The End of an Era

After over 6 years of intensive research and community development work in and around the Yachana Reserve, GVI Amazon is coming to a close. We have finished our final research project (look forward to our Road Effects paper, coming soon!) and are handing over the project to our partner, The Yachana Foundation. They will continue to maintain and monitor the reserve, using it as an hands-on science education center for students -- we're very excited to see what fabulous things this next generation of scientists find! For more detail on GVI Amazon's closure, and our accomplishments over the years, please read on...
GVI Amazon Closure Statement

Monday, May 30, 2011

The Manphib VES

Wednesday 25 May. An amphibian and reptile VES (Visual Encounter Survey) was pencilled in for the night. A crew united in testosterone with one goal: to pursue as many squidgy and scaly critters as possible. I took the opportunity to lead the group and also navigate us through the transect. After some displays of risk assessments and general hooliganism by our compatriot Micky, we headed out at a searing pace; stopping only for a large banana spider. When I was reiterating the mitigation methods of the project and other relevant nonsense, one of the men (by name Lexington)kicked the night off with a yellow-tongued forest anole. Little did we know it was the first of many to come. We bludgeoned on without dropping a single bead of sweat and were at the transect in a matter of mere minutes. We started and had to pass down a gradient, a couple more anoles were found but it was no big deal. We cruised over a small stream and up a sheer slope and eventually onto some level ground, this is where the ‘gentlemen of the jungle’ got into gear. Just a taste of things spotted was: collared tree runner, golden orb spider, flat-headed bromeliad tree frog, carabaya rain frog, emerald wasp, further forest anoles, a scorpion and a tarantula. We were checking the emerald wasp when eagle-eyes spotted a red vine snake, which we observed in all its majestic glory and let it escape. It was later on also that we captured another bromeliad tree frog, then a salamander, then a collared gecko, then an additional salamander, and finally a rare tree frog – which was intercepted expertly with the assist of Micky boosting a fellow gent up for the capture. All of such were found in the last fifty or so metres. All in all a cracking display by the chaps.

Oliver Jenner, GVI Amazon Conservation Intern, April-September 2011



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