This week we had a wonderful couple of days of rain on Samara. It rained day and night for two days and enough for the river to come down from the mountains again. This brought into play our long-term memory as well as the monkeys’ as we remembered how to navigate across the river once more. It was too fast and too deep for the stepping stones the monkeys leaped across on. So there was nothing for it but to slip off the socks and boots and wade over. What a sight we must have been to the monkeys who leap over rocks with gaps greater than two metres with ease.
Well the adults that is. Some of the younger ones will have had little experience of river crossing in their formative years due to the dry times. They struggled a bit more like us. Some tried to use overhanging trees to form a bridge and others attempted the rock jumping of the adults but it was too far and they fell in. They had nothing else to do but swim for the other side – and they came out looking very wet and not too impressed. But it’s a great sight to see water flowing and some very happy animals all quenching their thirst.
Until next time,
Pia and the Verveteers
The Vervet Monkey research project is a collaboration between a number of international universities. The project has been based at Samara Private Game Reserve in the Great Karoo since 2008. The aim of the project is to investigate the adaptations of these fascinating monkeys to climatic changes.
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