowhere to be found. Despite being in a bachelor group with four other early prime adults, Dikos was always a bit of a loner. He spent more time eating than grooming (indeed he looks as though he doubled in size this past year). His loner-nature followed him to ‘married’ life. None of Dikos bachelor buddies tried to get in to the unit with him. Perhaps they know there are not enough females to go around (only 2 females in his new unit), or maybe they just never felt that special ‘bromantic’ connection to Dikos. In either case, here’s to Dikos! May your tenure as leader be longer than the previous leader!

Back in the Mountains

Beast Ape — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 13:47:02 +0000

After a much needed vacation (filled with Ethiopian wolves, olive baboons, mountain nyala, and more), I’m back in SMNP and past the halfway point of my year of fieldwork. Joining me and the geladas are two new students working on their own respective projects. When I left SMNP, it was the beginning of the harvest season and the bachelors were making a habit of daily raids on the local barley fields. Now, the barley is up, the fields are barren, and the geladas are behaving themselves a bit more like gentlemen. I doubt the bachelors have truly put their rowdiness behind them, but time will tell. After all, all males need to grow up sometime and if they ever hope to impress the lady geladas they’ll have to start with their behavior.