RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Trail Blazing
There is nothing on this Earth more satisfying than the process of mass slaughtering plant life in a semi- orderly fashion. As brutal as it sounds, the art of bush whacking is a truly sensitive and delicate endeavor to undertake. First, there were three machetes, and their carriers made short work of the enemy brush. This is the fun part, because using a machete to cut random plants into oblivion is probably the greatest workout ever. As soon as the dust settled, the measuring crew swarmed in to divide the trail into 50-meter segments, marking the beginning of each segment with a bright orange marker with a number on it. (0…1…..2…and so on) These segments will be used later to collect data on fruit levels, animal and plant population, and maybe even to house a peccary trap or two. Measuring got a little tricky, for our tape only was 30 meters long, but our champion team of measuring folks made short work of the job, with only a few minor mishaps, for trees do tend to get in the way, After all that, the final member of the battalion swoops in with the GPS navigation. This device helps the researchers find the trail in the future, and puts the newly hewn trail on the digital map of the Pantanal. Aside from the fact that machetes bring out the Incredible Hulk in all of us, trail blazing is important to help the researchers gain a better understanding of the climate and life around them. I love machetes. ~Sheila Connolly

Fruit Census
Fruit census is used to determine how much fruit, in weight, is available to the wildlife that feed on it. Duca, our fruit census elitist, led us on this epic quest for fruit. She does a fruit census once a month so she can graph her data, and cite patterns in the abundance or lack of fruit. To do the census, we march our nylon dressed behinds into the woods, and onto a trail anywhere between 50 and 1500 meters long (how the trail got there is another story, but I will divulge that I am still sore from that adventure). Every 50 meters there is a tree marked with a number on flagging tape, and before we hit the trail we pick a few numbers at random. These numbers represent the 50-meter plots we will visit, and we only count the fruits in the numbered plots we select. This is where our job ends; however, Duca later dries the fruit and weighs it in order to determine an average weight of fruit that has fallen in the particular month. We learned that during June, July and August, there is a scarcity in fruit, however during the wet season (January and February) the amount of fruit rises. This project helped us to understand how you can take data in a smaller scale, and roughly estimate the overall information for a much bigger scale. Although, if you're lucky like me, you also may come away with roughly 75 ticks creepy crawling all up in your business. ~Hana Carey

Radio telemetry
Radio telemetry is the process of tracking peccaries using instruments. The peccaries are tagged with a collar that gives off a radio signal at a certain frequency. The first step is to cruise around in the truck, which has an antenna on top. We connect this to a radio receiver that beeps when a tagged peccary is within range. Once we get a hit, we climb out of the truck, drink some tea, and attach a different antenna to the receiver. With this receiver, we locate the direction in which the peccary is located. At this point, we take the compass and GPS to find our location and the angle in which we are going. Then we use triangulation to locate the exact spot of the peccary. Then we can record the habitat in which the peccary resides and use this information to learn more about peccaries. We then go back to the truck, drink some more tea, and go home. ~Andrew Young and Mike Cline

Water Chemistry
Our objective of water chemistry was to see the differences in the water over time and in different areas. We checked the water level, saline level, temperature, pH level, percentage of oxygen, etc in two areas. One area's water level was very low, almost dried up, and very mucky. The other area had more water, more fish and caiman. The steps we took were to get out our instruments to test the different levels. We walked out into the water/muck and stuck our probes into the water. On the instrument we waited a few minutes for it to read the levels and for the numbers to stop fluctuating. Then we wrote down our readings and checked the water level. The results were very little saline (0 or .1), slightly acidic, and low water levels. From this I learned that the water is usually slightly acidic, and that when the graph from the water temperature fluctuates a lot that usually meant a change in water level. We also learned about some of the bugs that live in aquatic places, such as a cool black and red spider with a thorny butt. We also learned that water chemistry is a lot of fun, and so far it is one of my favorite things. ~Emily Wall

Grass Sampling
Our mission was to see the effects of cattle herding on two grass species. The two species were Mimossa and Fabulda. Emily put down a square meter marker; she measured the highest, medium height, and lowest grasses. Margot recorded these heights on a data sheet. Kaitlin and Marco then cut and bagged the grass by species. We concentrated on three categories of site for each trial: areas where cattle had grazed on fabulda ( saida); areas where cattle had yet to graze on fabulda (entrada); areas with mimossa. Once back at the Pousada, we weighed the newly cut grass, as well as previously dried grass samples. We learned that cattle affect available grass for other native Pantanal species. ~Kaitlin Carson and Emily Marshall

Piranha Fishing
We went fishing in Jaguar Lake for Piranha. Jaguar Lake was roughly 1km away from Pousada Cabure. When we got to the lake, we met up with the Cabure cowboys who had just finished fishing. They had caught roughly two dozen piranhas and one caiman. Now it was our turn. Emily [Marshall], Ben and I mounted this tin can of a boat with two cowboys who pushed us through the water with a bamboo pole and a paddle. During our fishing experience we used no poles to catch the fish. We used fishing line and hooks. We also baited the line with meat from the haunches of a feral pig (which was all bloody inside our boat). To catch the piranha, we would toss the line out, and once we felt a tug, we would pull the line and pull in a piranha. The only problem was that it wasn't that easy. I was the first to catch a fish. Then Ben did, and finally, Emily did too. Overall, our catch was 16 fish, two of which were mine, six were Emily's, and Ben caught eight. Later that night, we were supposed to eat the Piranha that we caught. Paulenir (the owner of Pousada Cabure) had left them in the sun in the back of his truck, so we had to eat the piranha that the cowboys caught. The piranha was a bit dry, but it tasted exactly like chicken. We also ate the caiman, which was extremely good. ~Jayce Insko

Peccary Trapping
Alexine has set up traps- not vicious, bone-crunching traps, but cages with a trigger made out of sticks. On our first trap checking expedition, she had some of us set the traps. To set a trap you have someone hold the door of the trap up while you crawl in. There are two sticks standing vertically about a foot apart in the cage. Then, you lean another stick horizontally against them, set another stick (attached to a string that is tied to the door of the trap) vertically, resting against that one, and wedge one more horizontal stick in behind them to hold it all together. (We have pictures to help illustrate this concept.) Once the sticks were in place, we baited the trap with corn salt, and fruit (a type of coconut) to make the peccaries actually come. One of the days that I checked traps near Pousada Cabure, we found a wild pig in a trap. He was going crazy, slamming into the sides of the cage. Alexine suddenly told us to sprint to the truck, so we did. The pig had knocked the door off the trap, and had run away. It sure got our heart rates up though, and gave us something to fix. Another time that we checked the peccary traps, there was a coati in one. He was freaking out, too, but we opened the door and kind of poked him out with a stick. All in all, the traps are very helpful for the scientists because they can gather information on the peccaries when they catch one- they run blood tests, and record vital statistics, etc.