Beep beep beep beep *smash*. 4.30am time to wake up. After almost two years of waking
up at this crazy early hour you’d expect to get used to it. Nope. Still early, but duty, and more specifically the monkeys, call. Quick cold shower will get you going. Then 2 sandwiches each with peanut butter or jam, collect the telemetry, GPS, field book, observation papers and off we go. Finding our monkeys.
Radio telemetry
Most of our adult monkeys are equipped with a radio collar. This will give off radio signals that help us find them. You know, radio signals have the nasty habit to bounce against everything they encounter. And then I mean everything! Trees, leaves, rocks, branches, grass, fruits, seeds, each other, ground, you name it. Even the smallest water drop has influence. It also means that a signal coming from a clear direction might fool you since it bounced back. In other words, check properly and carefully in order to determine your direction. Then also during rainy season the signal will be absorbed by moisture, yes moisture in rainy season…won’t bother you with that story.
Lots of walking
Our baboons walked a lot and it sometimes took 1.5 hour to reach them, the vervets make our life a bit easier and usually within half an hour we are with the monkeys. Sometimes they will greet us by making short contact sounds. Sometimes they are still resting or warming up in the sun or grooming each other. Quite a peaceful and relaxing moment. After doing a census to see if everybody is there safe and sound, we start observing.
But by then the monkeys are also wide awake and either playing, grooming, feeding and foraging, moving or, if nice and lazy (how we felt in the morning), still resting.
Careful not to disturb them
Moving around the group we need to be careful not to disturb their natural behaviour, but yet be able to keep a close eye on our study animal of that moment. 
We follow the monkey of the moment through the woodland that out here is rather hostile, it seems like every plant has a thorns, hairs or stickiness. The ‘wait a bit tree’ with its strong hooked thorns are responsible for at least 80% of the tares in our clothes. Shoes will last 1 season, then the strong grass has cut them to pieces. Or ‘eaten them’ like the Malawians say. The vervets are not bothered and eat them in return. We follow and observe them from dusk till dawn.
Nature is your office
But it’s good. Can you imagine having nature as your office, following monkeys all day seeing their behaviour and be accepted as a part of their environment. The fact that the monkeys accept us will make it easier to spot other wildlife as well because apparently we are not dangerous. 
Roan, puku, kudu, duiker, reed buck, bushbuck, warthog, bush pig, elephant, sable, buffalo, we see them up close. Of course days can be hard with burning sun, long hours, pouring rain and not to mention tsetse flies and mozzies…But hey; no pain no game…And seeing these monkeys thrive in their wild life, having a 92% survival rate with the baboons and new borns being born wild and free are very rewarding results. The vervets have had a harder struggle, but seeing them overcome their fears and difficulties, seeing them learn how to survive and also become real wild and free monkeys is an amazing experience.
Knock off
Around 5.30pm we knock off, once we know the animals are safe and well back in their trees. We walk through forest and dambos to the car, drive back to our reed hut at the lake and see some wildlife on the way, cook diner on a fire by candlelight and our solar lamp, have a another cold shower and go to bed early. And before you know it…Beep beep beep beep…..
Our baboons have been doing very well. Some of the ladies got pregnant, which is a good sign. Little fights, quietly exploring their territory further. Finding the new types of food that come with each new seasons. But their wanderings didn’t go unnoticed. Other troops watched warily how our group entered their territories.
The two troops would approach each other led by the big males with the females and babies kept as far as possible from the battle-lines. One day this climaxed into a tense staring contest with both groups on either side of an open field and males from both sides closing in and sending patrols around to the other side. At this stage of the release the baboons need to fend for themselves as much as possible with preferably no interference from the release team, but on this occasion we saw Juri being pushed to his limit and something had to be done. Scared that war was at hand and our baboons would get seriously injured in a fight they could never win, we decided to add a secret weapon to the conflict: The Humans! Just standing up, showing we were there with them, gave our group a massive advantage. When The Others backed off and Juri’s ego was satisfied, our group retreated as well and the day ended in peace with all baboons in one piece.
In the meantime those babies are not waiting for any war or takeovers. Two have been born and number three is on the way. Our fragile Magda has given birth to her firstborn, Nina. Little Richard thinks he is the father and is very protective. MacKenzie, our big number two female, gave birth to baby Cathy who is already bigger than 3 weeks old Nina. These wild born babies will see us every now and then for the next three months and from then on will live a life far from humans after this, with a true wild baboon around to show them some extra tricks for surviving in the wild!
Primate Adventures 