Saturday, May 26, 2012

It is about 2:00 pm here right now in Maroantsetra, and we just walked across village in a tropical rainstorm to get to the WCS office for wireless access.  All of the roads except for a small patch of main road through the village are sandy roads, so my shoes are wet and sandy, but I better get used to it as it will be raining a lot over the next couple of weeks!  Yesterday Joe and I went through all of the gear that was left in the house from Zach's prior research; we were upset to discover that rodents chewed through 4 of the 5 tents Zach had stashed for the guides. Thankfully, most of the holes were small and we attempted to repair them with duct tape.  We'll see how well that holds in the forest!  Everything else seems to be in order, and our most recent plan for the next couple of weeks is to stay in Maroantsetra until Tuesday morning (as Sunday and Monday are regional holidays called "Pentecost"...apparently it has something to do with Jesus having spent 40 days and 40 nights with God after ascending to heaven...yeah, none of us had ever heard of it either!!) and then begin our two-day journey to the field sites.  We will take a WCS boat from Maroantsetra to a village relatively close to the sites, and then hike the rest of the way into the forest.  Joe and I will not be back to Maroantsetra until at least 2 weeks from next Tuesday, so I will try to update once more before then.  Madagascar is an amazing, diverse place, and I can't wait to tell you more about it!

~Chelsea

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Today we arrived in Maroantsetra, Madagascar.  We flew in from Antananarivo at 9:00 am and landed in a tiny airport around 10:30.  The day was spent mostly lugging gear and bags from the airport to our first home in the city, and then from there to a much larger house on the outskirts of the city, which Zach lived in for a year or so with his family.  I am sure being back here after 6 months without his family brings back a lot of memories and makes him a little sad, but at least he only has to wait 6 weeks to see them again.  It is very interesting here in Maroantsetra; unlike Tana, there are few cars, and far fewer people, the city doesn’t smell terrible, and the houses are mostly made of wood and palm leaves.  There are a few tin roofs and all of the houses are elevated on wooden poles, which is necessary given nothing but the main road through town is paved.  The first house we were given was a small one bedroom house that was very clean, but made entirely of wood.  It was a pleasant place, but much too small for our purposes.  For instance, our gear took up half of the living room, which was basically the only other room in the house than the bedroom.  Most of the day after arriving at the small house was spent trying to get permission to stay at the larger house; this involved talking to several WCS officers and calling lots of people.  At the very end of the day, we were allowed to move to the house we are in currently, which has electricity and running water.  There is a shower and a toilet, too!  The sink in the bathroom doesn’t work and whoever stayed in the house after Zach and his family must have been kind of dirty, because the house is a bit of a mess, especially the bathroom!  We tried to clean it as best as we could, but tomorrow the guardian of the house will come and clean very well.  The Malagasy seem to be very clean people; individual’s homes are kept free of dirt (impressive considering everything in Madagascar is covered in dirt!)  and belongings are kept tidy.  I suppose when you live in the tropics it is a constant battle against the forest encroaching on your home, so you have to be fastidious.  Tomorrow Joe and I will be staying at the house for most of the day, sorting through tons of gear.  We have to get gear in order for the next two weeks, in which we will be staying in the forest.  Thankfully I believe we will be able to keep unnecessary items back here in the house (such as my laptop, as it holds a charge for 10 minutes…) and we will only need the bare essentials.  We are tired of carrying all of our gear with us all of the time!!  Zach and Hannah, who is staying for 6 months here in Madagascar, have to attend an important WCS meeting in the city.  I am kind of sad that we won’t be able to attend the meeting, but we have a lot of work to do at the house, and I know I will appreciate staying in the same place for more than a few hours.  Today officially marks two weeks since Joe and I left Conway.  That feels like a very, very long time ago!  We will be staying around Maroantsetra until June 30^th, when we will be flying back to Tana and staying for four more days.   I really only know the schedule for the next two weeks as Zach doesn’t have the four weeks after that fully ironed out yet.  I will update you guys on that when I know what is going on.  For now, we will be in Maroantsetra until Sunday.  Monday we will begin a two or three day hike into the field sites, hopefully in Masoala park.  If our permits are good, we can study there—if not, it will have to be Makira.  Either way, on Monday we will begin the field expedition of our journey.  It has taken us so long to get to this point, and I am so excited to see what I came to Madagascar for: wildlife and plants!  Today we met many of the important Malagasy workers who help make Zach’s research possible.  There are many WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society for those of you who don’t know) workers in Maroantsetra that run logistics for Zach; we met a couple of good friends of Zach’s who participate in environmental education; and we met two of the guides that will be and have been critical to this project.  Their names are Donah and Mark’hila and they were very friendly.  I am looking forward to getting to know them better.   I will update again tomorrow; I hope everyone at home is doing well, and I miss you guys so much!

~Chelsea

We have arrived in Antananarivo, Madagascar!  We landed here after flying for about 30 hours straight on Tuesday afternoon.  The flights were extremely long and tiring, as we were stopped for security at every possible point.  We made it, though!  Today (Wednesday) was spent sleeping, exchanging American cash for Ariari (which is a 2,000 Ariari to 1 American dollar exchange rate), getting a go-phone which is ridiculously expensive (so unfortunatlely I won't be calling much, family) and meeting lots of interesting people.  We are staying at the guesthouse Tana Jacaranda, which is a very nice place to stay as it is cool, quiet, and somewhat sheltered from the crazy, noisy, smelly streets of Tana.  Don't get me wrong--the city is amazing.  There is so much life, so many languages I have never been around before, new foods, and winding roads that you have to look at constantly to make sure that you aren't going to trip over a brick or fall into a gaping hole in the concrete.  People are everywhere, and most of them are trying to sell you something--cards, watches, clothes, food...others are asking you for money, and still others are going about their own business of school, work, or errends.  The people in the capital speak a combination of French and Malagasy, neither of which I know.  I can understand a tiny bit of French just because some of the words sound like words in English, but Malagasy sounds like a made-up language to me.  There is no similarity to English at all, so I am very grateful that Zach is fairly fluent in Malagasy.  In Maroantsetra, which we are flying to at 9:00 am tomorrow, the people speak only Malagasy.  So speaking to locals will be very difficult, but that's part of the experience.  We will be spending a few days in the city of Maroantsetra before we begin hiking to the field sites.  Those days will be spent getting our gear in order, getting enough food for 2 weeks in the forest (we will come back to the city after a few weeks), and meeting guides/porters.  I might have time to get in a few interviews with the Malagasy people, which for those of you who don't know, is the interdisciplinary part of my thesis.  I will be asking the people questions regarding their feelings about conservation; whether they understand the concept as I do, whether they believe it to be important, and so on.  I will also be asking them whether or not they see stray cats in the village, and if they think those cats are hunting in the forest.  This will suppliment the data I use from camera traps, which I will survey for feral cats and domesticated dogs.  Ultimately I will be attempting to correlate population rates of feral cats/domesticate dogs to some endemic animal population, perhaps rodents.  There will be alot more on that later, if anyone was confused or wants to know more.  For now, I just want to say that I am so excited to be here in Madagascar, to meet new people, to do interesting research, and to experience life in a country that most Americans know nothing about.  I will try to keep updating, but I have been told that the internet connection in Maroantsetra is terrible; when I can, I will post blogs all at once.  I will also try to email certain people, so keep looking at your emails, those of you I'm thinking about :).  If anyone wants me to email them, you can send me a facebook mesage with your email and I will try to shoot you one.  Those of you I love and miss, know that I love and miss you! 
~Chelsea
p.s. - I will be unable to post any pictures due to the terrible email connection.  As soon as I am back in Tana before coming back to the U.S, I will post them! 

Red River Gorge and New River Gorge

Joe and I have arrived in Virginia and are currently staying with Zach and his family.  Tomorrow we will drive to North Carolina, where we fly out of on Friday at 6 in the morning.  From Saturday to Monday, we camped and climbed at the Red River Gorge in Kentucky.  The weather wasn't great--it started raining Saturday night and did not stop until Monday morning.  We moved our campsite into an empty horse barn and climbed at overhanging cliffs, so thankfully we stayed dry most of the time!  On our last day at the Red, we hiked to a cliff that was--unfortunately--wet, so we were not able to climb there.  However, the area was interesting biologically--we found a bright orange newt, with red spots on its back, which we have never seen before in Arkansas.  After researching on the internet, we determined that the newt was a juvenile Notophthalmus viridescens, or Eastern newt.  This is the same species we have in Arkansas, but we have only ever seen the aquatic adults, which are brown with yellow bellies. I have posted an image from the internet below; unfortunately, we couldn't get a picture of our own.  On Tuesday morning we drove to the New River Gorge in West Virginia and were able to climb there only for that one day, but we made the most of it.  The area was muddy, but we had a great time.  We are now in Blacksburg, VA, which is the home of Virginia Tech University; compared to UCA, Virginia Tech is massive!  The central campus looks somewhat like a traditional campus, but Virginia Tech is a great veterinary and agricultural school, so there are many outlying research areas that look like farms surrounding the central campus.  We were fascinated by the cows, which Zach informed us have plexi-glass inserts that allow students to see and work inside a living cow without surgically opening it!  We had never heard of such a thing.  That's all for now, we have to get up pretty early to begin our journey tomorrow.  I hope everyone is doing well!
~Chelsea  


 

The First Leg of our Journey!

After much preparation, worry, and anticipation, tomorrow morning at 3:30 am Joe and I are starting the first leg of our long journey!  For those of you who don't know, Joe is an avid rock climber, and I enjoy climbing as well.  We are driving to Blacksburg, Virginia to meet our contact, Zach, at Virginia Tech University on the 16th of May.  Along our drive, however, are two world-renowned rock climbing areas--the Red River Gorge in Kentucky and the New River Gorge in West Virginia.  We are stopping at each location for a few days to camp and climb.  As I mentioned before, on Wednesday the 16th, we will arrive in Blacksburg and begin our real preparations for the trip.  We will pack and repack, store our car, move our gear, wash our clothes....its gonna be a busy day for sure!  On the 17th we are driving with Zach to Raleigh, NC, stopping at a lemur reservation along the way.  And then, at 6 am on the 18th, we are flying out of NC to New York, then to Johannesburg, South Africa, and then to Antananarivo, Madagascar!  The next week and a half is going to be a crazy long one, but I am so excited to begin this journey!!
Those of you who I love and miss, know that I love and miss you!! :)  I'll update soon.
~Chelsea

Who am I and what am I doing??

My name is Chelsea Miller and I am an undergraduate student at the University of Central Arkansas with one year to go before I obtain my BS in Biology.  I have been doing research, both volunteering and as a paid worker, at UCA since my Freshman year and have participated in many graduate student-level projects through the Biology department.  The studies I have been involved in include migration behaviors of minnows in intermittent streams in northwestern AR, a follow-up study of an invasive snakehead eradication in southeastern AR, and the effects of gas wells in central AR on the health and biodiversity of small headwater streams.  For almost 2 years now I have been a member of Dr. Entrekin's aquatic invertebrate lab and have been identifying macroinvertebrates for graduate student projects.  All of this work on other peoples' projects has taught me so much, and it has finally paid off--I am now getting a chance to conduct my own research project, and the setting is very different than what I am used to here in Arkansas.  I am travelling to northeastern Madagascar this summer to aid Zach Farris, a UCA alumnusi, on his PhD work regarding population dynamics and life history characteristics of the Fosa, an endemic carnivore.  While there, I will also be collecting data for my own undergraduate Honors thesis.  I will be looking at population ratios of feral cats and domesticated animals to endemic and invasive rodent populations in both disturbed and pristine sites in Masoala park, a protected rainforest region in Madagascar.  This is important work because there are many threats that face biodiversity in this region--in which 80% of the flora and fauna are found nowhere else in the world--and domesticated animals brought into the country by people is one of these threats.  Domesticated animals have the potential to disturb natural ecosystems as they did not evolve to be a part of certain systems--their presence in northeastern Madagascar (especially that of feral cats living and hunting in the rainforests) has the potential to harm endemic populations of rodents, birds, insects, other carnivores, etc. through predation and/or competition.  We will be using cameras to take pictures of several sites every hour of every day for 6 weeks.  The cameras will record which animals have been present in sites, and what their prevalence within those sites is.  In this way, Zach can determine population dynamics of the Fosa, and I can determine correlations between feral cat/domesticated animal populations and endemic/invasive rodent populations.  I have primarily chosen to look at feral cats and rodents because there is a lot of preexisting data regarding feral cat eradication programs and endemic/invasive rodent populations.  I am so excited to be able to have this amazing opportunity to study population ecology in a country that is arguably one of the richest natural environments in the world.  I hope my data will be telling, and that my thesis, small as it may be in the grand scheme of things, can at least tell an interesting story about life on the other side of the world.  I would like to thank the UCA Honors College for giving me a $3,000 grant to purchase plane tickets, and Zach Farris through Virginia Tech University for allowing me to accompany him on one of his research expeditions.  I would also like to thank my parents for helping me out financially, mentally, and emotionally through the tough weeks leading up to this trip, as well as the Larson-Gettinger family for their support and help. On that same note, I would like to thank Dr. KC Larson, my adviser for my thesis, for her help and support this semester.  Finally, I would like to thank my friends for their support as well.  I could not have gotten to this point without all of the people who have helped me get here!  I hope to not let any of you down!