A typical day in the forest mirrors the daily indri routine! Which means, my day consists of getting up at about 4:30 – 5:00 AM (depending on the time of year).
After eating breakfast and packing survey equipment (audio and video recorders, microphones, GPS devices, two-way radios, etc.), we are ready to climb the forest hills.
We then try to find the animals by scanning their territories (indris live in family groups, actively defending their territories, so we do not use collars to follow them!) before their first morning song (these lemurs are known to emit loud long distance calls, “the song”, that can be heard at about 2 km).
It would be impossible for us to find the animals every day without the help of our amazing guides. They run (literally!) through the forest in search of the babakoto and its friends.
Once a group is found, we follow the animals in their daily movements until they stop at their sleeping site. Usually we try to sit quietly, camouflaging, in order not to disturb the animals.
Sometimes we become an interesting distraction to wild animals…
We gather as much data as possible before returning to the research station.
After a refreshing shower in the river, we are ready for a delicious traditional Malagasy lunch and a quick nap. The afternoon at the camp is devoted to data organization and first elaboration: we look over samples, copy data from the devices to our computers, and organize photos, videos and audio recordings. At about 7:00 PM, we have dinner and then we discuss what we have collected during the day.
Sometimes we go out for a night walk…
… in search of special animals.
After a short briefing to prepare for the next day’s activities, we call it a night and head to bed!