Primatology in Paraguay…Really?

Are you in to primates? Do monkeys fascinate you? Whether you are interested in primatology (the study of primates) or just really like watching monkeys smash nuts on David Attenborough programmes, Paraguay probably isn’t a country that springs to the forefront of your mind when you think about where wild primates might live. And honestly, I don’t blame you.

Paraguay is a small country nestled right in the heart of South America. Paraguay isn’t just overlooked by tourists. In terms of the biological sciences and conservation it is miles behind its neighbouring giants of Brazil and Argentina. This is a serious problem in a country that has destroyed 97% of its humid Atlantic Forest in the last 50 years and who's Gran Chaco forest is disappearing at an alarming rate (more than 53,000ha was destroyed in December 2014 alone and that has not slowed down!). Conservation works best when it is based on a foundation of strong research. And this foundation was sorely lacking in a country so desperately in need of conservation efforts.

Enter Fundación Para La Tierra.

Scottish geneticist, Karina Atkinson (check her out, she’s amazing! www.rolexawards.com/profiles/young_laureates/karina_atkinson), started this small NGO based in a tiny private reserve on the shore of Paraguay’s only spring-fed lake, Laguna Blanca, in 2010. The organisation works to protect Paraguay’s disappearing natural habitats through a combination of scientific research, education and community engagement and it the only organisation in Paraguay conducting year-round scientific research. I came out from Edinburgh, Scotland, to join Team PLT in January 2013, as what as since turned out to be pretty much the only primatologist in the country. My job: to habituate and study the reserves population of hooded capuchins (Sapajus cay).

Habituation is NOT an easy process, particularly with primates as long-lived and intelligent as capuchin monkeys. For what seemed like an eternity, my hours searching through the spiky, mosquito-filled Atlantic Forest would be rewarded by no more than an almighty crash and, IF I was lucky, that flash of a furry black tail as the capuchins retreated far faster than I could chase them! But nothing good comes easy and now the Atlantic Forest fragment of Laguna Blanca is home to two groups of semi-habituated monkeys (they still threaten me but do let me hang out with them!) and one new group only discovered in August 2016.

Along with my amazing job with PLT, I am in the early days of my PhD in Conservation Science with the University of Aberdeen. My PhD research will focus on my monkey groups here at Laguna Blanca, studying their social and ranging behaviours, genetic viability and parasite loads in order to determine whether this population will be viable in the long-term. If such a small population of capuchins can survive in such a small fragment of forest, that is good news for Paraguay’s Upper Paraná Atlantic Forest which (outside of two larger areas) only remains as small islands in a sea of soy fields and cattle ranches.

My goal with this blog is to share with you what life is like as a field primatologist in Paraguay and to spread the word about conservation in this amazing, forgotten corner of the world.

Enjoy!