Invergordon zoologist treads carefully in the Amazon

A DREAM job as a conservationist deep in the Amazon jungle has seen a young Invergordon zoologist survive a terrifying encounter with a jaguar, bouts of dysentery and jungle fever and a very basic camp life.

Holly O’Donnell has spent the last four months in a remote field station in Peru - where five of her colleagues have been infected with a flesh-eating disease - while leading a team monitoring wildlife.

The many challenges have not daunted the 25-year-old St Andrew’s University graduate and now she is heading off for another challenge near the famous Inca city of Machu Picchu in an effort to save a habitat from the devastation of a planned dam.

Holly contacted the Ross-shire Journal to share her experiences of working as a mammal team coordinator with Fauna Forever in the hope it will inspire people back in Ross-shire to take an interest in conservation.

Fieldwork as a student in Antarctica - which was funded partly by donations from Invergordon friends and businesses - and an internship in Paraguay with Para La Tierra led to Holly applying for the post she took up earlier this year.

Holly and her colleagues arrived at the remote station along the Las Piedras River four months ago.

"When we arrived, there was nothing. No toilet, no shower, no buildings," she said.

"We had to construct the site from scratch, in heavy rain, transporting construction materials and even bunk beds and mattresses from the city via canoe, and then a hike through knee deep swamp.

"It is still basic. I have been camping the entire time. We have a generator for electricity which is on for only a few hours in the evening. Our toilet and shower are completely outdoors, which takes a bit of getting used to, but showering under the stars or with brown Capuchin monkeys around is quite an experience."

Her work means she is responsible for research and data collection, leading and training a team of interns and volunteers in field survey methods, mammal identification, camera trap use, and footprint tracking.

"I walk four kilometres in a line in the rainforest, at a pace of around one kilometre per hour, in silence, recording every mammal either spotted, heard, or which has left tracks," said Holly.

"This will be done at sunrise and late afternoon, and sometimes at night. On an average day I walk anywhere between 12 and 20km. From my walks, I can calculate species diversity, abundance and density, and this is used for Fauna Forever’s long-term monitoring of the Amazon. We also look at the effect of human activities such as tourism, bush-meat hunting, Brazil nut extraction and logging."

Most of Holly's time is spent at the field station, but a few days a month she visits the jungle city of Puerto Maldonado for "laundry, internet, and ice cream".

Her most memorable experience was the sighting of the largest predator in South America - the rare and elusive jaguar - which was four metres away from the log she was sitting on.

"My heart literally stopped and thudded and everything seemed to freeze for a split second," she said.

"But I remembered my training – to make yourself as big and loud as you can. My instinct was to stay where I was and hope that it would walk past me. The last thing that I wanted to do was to stand up and attract its attention, and possibly provoke it into an attack. It may have been stalking me, but it may also not have known that I was there. It was just a leap from me and jaguars kill with one bite to the head or neck. They can crush your skull. But I stood up, grabbed my machete and banged it on the log that I was sitting on. With a loud exhalation, the jaguar turned on its tail and vanished as silently on its feet as it had come."

Holly was left shaking and speechless as she made her way back to her colleagues who were around 20 minutes away.

"I banged every tree as I went, and had to take care to slow myself down," she said.

"Cats love to chase things that are running. It was a terrifying, but exhilarating experience and I am incredibly privileged to have seen a jaguar so close, but it is not an experience that I wish to repeat! They are amazing beautiful animals, so large and powerful, and I frequently find their footprints on our trails around camp, but my sighting gave me a new-found respect for the rainforest. I now feel very small and vulnerable walking around. Coming from Scotland, where we are the most dangerous animals in the woods, it is easy to forget that out here in the Amazon, I am just a visitor, and I am in their territory."

Another night a Bushmaster - a long pit viper snake with a bite that can kill several men - slithered past her on the way to the bathroom.

Holly explained there are "all kinds of nasty insects to contend" and five people at her camp have been infected with the flesh-eating disease leishmoniasis.

"I am doing my best to avoid any insect bites by wearing long sleeves, having quick showers, and using copious amounts of insect repellent. I was hospitalised with dysentery in May, and also suffered from the painful jungle fever Chikungunya for a week in June," she said.

Holly is moving on to the Andes - just 12km from Machu Picchu - to study the wildlife of the cloud forest near Quellomayo, which is threatened by the proposed construction of a Hydro-electric dam.

"We have been invited by the local Quechua-speaking and coffee-growing community to compile an inventory of the species here," she said.

"The habitat is threatened by the proposed construction of a hydro-electric dam, and so we hope to provide some evidence for as to why the area should remain untouched. I currently only have eight camera traps with which to record large mammals, so I am fundraising to purchase more, in the hopes of filming species such as paca, puma, peccary, deer and ocelot.

"In the Andes we shall have to contend with altitude sickness, and a significantly colder climate, but apparently chewing coca leaves helps with the sickness. Coca is grown freely and legally here, and is used to make a popular tea. It is only illegal when processed into cocaine. Peru is currently the world’s biggest exporter of coca and cocaine, and we frequently hear the ‘cocaine-planes’ flying overhead up to Colombia."

Holly says there are a lot of challenges associated with working in Peru, but she absolutely loves her job.

"There is a language barrier, which I am slowly working towards overcoming; there are substantial cultural differences, in particular with regards to being a woman and I am generally not considered equal by my Peruvian male counterparts; and it can at times be frustrating to never have any dry clothes and to have a constant mould growing over all of my belongings from the humidity," she said.

"But overall, I absolutely love my job and I am very lucky to be here, to be gaining the experience that I am and to be seeing such astounding wildlife on almost a daily basis. The rainforest is unpredictable and rewarding and I am privileged to be living my life out here. I will miss the time when I can no longer wake up in the morning to the haunting calls of howler monkeys.

"I hope that my story inspires people in Ross-shire to take an interest in conservation and the incredible wildlife in South America. I would encourage people to travel, to see some of the world, and to experience truly wild places and animals whilst they still exist, and to help conservation organisations such as Fauna Forever and Para La Tierra to continue their work."

To find out more about Holly’s work visit www.facebook.com/hollyodonnell.lifeintheamazon, www.faunaforever.org and www.paralatierra.org

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