All the programme participants where trained in radio-telemetry and they participated in whole night observations. Conservation education is an important part of the effort of every conservationist so the students were tasked to prepare educational programmes for elementary and high school. We also sent them for a day trip to Corella and Loboc and asked them to compare conditions on both localities with regards to animal welfare. I can say that the programme was successful and the students enjoy the stay with us and learnt lot of new things at the same time. After finishing of the course they were much more concerned about tarsiers and necessity of their conservation. I would like to thank volunteer Vera who helped with organizing of the programme and was the key person in the field.

We had to decide what to do. Tarsiers where offered to the centre a few times before and it did not seem to be related to the ongoing Tarsius project. The poachers told us that the tarsiers were caught accidentally during cutting of grass. That is a usual excuse, either cutting of grass or collecting of firewood. And than the tarsiers are brought in skilfully made cage that does not look amateurish at all.

We didn’t want to encourage poachers to catch more tarsier and offer them for sale; especially not here in the conservation centre. But we had two options, either we take them or the tarsiers will be sold to Loboc and displayed as a tourist attraction. We decided to take them and tried to explain to the poachers that the tarsiers are very sensitive and can be hardly kept in captivity. They did not want to listen and gave us also a bottle with crickets. At least they knew how to feed them and did not offered bananas to these carnivorous primates as you can also sometimes see.

Yet, I have not mentioned the worst thing in this whole story. The poachers did not hesitate to catch tarsier mother with approximately ten days old baby of her. Both of them were very stressed and frightened. I took them home and waited for the evening, the best time for releasing these nocturnal animals back to the wild. Until evening they both calmed down and the baby even suckled which was a good sign.

They were caught a few kilometers away, but we decided to radio-collar the mother and release them in our research area. Soon after sunset both were taken to the forest. I was afraid how the mother would behave and if she would be able to take care of the baby in despite of such a big stress during past two days. But she appeared to be very good and responsible mother. She waited until the baby was placed on a branch and them took it carefully to the mouth and carried a few meters away. Then she explored the new area and continued calling the baby.

This example shows that poaching is still very common in this area. We hope the rescued tarsiers will like their new home and will be happy that they did no end up in one of the Loboc tarsier display spot.

However, this time was not without problems. Shortly after I left, sudden cutting of trees in the locality of the study disturbed our tarsiers. They were forced to move from their usual sleeping places and also change the nightly movements. Fortunately, the cutting decreased soon and our animals return to their previous places. Shortly after, we faced a sabotage of our marked points in the field. In order to monitor the animals using radio-telemetry we marked several points in the forest. We measured exact location of these points using GPS and measuring tape and use them for locating of the tarsiers. At the beginning of April someone started to intentionally destroy and cut our markings. Most of the points that are used so far were renewed and we hope that they will last until the end of our study.

After one moth break I was on my way back to the Philippines when I got an important message. My volunteer told me that the batteries in all three radio-collars were about to finish. It was a big surprise because we expected them to last 4-6 months, not only two. The signal was so weak that we were hardly able to locate animals on their sleeping sites when I returned. We did not have time to wait. After Barbara found one female tarsier on a sleeping site we called local hunters that helps us with catching. We recaptured the female, exchange the radio-collar and released her on the same place. Unfortunately it was too late to go for another animal and we had to wait until another morning. Again, with help of hunters, we focused on male tarsier. As the signal was really weak we had a hard time to locate and catch him. About one hour later we found a signal coming from a hole in a rock. Tarsiers often jump into holes when they try to hide. The hunter caught one tarsier but we realised that it has no collar. It was weird because we got a signal coming from a hole. We looked once more carefully to the hole and found one more tarsier hiding there. This time it was our male, the previous one was newly caught female.

This was a real success. Philippine tarsiers are regarded as one of the most solitary tarsier species and so far no one reported two tarsiers being so close, especially with the fact that breeding season (and not mating season) is starting. We radio-collared both animals and we will monitor them further. If you want to support us, adopt a tarsier!

“Do you think it is usual for two adult people to voluntarily go around in a jungle in the middle of the rainy night?” I ask the darkness next to me. The darkness is quiet for a while and all I can hear is the rain. The darkness finally answers:”Of course it is not!” I feel the darkness is smiling and find out I am smiling, too. Two crazy people. Me and the darkness. The darkness` flash-light twinkles. “Let`s go!” orders the darkness getting a shape of a young woman in the light. She resembles a will-o’-the-wisp in her raincoat and with a small light on her forehead. I follow Dr. Mili to the jungle to become part of her world of night pixies for few days…..

read the whole story here

We very much appreciate following support and award that we got. The project continues successfully during this year and you can look forward to reports from the field or presentations (in Czech or in the Philippines).

Another important institution involved in the project is Bohol Island State University here in Bilar. In fact, our research is being done in forest managed by the university. We would be very happy if local researchers and student join our project and get practical experiences and hopefully continue in conservation activities in the future. So we were pleased when we were asked to prepare presentation for students and teachers of all subject related to research and nature conservation. On 24^th February we had the presentation Radiotelemetry and conservation of threatened species of the world together with Lubomír Peške. Lubomír introduced the use of various technologies in research of different behavioural aspects especially in birds and then we followed with presentation about the Tarsius project. The audience was interested in the presentation. This semester is ending here in the Philippines, so we hope to attract some students of pre-final year to join us during or after the holidays.

We started our activities in The Philippine Tarsier Sanctuary in cooperation with The Philippine Tarsier Foundation last year. We radio-tracked five tarsiers for more than three months. We got first data about their behaviour and communication and successfully started with conservation educational programmes.

We will continue with research of the Philippine tarsier and we also plan to extend our activities during this year. We have changed the study site since last year. Our research will be still conducted on Bohol island, famous for its tarsiers, but this time in an area near Bilar town. The new locality will provide us with an opportunity to compare data about home-ranges and behaviour of the animals from both study sites and it also gives us new possibilities of cooperation with Simply Butterflies Conservation Centre and Bohol Island State University. It extends the opportunities of cooperation on research and also education of students and local residents.

We are conducting mapping of the locality since the beginning of January. Tarsiers have never been studied in this area so we get new information very slowly. There are two protected areas in Bilar locality but in fact the protection is insufficient and the area is threatened by illegal poaching. That is why we plan to extend especially conservational and educational activities (see goals of the project in Project section). Other team members and volunteers are coming at the end of this week and we will start capturing of tarsiers. We are still looking for adoptive parents. If you want to support our project and to have your “own” tarsier in the field, join as and adopt a tarsier.

]]> http://www.tarsiusproject.org/2010/01/new-fieldwork-period-of-the-tarsius-project-has-begun/feed/ 0 http://www.tarsiusproject.org/2010/01/buy-a-tarsius-magnet-and-support-us/ http://www.tarsiusproject.org/2010/01/buy-a-tarsius-magnet-and-support-us/#comments Sun, 17 Jan 2010 02:47:14 +0000 Milada http://www.tarsiusproject.org/?p=856 The whole profit will be used for the objectives of the Tarsius Project

Please order at: tarsiusproject.jana@gmail.com

PRICE of 1 magnet is 2,5 euro (+ postal charge + please check the bank transfer fees).

Tarsius Project account