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CHAPTER 4

Entrapment

When I awoke with a start at 3:30am a few days ago to the sound of thunder, I was greeted with a sight one doesn’t usually see during a storm – the active participation of one’s housing in the craziness outdoors. Usually, in places where it storms a lot, like India during the monsoon season for example, people tend to build the kind of structure that atleast gives the illusion of safety. Not so the dormitories at CICRA. Built out of wood and cement, with thatched roofs patched over with plastic over the years and light mesh over the windows, a storm practically tumbles into your dwelling, encouraging you to jump out of bed and join in the ruckus.

My childhood in India has lent me a certain confidence about storms – I can easily sleep through them, for one, and was venturing to do so with this storm. I drowsily reached out for a blanket to cuddle with and had every intention of going right back to bed, my brain still lethargic and not fully registering the impact of this particular storm on my surroundings.

Not so, Gideon. He leapt out of bed and started a running commentary on the state of the room – how many holes in the roof were leaking, where the water was creating puddles and exactly how many spots on the bed were getting drenched. Warm in my little corner of the bed, I begged him to come back and let me catch my last few hours of shut-eye. I ought to have known better. Gideon is a fixer of things and it is unimaginable to him to just sleep through a storm that insists on being intimate with his surroundings.

Consequently he created enough noise to have me up as well. We used all three of our towels and a bunch of clothespins to tack them to various parts of the mosquito net that were receiving the full force of a leak from above. Desperately, I climbed back in bed to catch my last 30 mins of sleep but the storm was intent on giving us the performance of a lifetime. Somewhere in the distance we heard a branch crash to the ground. Lightening lit up the room as if it were midday in some eerie twilight-filled planet.

We later realized that we were both thinking about the tarantula.

The night before, while constructing one of our traps in some pretty poor lighting before the generator had been turned on, I heard Gideon yelp behind me. Crouched on the floor as he was, it gave him quite a turn to see a tarantula the size of his palm, stroll casually up to him, inches from his leg. I quickly did the first thing that came to mind – I grabbed my camera and tried to get him to stick his hand in the photograph to lend it some scale. Our hairy companion at this point leisurely strolled around the trap, under the table and then turned left towards the door. We watched him go in some surprise and then let the rest of the researchers know he was here. He was walking so slow that by the time he reached the door the rest of CICRA’s occupants had arrived at our laboratory. Upon opening the door for him, he casually crawled out onto the patio. There he preened this way and that, allowing us to get really close and see the tiny pink tips of his feet. Then, suspecting a soon to come sensory overload, he scuttled under the patio much to the chagrin of several folks who had gone to fetch their cameras and fancy macro lenses.

It was with some regret that we both realized that he had been cast out into the night, right before the storm of all storms hit us. I’d grown rather fond of him in our brief time together. He didn’t look like he could harm a fly, although he probably does exactly that to survive all the time.  Presumably, he knew a thing or two about storms and had a plan for just this type of situation.

It was now 4:00am and the frenzied wind and sheets of rain showed no signs of letting up. We glanced at each other and concluded that we wouldn’t be out hiking this morning – it was just too windy and wet. It seems unlikely, I know, that we didn’t rejoice in a legitimate excuse not to be up at 4:00am and on the road in a half hour. However, to truly understand why we felt disappointed I must relate the events of the day before.

It was the second full day that the trap had been out off of trail #24, also called Otorongo or jaguar. We had put it up on a stable platform of rope strung up between four sturdy saplings and it was positively reeking of bananas. Attached to each of the doors of the 6-compartment trap was a string that extended out to a blind in which we spent our time. The blind, nothing more than a glorified mosquito net hanging over a folded piece of tarp, was so well camouflaged that several researchers walked by without even realizing we were there. We would show up at 4:30am, unfurl the mosquito net, put out fresh bait and slip in under the blind. By the time the sun rose at 5:00am, we’d be hidden and waiting for our unsuspecting saddleback tamarin targets.

Sadly, 48 hours of such waiting had resulted in us not so much as seeing them near the trap, although they had spent hours grooming in a nearby tree the day before. At 3:30pm, frustrated and tired of the incessant buzzing of bees, wasps, mosquitoes and other winged insects lusting for our blood, we finally decided to move the whole contraption to our second choice of trapping location, about fifty meters or so up the trail. We had heard the tamarins calling there and spied some movement in the trees about 2 hours before. Gideon had then searched the whole area to no avail. They must have checked out and carried on, we thought gloomily.

Working under the hot sun, we carefully dismantled the trap from its perch between the trees and retrieved the rope we had used to get it up there. I picked up the trap in my arms and walked down the trail, towards the spot where the tamarins were, about 2 hours previously. Gid followed with the rope. We turned the corner, and to our horror, whom did we meet but our group, leaping merrily down the trail towards us. This has to be a trapper’s nightmare, being caught red-handed, our sheer shock rooting us to the spot.

Gid was the first to recover.

“Grab the GPS and the binocs! Follow them! Don’t lose sight of them! Distract them somehow and I’ll put the trap back up again right around the corner. I need 2 minutes, that’s all”, he hissed, charging off.

Left to somehow “distract” the tamarins I planted myself right in front of them, a relatively unhabituated group, knowing that they would hesitate to come too close to me. For the second time that day, they surprised me. With what could only be tamarin smiles, they cheerfully hopped down to within a couple feet of me and passed me overhead, chirruping and calling to each other. With my jaw hitting the floor I whirled around to tell Gideon but it was too late, they were on him.

They clambered over a liana by his head and proceeded to head right to our blind. Perched in several trees right by it, they arranged themselves for maximum comfort. They slid down the wide curving liana that hung a couple feet over where the trap used to be. We could do nothing more than just stand there, watching them preen and groom and scent-mark all over where our trap was sitting just minutes before.

After a leisurely grooming session, they decided to move on, with us in pursuit. I have not been made such a fool of by any human in a long time, not that I can remember anyway. Giving each other incredulous looks we grabbed our equipment and followed them as they danced about the canopy, sometimes within arm’s reach. At one point, all five hit the floor of the forest, some ten meters from us, searching under the leaf-litter for juicy bugs.

When they decided to leap through the trees, rejuvenated no doubt by this happy encounter with their favourite bipeds, we hadn’t the spirit to keep up the chase through the bamboo ahead of us. Dejectedly we returned to our trap, determined to make a second one and then place both where the little creatures and so boldly come down to the floor of the forest.

We had been well and truly outsmarted.

We gathered the shreds of our dignity that remained and moved our traps over to the new site. All set to get them, we decided to head out before dawn so as to not miss them in the morning, should they choose to return to see us. Therefore, it is with some chagrin that we realized that we couldn’t possibly go out that day, and I sincerely hoped that the tamarins would stay safe in their sleeping site themselves. A single treefall could eliminate multiple groups of saddlebacks, I thought to myself sleepily as I slipped back into a deep slumber.

Day Three of trapping would be spent working on our equipment and trapping technique at camp. It was lovely to relax for a morning for the first time since we got here about 10 days ago. There being no sun out, there was no solar power to give us the internet and so we lazed about reading fiction and dreaming of catching the little rascals the next day.

The morning of Day Four dawned bright and clear, with not so much as a cloud in the sky. We hurried to get on the trail, having accidentally slept through our two separate alarms. We were on the road ten minutes late and had foregone such luxuries as toothpaste and breakfast. We hit the trail running and somehow managed to get there by 5:00am. That would be close to a mile of hiking in the jungle in under 20 minutes, not something we were eager to repeat in the dark again. The trail is full of sudden sinkholes, created by an overzealous rodent or armadillo the night before, not to mention bamboo that seems to fall as quickly as it regenerates.

We got both the traps and blinds set up and were ready and waiting by 5:30am. Our first visitors were a bunch of capuchins and squirrel monkeys, curious as always, peering this way and that trying to catch a glimpse of what lay beneath the net. I got some lovely photographs of them by lying on the floor of the blind and looking straight up.

At about 7:00am we heard a different kind of movement in the trees. The high-pitched lilting long-call of the tamarins reached our ears and we shot to our respective posts, waiting with bated breath. Something seemed wrong to me though, I just didn’t think we were quite hearing the call right. Peering through my binoculars at the shaking branches some 100 feet away I caught a glimpse of a jet black body with a long straight tail belonging to some quadruped.

I called over to Gideon excitedly, “ It’s a tayra, Gid!!”

Tayras, or Eira barbara, are beautiful mongoose-like creatures that are sometimes arboreal and about the size of the average dog. Thrilled to be seeing one at last he looked over too and that was when we noticed more than one branch move. Thinking it quite unlikely that the solitary tayra was to be caught with a group, we decided I must have just identified the wrong creature – it must have been a dusky titi monkey, about the same size but brown in colour. Little did we suspect its true identity.

Dejected we returned once more to the larger of the two blinds to eat yet another pack of cookies. CICRA is wonderful about cookies – there’s always a variety at hand and we need about 3 packs to keep us going through the day. Lately, we’ve also been carrying our lunch with us – usually salted rice with tuna and lime, or a couple of hard-boiled eggs. It might not sound too fancy but it is exactly what we need in the field, easy to eat and unattractive to ants. In a matter of minutes a whole ant colony can begin to “recruit” to your campsite, and they will find a way into the mosquito net somehow; so if you value your sanity and peace, you will keep your food simple in the jungle.

Our cookies being downed we returned to our books, while keeping an ear out for the tamarins, should they decide to grace us with their presence. When we finally heard them we were ecstatic. Perhaps today would be THE day!! After all, it had been four days since the first trap went out for this group. It was about time!

Down they came, chirruping and calling to one another in a pleased sort of way. They looked like they were heading directly to me. Eyes on them I caught my breath as one jumped on the tree right above the trap. He was the last one in the group, though, and the leader was far ahead of him on the right. At the very last minute, the leader let out a piercing shriek and he charged off in hot pursuit, lest he be left behind.

Goddamn it. Were they EVER going to just taste the dratted bananas?? Despite our obsession as a species with the idea that all primates love bananas, most, I’m afraid, have never eaten one. They do like them once they try them but the trick is in getting them to try a bite or two. Sadly, we were failing rather dramatically at grabbing their attention.

Muttering curses under my breath I jumped out of the trap, taking my camera, binoculars and GPS with me. Gid made his way over from his trap and got his flagging tape and binoculars. We were surely going to lose them, so we didn’t bother with the backpack and extra supplies. We rushed after them, but needn’t have. They were trying to steal some poor bird’s eggs from out of the secropia tree and were consistently being chased by the frantic parent down the tree. After a few tries they decided to return to their original plan and the leader set a straight course southwest, dragging us along behind them.

Showing none of that friendly sentiment from our previous encounter with them, they kept high in the trees and literally sprinted ahead of us. Clambering through the debris of fallen trees and lianas and leaf litter I wished for the umpteenth time that I were a quadruped with a tail. I also hoped rather fervently that we were making enough noise to send any snake slithering off, far, far away from us. As a primatologist, you get your kicks out of the chase, hardly thinking of anything else but keeping on the primate’s track. Several times we lost them but plodded on, only to find the group again, resting or foraging in a tree in front of us. When they took to the canopy though, these 300g-creatures were virtually impossible to spot, for they are mostly black and after about ten minutes, the muscles in the back of one’s neck begin to protest vehemently at all this canopy gazing.

We were therefore quite relieved when they entered a smallish bamboo patch and perched on a single branch that stuck out from the messy bamboo high into the air. They spent the next 20 minutes or so, grooming and playing with each other. Trying to get a better vantage point we skirted the patch to a less thick area.

Craning my neck I peered through my lenses and then, as the full impact of what I was seeing hit me, I nearly shrieked with surprise. At my frantic gesticulating, Gid ran over to see what I had seen.

“What the hell IS that?” he gasped, looking to me in shock

For on the branch, a mere ten feet from the grooming saddleback tamarin family, was a creature so elusive that only one other person had ever claimed the honour of seeing it at CICRA. This researcher was studying saki monkeys and professed on two occasions, almost two years apart, to have seen this animal in the same bamboo patch a mere 100m from the camp. Both times, excitement broke out at camp and everyone rushed over to check it out. Both times there returned disappointed, having to trust that the researcher had really seen it.

Callimico goeldi or Goeldi’s monkey is a callitrichid in its own league. Jet black from head to toe it is covered in thick bushy hair that gives it the appearance of a set of three chins about its face. Slightly larger than saddleback tamarins it lays low in bamboo, enjoys eating fungus and unlike the saddlebacks, shies away from all attention. It also doesn’t have twins!

Spying us spying on them, the little fellas were gone in a flash. But not before I captured one photograph. A little blurred and not featuring its face, it is nevertheless, definitely a photograph of Callimico.

Literally wriggling in excitement I related a garbled version of all of Callimico’s terrific attributes to a still puzzled Gideon. When he had grasped the full meaning of this discovery, we took off trying to track them. Seeing them move in the branches ahead, we gave chase but really never got a good glimpse of them again.

Still, there was the one photograph! Taking extra special care of my camera, with its precious evidence, we returned to follow our monkeys, still grooming unconcernedly on the branch in the sunlight. When they finally began to move, however, I wished I’d taken more of a break while they were resting.

They shot off into the forest, with us following closely, sweating profusely and trying to catch up. Several times we stopped to catch our breath, fearing that we had lost them only to see them up ahead.

A sudden, high-pitched but different call from behind us made us stop dead in our tracks. It was none other than our mysterious new monkey. We held our breaths, trying not to scare them while I snapped away with my camera, getting both pictures and video. Gideon held out the voice recorder and captured their strange calls.

They joined the saddleback group ahead of us and just, fit right in. There’s no better way to really put it. I saw them feed from the same branch, sit a mere foot apart from each other and by all aspects appear completely at home with each other. The emperor tamarins, the more commonly known sympatric species for the saddlebacks elicit a completely different behaviour from our guys. They often displace each other, resulting in some agonism as little fights break out.

After three hours of following the Callimico and the Saguinus, we had witnessed not a single fight, and not many indications that this was a rare association for them either. They just seemed like old friends, glad to see each other again.

The only other interesting creature we met in all our time with the tamarins that morning made us wonder at how on earth it survived in the jungle. When we can, we stay very quiet so as to not disturb the primates and we were doing so in a clearing in the middle of the jungle, watching both species forage about in the trees up ahead. Suddenly, from our right came the distinct sounds of someone approaching through the leaf-litter. We both turned to peer in that direction and eventually spotted what appeared to be some sort of small, gray, rodent heading towards us at a trot. As it came closer we were able to identify it as a small armadillo, with its distinctive snout and armour like plating.

In all respects it appeared like it was late for something, a doctor’s appointment, perhaps. It seemed to be going as fast as its little legs could carry it. With some incredulity we realized that it was coming straight for us; no, straight for me. It was held up momentarily by a fallen tree, into which it tried to burrow for a second or two. Then, giving it up as a lost cause, it circumvented the log to run straight into my feet. Pausing for a moment to assess my boots it backed up a little and ran around me straight into Gideon. Then, realizing that this world is full of little obstacles to one, especially when running late, it uttered a mild expletive and took off avoiding Gideon with some effort.

The ludicrousness of the whole situation was too much for us to bear, we literally laughed out loud. I had my zoom lens affixed to my camera, not expecting anything to approach me so closely, and couldn’t photograph this character unwisely not featured in Winnie-the Pooh. The tamarins ahead of us gave a little start at the sound and took off again, causing us to abandon our mirth and follow them through even more cobwebs and debris. We only returned to our absent-minded armadillo friend later, much to the merriment of the researchers here, who’d never really met one quite so distracted. I feel his pain though, I’d be troubled too, if I were late for an appointment!

Finally, after four hours of following our guys, something we were ill prepared to do, we had to give up and let them rest due to our now parched throats. Using our GPS to navigate, just like anyone in a new city, we headed for the nearest trail and found our way back to camp.

The tamarins never did visit us again that day, but on our hike back to camp we found a second group of five, who also regarded us from less than five feet away, chirruping and twittering like birds. It would be the cherry on our cake, seeing them so utterly unafraid and accepting of our presence.

We returned home a full twelve hours after we had set out, bursting with our news and with more data than we’ve ever collected in a day, on two separate groups no less.

For the evening, atleast, we let all the frustration of a failed trapping session stay in the recesses of our minds. That day we had seen a new species at CICRA! We began the arduous job of habituating them. We even made friends with an armadillo! What’s more, no one got bitten or stung by anything and no injuries were sustained.

Of course, this morning I found 15 new bites around my midriff from yesterday’s chiggers, in spite of a good shower. For the full story on trapping I’m afraid you might have to wait just a little bit longer. In the meanwhile, as the days go by, we continue to get to discover more about this enchanting place and all its inhabitants.