First, we apologies for posting this a bit later than usual, but as it is mentioned in the title fieldwork have some challenges and Zocay Project has not exceptions on this even after almost 19 years of visiting the same forest fragments and farms.
Depending on the focus of your fieldwork there are different challenges that comes with sampling in the field. When I started, those challenges include travelling to far remote areas, something that now is easier because Zocay Project study area is close to a town and public transport to that town runs daily, several times a day, which is a huge advantage when your presence is need it urgently. But what kind of things would require that you need to travel urgently to your field site…
Well, when your samplings require to put traps, like camera traps and the study site has flooded areas. This will mean that when rainy season start some streams, lagoons and swamp areas could be flooded in a matter of hours. These situations are common in Orinoquia and Amazon areas where certain areas of the forest are highly influenced by water level rises, that goes from a few centimeters to up to several meters (Amazon forests).
Other challenges include time to accommodate fieldwork and the rest of your job/ personal life. Although having a field site close to your home base can help, you also need flexibility in your job hours to be able to make quick trips to the field in case something happens or when that is not possible to be able to delegate those field activities to people you can trust to make the work in the same way you will do it. It is not always easy to delegate activities, especially if those activities can have a huge impact on the data you are collecting.
In science, we usually work with schedules and most of our field trips usually are planned ahead, however we cannot control weather and sometimes rains start before usual times and you need to be flexible to adjust to those climate patterns, especially now that rainy patterns are changing so much in unpredictable ways.
Other challenges include equipment damage because of humidity conditions on the field site or faulty equipment. Humidity is a big problem for most of the equipment we use and sometimes even if we carefully choose the brands and take care of equipment as much as possible, still can get wet inside. Therefore, is always useful to take some silica gel to put wet equipment inside a hermetic box or when you have difficulties to get it, some rice will also works to extract humidity, from cameras, GPS, binoculars and camera traps. It is also wise to check your equipment before going to the field to avoid taking faulty equipment to field sites.
However, even when you plan, check your equipment before going to the field or when you can delegate, it is sometimes difficult to face some of those challenges and it is up to us to maintain a flexible mind to face those challenges to do our sampling, even when it seems we don-t have the skills and tools to solve it.
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In today’s post we are talking about camera trap surveys, some of the wonders and challenges of working with this incredible technology. Camera traps had made easier to witness some behaviors that otherwise will be so difficult to see, especially for species that are naturally shy. It also had made possible to discover new locations for some species that we though weren’t able to inhabit those areas.
Don’t get me wrong, I started doing behavior in the old way, with binoculars at hand and following monkeys all day long, and still enjoy that part. However, camera traps can help with animals of nocturnal habits that are difficult to follow or behaviors that are rare and not commonly seen.
It is surprising the number of behaviors that you can discover using camera traps, from giant ant eaters taking a bath or discovering that crab-eating racoons are more common that you thought in your study area. Or finding out that huron or grison are also found in small gallery forest fragments.
However, there is a lot of challenges, not only to find the right kind of camera trap to use, where to located it and make sure that the camera trap you choose is resistant to humidity, and even to battery explosions due to excess of heat!!!!
In tropical forest humidity is a big challenge that not always is easy to sort out, and sometimes in areas where you have high humidity at sometimes in the year while at other times you have high temperatures and very dry air, make difficult to choose the right kind of camera and not always you make the right decisions. Balancing cost of cameras and resistance to humidity and high temperatures is not easy and sometimes means a lot of trial and error.
If you want to support our activities, please visit https://fineartamerica.com/art/xyomara+carretero or get in contact with as at xcarretero@gmail.com if you want to collaborate, donate or volunteer in our activities
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Today’s post is once again one from our fieldsite in Colombian Llanos, as every years we are monitoring babies’ season of Colombian squirrel monkeys. Babies’ season for this small monkey occurs every year for around three months between January to March with some groups having all their babies at the beginning of January and others having their babies in March.
This time of the year is critical for them as not all babies reach their first year. Some of them died when they still depends on their moms for everything. And others died after their first year when they start their lives as juveniles. Therefore, group size for squirrel monkeys can remain the same for several years despite new babies born every year.
This year we had been able to count new babies in groups which we don’t monitor every year due to logistic constrains. A total of seven group of this species were monitored this month, all with babies.
Beginning of year is also dusty titi monkeys babies’ season. For this species, babies’ season started a bit earlier with some babies born in December. In this trip we detected an additional group of this species with one baby.
Additionally, our camera trap project is showing interesting behaviors of birds and mammals close to natural and artificial water sources.

Dry season in the area continues with esporadic rains. Mauritia swamps are almost completely dried, as well as most lagoons. Some of the streams also are completely dried and some had small ponds. Live is difficult at this time of the year for some animals, however some trees had fruits that serve as small islands.
The dry season in the area is full of contrast, the forest is full of yellow and brown tones with a few shades of green, a few redish fruits hanging in branches give enough food to all monkeys moms, while strong winds help them hide from possible predators from above and below.
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On February 2^nd, we celebrate Wetlands World Day!!! A day to rise awareness to wetland areas around the world. Colombian Llanos or Orinoquia region, an area of around 981.446 km2, in which 48% are wetlands, wetlands are threatened by some cattle ranching practices, infrastructure construction, urbanization in cities such as Villavicencio, and agriculture. Part of those wetlands are Mauritia flexuosa swamps (Morichales, in Spanish), that had been fragmented and in some case drought for cattle ranching. Some of those areas, however, still persist inside of cattle ranches and become one of the most interesting areas to connect gallery forest fragments.

One of our newest projects, started in August 2022 is focused on monitoring water sources used by livestock to get water in a highly fragmented landscape mainly of cattle ranching. This project monitors natural and artificial lagoons, artificial water reservoirs and Mauritia swamps using camera traps (This project is funded by Little Chalcraft Fund through Rewild). Our preliminary result had shown the use of these water sources during the transition period between rainy and dry season and will continue monitoring this area through the year.

Some of the amazing results we already found is the use of water reservoirs by red howler monkeys and Colombian squirrel monkeys during wet-dry transition period. But monkeys are not the only ones using these water sources, giant ant eaters, tamanduas, coatis, and crab-eating raccoons.

Mauritia swamps are important for primates not only as corridors but also as places to make nest for Brumback’s nigh monkeys, but also as a source of food. All species living in the study are had been seen over the years feeding on Mauritia flexuosa fruits and using those palms to search for arthropods during several hours of their feeding times. Therefore, its protection not only is important because of the value wetlands have to provide clean water but also because in the case of Mauritia swamps it also serve as an important food and habitat source for primates and other native fauna.  

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I’m writing today’s post, sitting at one of farm house in which we stay during our field trips, while refreshing myself after coming back of my third day of this year babies season. It is always exciting when I visit these fragments to count how many new babies the Colombian squirrel monkeys have and it is even more exciting when we found out that not only squirrel monkeys have babies this year during this month but also the dusty titi monkeys. In the past days we also saw three month old howler babies and six month old black-capped capuchin babies.
This year we had been lucky enough to see also babies from the squirrel monkey group near to town, that we are able only few times to see it at the beginning of the year. So up to now baby monkeys season has been successful, let’s hope those babies can reach the adulthood. Unfortunately our data from past years had showed a high mortality of juveniles, especially in squirrel monkeys.
Up to now, one of the three squirrel monkeys that we check every year had babies. The other two groups have pregnant females, which we continue monitoring in February and March, the whole birth season for this species in the area. All these groups had at least two infants from last year still alive and at least one group of bachelor males has been observed this month.
Monkeys are not the only beautiful surprises that these forest fragments give us in this trip, we also had seen coatis, squirrels, guan’s, toucans and a giant ant eater. Scarlet ibis are arriving, as well as migratory ducks.
This year seems to be more wet than years before and the stream had more water than in previous years during this same month. Usually this region have few rain during January, however this year rain have been more frequent than usual. It is always difficult to predict how long the dry season will last and how strong it will be as the rainy pattern in the area had changed in the past decade.
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Today’s post is the first one of 2023 and although our fieldwork won’t start until next week, is still that time of the year when you plan for the whole year activities, so that is part of what we are doing at the moment in Zocay Project. So, for now I just give you a few updates of our plans for this new year and some preliminary news on our wildlife use of water sources.
This new project of wildlife use of water sources, we started our first round of camera pictures revision and again we observed ocelots, as well as we had observed tayras in the area, which means we still have some carnivorous in the area. We also get some pictures of new birds and rodents that we didn’t see before, and we are excited to continue discovering what our cameras are capturing close to the water sources.
An additional discovery in our cameras is that an elusive but common carnivorous, crab-eating racoon, seems to be more common than we thought in the area, and it appears in several of the cameras, including some cameras near to artificial lakes in the middle of pastures. So, even with all the transformation of this landscape, we still have an incredible amount of biodiversity that make these cattle ranching landscapes

In today’s post, our last post of 2022. As I sit in my desk thinking about this year that is ending and the new year that starts in almost a week from now. This past year, we didn’t have as many fieldtrips as we expected, but we still were able to see squirrel monkeys having their babies in February, capuchin monkeys playing with their babies in April and rediscovering the nest of a Brumback’s night monkeys.

We also started a new project to find out if native wildlife use water sources used to supply water for cattle’s, we will give you more news of this collaborative study with Onca Foundation in the following post of 2023, for now let’s just say that as always, this incredible, transformed landscape give us more surprises than we will expect, some of which are just unbelievable!!!! More soon…

This year also make me wonder of what much we still don’t know about productive systems that seems to still conserve a high diversity even though it is evident they have a high impact on biodiversity. How much we really know about species movement and what make that a place has certain animals for some years and then without no apparent reason new animals arrives…

I guess this is one of the reasons why I had persisted so long in the same area, because there are always more questions than answers, despite of being a productive system with all the impact that productive activities have on wildlife. Let’s hope the new year bring some answers and if you are interested in support, help, or participate in any of the research activities we do in the next year, please don’t hesitate to send a message to xcarretero@gmail.com

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you who have read my blog over this year, hope to see you visiting and sharing more Zocay Project stories with you in 2023…

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In today’s post we are starting our reflections on 2022 lessons, which are not only personal but also part of our growth in Zocay Project. This year started with some surprises that once again teach me that patience and persistence are the best skills if you want to continue doing what you love to do, especially if that implies fieldwork and monkeys!!!
This year started with a bit of a bump; I got sick, however that sickness gave me the opportunity to share with people who I always admire but didn’t have the opportunity before to talk for several days and those conversations lead to new opportunities for me and Zocay Project.
Those opportunities also teach me about the things I still enjoy and don’t enjoy about teaching and how I can take advantage of that knowledge for my future endeavors and may be for new paths and opportunities for Zocay Project.
It also teaches me about how lucky I am of being able to continue looking at the same groups of monkeys after 18 years, and how grateful I feel of the people (professors, students, volunteers, and landowners) who had enrich my career and help me to continue putting a little grain to see those monkeys surviving in a very transformed area. How lucky I am of witness the persistence of those incredible animals that make my life unique every day.
This year also teach me about resilience and the importance of family. How important is to be able to be there when it is need it…But also that not always is easy to be there and you have to be flexible with yourself if that happens and not blame yourself if you can’t.
It also showed that Zocay Project was the right decision for my life and how grateful I am with all the people who had helped me over the years to make this project a reality and to all the people helping me now to continue with this project. I also realized how many skills I learned over the years and specially during my PhD. So, at this point of the year when we make a balance and reflect on the lessons life have teach us during this year I thankful for the people, monkeys and life that I’m able to live and share with others (humans and no humans)…
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In today’s post we are going to talk about why is important to include some kind of biodiversity monitoring in long-term primate projects, understanding long- term as projects with a duration of more than 3 years.
When I started Zocay Project my main goal was to calculate monkeys densities, basically counting each monkey species that I found in each fragment, for a 6 months period. But when the project expanded and because I was teach to register basically everything I saw, my database have information about other mammals apart from monkeys as well as some big birds.
Biodiversity monitoring is an important part of biological science; however, it is debated to what extent you should do monitoring and when to start doing mitigation or conservation actions. The answer to this is not always the same. In animals with long life spans such as primates monitoring can implies several decades. In some areas where census are done for primates, it is also common during those census to find other mammals and big birds like guans. So long term primate projects have the potential to also serve as biodiversity monitoring projects where general patterns of other species ocurrence can be detected and used to understand the functioning of the habitats in which those monkeys are living and the quality of those habitats. As well as the effects on some general conservation actions done at the beginning of those long term primate projects.
For our study area one of those patterns had been the use of regenerated areas in front of the farm house by monkeys and other mammals such squirrels and coaties. As well as the return of the colombian chachalaca to some of the farm forest fragments. This monitoring didn’t represent more finantial expenses for Zocay project and it is providing more support about the benefits to this fragmented areas of mitigation actions we implemented over 15 years ago. Therefore is and important aspect to consider while you are looking at monkey’s population trends in your study areas.
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When working with primates in close proximity to humans, you constantly saw conflict and animals getting kill due to human activities. How to measure those threats when the observations are rare, and data is difficult to get requires that you combine methods and work in close proximity with local people. In today’s post we are going to talk about the challenges of evaluating threats for primates living close to humans.

Probably the first and more challenging part is to detect those threats, unless it is evident that roads are close to forest or that electric cables are close to forest fragments, observations of primate’s deaths by electrocution and car collisions are difficult to quantify. Unless you combine direct observations with surveys in which people report those events. A combination of different data sources is usually the most productive way to understand how primates, and in general other native fauna, are impacted by human activities such as electrocutions and car collisions. 

Working with local people had its own challenges in terms of language use and techniques to make right questions and get comprehensive information about rare events. Additional spatial information obtained from satellite images and land cover map can add important understanding on possible solutions and places where can be more effective to implement mitigation actions such a canopy bridges and other artificial structures that helps safe animal movements in highly transformed landscape. However, we still need to be aware of challenges in information interpretation and learn tools of conflict negotiation to reach agreement with local people on those areas uses.

An additional challenge is how to improve electricity companies’ installation of safe cables as well as how to educate drivers to reduce speed at critical fauna crossing as a complement to infrastructure (canopy bridges or fauna overpass) for fauna crossing on rails and roads. Although there isn’t a unique way to evaluate primate’s threats in human transformed landscapes, an open mind and collaboration with other disciplines can improve our understanding to get better solutions. A lesson we are still learning at Zocay Project…

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