Last night, the PTYs and volunteers (including myself) were all trained in the process for capturing civets, including data recording, taking vitals, and the overall flow of the medical procedure.

This morning, I worked with Sergio to set more bait for the monitor lizards, and, if needed, we would be called by Meg if a civet was captured, at which point we would go back to our boat and meet her and her team. After setting the last bait for the monitors, Serg got a text from Meg that no civets were found today, so we headed back to DG. At that time, Meg and her PTYs began tacking the civets by radio signal instead.

During our time in the forest this morning, Sergio and I were able to see multiple proboscis monkeys, but I wasn’t fast enough with my cameraas they passed through the canopy. Kila told me on our return that proboscis monkeys cannot eat sweet fruits, as a bacteria in their stomachs will react with the sugar and cause them to die, so they only eat young leaves and bitter fruits. Quite interesting creatures.

Side note– I mentioned pangolins the other day, and one of our camera traps just photographed one; not the best photo, but evidence that they are here!

Also, I’ve been able to try an assortment of new fruits since I’ve been here, including mangosteen (which looks similar on the outside to a persimmon, although that is where the similarities end), ramatan, and fresh lychee. Each of these three fruits look have the same translucent appearance on the inside to lychee (especially the lychee). I’m still waiting to try durian–I’ve heard that it’s flavor varies greatly depending on the type, and that it is an aquired taste (apart from Joe, all of the PTYs hate it).

Just booked my hostel in Sandakan for the 22nd, where I’ll be staying the night before my flight home–it’s hard to believe that it is only 10 days away. I’ll see you soon family.

Much love,

Isaac

Today is the last day that the field course will be here. It will be strange when they are gone, as it’ll be much emptier around here, and we’ll go back to our old power cycle. It might even be relatively quiet, save the screams of the children Vikri, Ikram, and Igoh.

I wish that I had brought more books along with me, as I’ve already finished three and I’ve only got a few left.

Early this afternoon, the DGFC “family” and the field course took a big group photo together to commemorate their being here. Later on, I went out into the field with Meg and Aubrey to set up some motion-activated cameras and other civet tracking equipment for the first time. We traveled up the river to four separate locations and placed the gear, and then headed back to DG after about three hours. Working with the two of them was really nice–they are both quite fun to be around (not that others aren’t; the group here is quite charming). On our way back, Meg said that we would be having a barbeque this evening; I assume as one last hurrah for the field course prior to their departure in the morning.

Sergio, Joe, and I went up the Kinabatangan to bait for monitor lizards. The bait is decomposing chicken guts, by the way. Once captured, Sergio records their data, and sets them free again–all of which is done in the field. After setting up the last bait, we wentdeeper into the forest, hoping to seesome gibbons that we could hear, but to no avail.

Back out with Sergio and Joe (and joined by Koko) later in the day to check on the bait. Three out of five had monitor lizards, which we captured and followed the data recording procedure. To make the data more efficient, each of the captured monitors are implanted with an ID chip, which two of the three didn’t have, so we added those as well. The largest of the three monitors was 12 kilograms, vomited up four or five large python eggs and a baby python; the mother must be huge.

Here are some considerations if you will be joining a field course at DGFC in the future:

Field Course Ettiqutte – A guide to synergy in DGFC

• Always clean up after yourself
• Leave your boots/sandals on the bottom steps of the main facility when coming inside, as it helps keep the rest of the steps clean for bare feet and socks
• Always clean off the knife when you are done making toast; that’s what the tissues are for
• Please don’t queue up early for meals. Allow me to explain: Liningup for meals prior to lunch/dinner being called puts undue pressure on our cooking staff who work extremely hard, and it is rude to our workers who are here all of the time. There is always plenty of food, even if you are at the end of the line, as when the line is halfway through, the cooks restock it (as I said before, our staff is amazing)

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I saw the tarsier, Kipas today! It is very rare to see her, as she is very small (her body is only about 6″ long), and she was 10′ up in a tree.

Prior to that, while tracking, Katey took Charlie and I to the little oxbow lake off of the Kinabatangan, where we saw some possible binturong tracks–it would be amazing to see one of those (and a pangolin too).

Once we returned, we finally got the intenet working! For about five minutes. A short-lived celebration, but a glimmer of hope for contacting home and posting to this blog. Going to the jetty in an attempt to send an email home.

Went out again to the loris sites with Katey, Abbie, and Doyo. Doyo located Dahi, one of the female loris, who we think has a baby. We saw Dahi, but no baby. Two species of nocturnal primates in one day–not bad! On our way back, we were all startled by a relatively large snake. She was about 2 meters long and perhaps an inch and a half in diameter, and grey/brown with some bluish hues.

Went out tracking the loris and tarsier this morning with Abbie, Charlie, and Yusri. We didn’t see any of them, but we located the trees that they were sleeping in. The tarsier was over by this old, dilapitated restroom on the edge of the jungle near our facility, from which a few large bats flew out of when I walked nearby.

New arrivals today. Benoit and Budin are visiting, and currently there are some people working to repair our internet. We are all hoping that their efforts pay off, as it would be nice to contact home, and get some work completed.

The workers spent all day installing the new satellite dish, through both sun and torrential downpour. We are supposed to have internet by morning…maybe I’ll actually get to post this in a reasonable amount of time.

Went out with Sergio, Alut, and Joe to tack down the illustrious Jabba–Jabba the monitor lizard, that is. We went out on a palm oil plantation where he was last seen and began to track his radio collar. After some time we narrowed his locationdown to a series of shallow tunnels. Alut and Sergio worked to coax him out, and with a bit of work, he came to the exit of one tunnel, just to run into the next. Again, we tried to bring him to the surface, and finally, he ran out and Sergio nabbed him like a well-practiced dog catcher. Jabba is quite massive, weighing in at 12 kilograms and over 250 cm long.

We removed his tracking collar, noted areas where it appeared to rub his skin (as to improve next time), took a blood sample, and removed a small number of ticks from hm, to which I believe he game us a silent “terima kasih,” or “thank you” in English.

When we let him go, he allowed us to take some good photos, though when we got too close, he attempted to give us lashings with his whip-like tail while growling softly. We left him shortly after to his own devices, and headed back to DG.

I’m finally going to wash my clothes proper today; for the past week, I’ve just been washing them by hand in the shower after wearing them, but that only works so well. It’ll be nice to have fresh laundry.

Since we had returned, it began raining hard from that point on. Due to the heavy rain, most activities in the forest had to be cancelled, as the chance of deadfall becomes much greater. Katey and Peter went to Batu Puteh earlier today and had returned–thankfully with rain jackets–and groceries for the coming week.

Field course is out and away today with most of the RAs, since the elephants are nearby. Three of the RAs have taken the students to botanical plots downriver, which will keep them safe, and allow u slightly more freedown whilst trapped indoors here.

Once the field course had returned, we all enjoyed lunch and then Abbie and Katey were sentout on a cautious mission to check on the loris sleeping sites.

I think we’re all starting to get a bit bored without any field work for two consecutive days. It might have seemed like a day off for the PTYs, had they not been coralled in DG.

Finally just got word that Sergio, Joe, and I will be out to capture a monitor lizard tomorrow morning. With all of these elephants that have been around in the oast few days, it’s too bad I still haven’t been able to see one–oh well, still two and a half weeks left.

Woke up at about 7 AM this morning in preparation to assist and photograph Sergio and Joe in tracking and capturing a monitor lizard. The plan was to locate and capture the lizards with tracking collars which were low on batteries. We would then remove the collars, as Sergio (whose project focuses on the monitors) will soon be traveling to Cardiff University for a few months, during which time, the collars would be a useless burden to the animals.

I left our studio a few seconds after Joe and Sergio, only to find them quickly returning and saying that our venture was cancelled for the day, as the elephant herd was at the jetty. Red alert, people: We must now follow the procedures I spoke of last and always travel in pairs, with the only acceptable locationsto be currently are in our studio or the main facility.

Joe andI made our way to the main building with no sign of the large mammals; Charlie informed us that she heard they were last seen by the generator.

Noodle day for lunch, and fresh donuts as well. Pretty good change of pace, if I do say so myself. Right following our lunch it began raining–quite a downpour with thunder and the like. With all of us trapped inside, the rain is a nice change, though it was still quite warm indoors with all of the people.

In the late afternoon, we were informedthat the elephant herd had left, but as soon as it was gone, another herd arrived…house arrest again tomorrow.

Heading out to check slow loris sleeping sites (SS) with Abbie and Joe. SS took quite a while, as each of our three collared slow loris had moved into dense forest but along the way, we were able to see a young male orang-utan, which was delightful. When we first approached the tree he was in to take photos, he made klissing noises (which is a sign that they are upset) and then attempted to pee on us. Thankfully, we were out of range from his barrage.

The insects and other macroinvertebrates here are very abundant and diverse. Nearly every day I see and hear bees which sound like tiny helicopters, and the other day I saw a gigantic cicada which flew into my face and felt like a child’s punch, and it was nearly the size of a child’s fist. There are tiny ants everywhere inside and outside of the buildings; if you leave food out on your desk for even a few minutes, you can well guarantee it will be blanketed in a legion of the little buggers. They are also attracted to water, which means that our shower is always covered in a small army of them; in fact we had one of these armies transporting a dead gecko across our bathroom just the other day, which was both fascinating and disgusting. On the topic of ants, I mentioned the other day that Abbie and Katey had a run-in with some fire ants. Well, Katey received a handful of excruciating bites, which I have been told by a few people, are more painful than bee stings.

After returning from a short mid-day ciesta to escape the heat (our fans and few A/C units are working overtime with the mass of people here right now)  I returned to the centre to find that a group of elephants had been spotted across the river from the jetty. This puts our facility on red alert, as it were, due to the dangerand unpredictability of bull elephants. If they cross the river to our side, all activities will be suspended for tomorrow, and we will either have to stay in our rooms or in the main facility, depending on the location of the pygmy elephants (which are just slightly smaller than Indian elephants, so still quite massive). We will also be required to sign in/out when entering  or leaving the main building, so that everyone is accounted for and no one ends up becoming a stepping stone or ragdoll for our local elephants to play with.

I should note that our food here is quite incredible, and that tonight I had the best macaroni salad ever, hands-down. It was like a great Hawaiian macaroni salad, with chunks of pineapple and watermelon added. This may sound strange, but it was absolutely marvelous.

Selemat malam (good night)!

We are helping out with field skills course today. This 10-day course where students come might be the best opportunity for OSU to set up a faculty-led/short-term program here.

The hired-out instructor, Joe (who I’ll refer to as Instructor Joe), taught the students some very basic wilderness field skills; essentially an overview, which would be great for people without any previous experience. He offered some information regarding basic first aid and environmental concerns, and then some navigation skills. Instructor Joe discussed what to do if one gets off-trail or lost, and he referred to all of us (who aren’t in field school) as the experts. After his talk, Abbie, Katey, and Charlie led us on a quick hike on the Ficus Trail, where Instructor Joe had the students practice using their compasses for a short bit, then we went back to the main building and gave the students the rest of the day off.

Abbie and Aubrey are heading out to check some slow loris and tarsier sleeping sites, and I think I’ll take a quick shower.

Since I’ve got a bit of a break right now, it seems pertinent to introduce you all to those who I am working and living alongside. Our PhD researchers include Meg (USA), Danika (Canada), and Sergio (Mexico; who also works as our veternarian and in-house medic). Joe (UK), Charlie (UK), Abbie (UK), and Katey (UK) are our year-long professional trainees (PTYs). Doyo, Alut, Koko, and Samsir are our research assistants (RAs), with Yusri training to be an RA. Our staff consists of Kila, Azlina, Ryko, and Hasner, who work as both wonderful cooks and take care of the cleaning. Without them the facility wouldn’t feel like a home away from home to our crew. Benoit (who should be arriving in a few day’s time) is our Director, and Peter functions as the on-site manager. Apart from myself, Aubrey (France) and Masayo (Japan) are long-term volunteers–the tree of us work alongside the PTYs and assist (and learn) whenever possible.

Once the field course had finished today, I helped Katey re-mark a trail for the field course students, as to prevent them from needing to practice their newly-aquired navigational skills.

Sadly, due to the field course being here, we have been asked to keep the guitars put away–and I had just been working on some new songs. Oh well, back to business…

Abbie and Katey finally saw the slow loris this evening, and had a rather unpleasant interaction with fire ants. Thankfully they are back, safe and sound.

Did I mention that since the field course is here, we have electricity from 7 AM until 11 PM? You would be correct in assuming that we can now have toast (with peanut butter and jam, for myself) for breakfast, and hot tea all day. Things here have been pretty good, but it appears as though things are looking up.

P.S. I felt a tinge of nostalgia today, as Charlie, Masayo, Joe, and myself had the opportunity to work with some herbarium samples. Hope you’re doing well OSC.