Site 7: Kibale National Park | Part 1: Primatology class (Feb. 9th – 22nd)

Written by Elana Kimmel and Laurie Gütman

Emmanuel Emoti, one of the field assistants, was essential to us finding the colobus every morning.

The primatology class has been observing red colobus monkeys in Kibale National Park, Uganda, for the past twelve days (beginning February 11^th). We were watching one group of collared monkeys who are currently studied by researchers at the Makerere Biological Field Station year round. We started off by learning field research observational techniques, including focal follows and activity scans. In a focal follow you identify an individual monkey by looking at the colour of their collar, the colour of their tag and then the shape of their tag. Once we have identified a monkey, we pick an allotted period of time to watch the monkey and record their behaviour during that time.

The second field research technique we learned is activity follows, where every 15 minutes we record the behaviour of five different monkeys in a group. After we learned the field research techniques and practiced identifying monkeys using their collars and sex (males are larger than females) we split into smaller research groups. In our groups we picked a research question and we spent the next five days in the field collecting data using focal follows and activity scans. The groups are studying four different red colobus behaviours: one group is studying the difference in behaviour of nursing versus non-nursing monkeys; one is studying male dominance; one is studying grooming reciprocation and the last group is studying the difference in behaviour based on ambient air temperature. For seven mornings in a row we went into the field with field assistants who helped us identify and get comfortable with analyzing the red colobus’ behaviour. Unfortunately, the whole field experience didn’t always play out as we expected. On the second day we were supposed to practice our activity scan techniques, but we walked for three hours without finding them. On the up side the hike around the forest was beautiful and we saw a young chimpanzee! On another day, the rain and clouds made it challenging for us to identify the monkeys. However, those little setbacks gave us the opportunity to experience authentic field research. After seven days in the forest, inspecting the trees for monkeys with our binoculars, walking on ant colonies and being urinated and defecated on by our study subjects, we all really improved our observational skills. By the end, we were able to name most collared monkeys and identify their behaviour, thanks to the great help of our lovely field assistants!

Red colobus were dripping from the trees in Kibale forest.