LETTER FROM THE AMAZON - Amazon Conservation Association

Letter from the Amazon January-March, 2010
Staff and community
Staff member from Wayqecha
Lucio Ccoyo Cordova works on the maintenance
staff of Wayqecha. An inhabitant of the local
community of Juan Alvarado Velasco de
Sunchubamba, he is the station’s longest-serving
staff member. Lucio has been with us for over five
years, since Wayqecha’s beginning, working on
construction and maintenance of the previous and
current station. Lucio is the proud father of four
daughters; outside the station he works in
carpentry, a talent which he has applied to make
some of the station’s furniture. Besides his talent in
carpentry, Lucio is also known for his talent on a
motorcycle. Laura Morales. Lucio by ACA.
Weather at CICRA, 2009
Rain in the rainforest? Shocking, we know.
However, 2009 was our rainiest year since 2003,
with a surprisingly low cumulative number, 176, of
actual rainy days. Considering that models of
climate change in the Amazon predict more net
rain over less days, these statistics merit a second,
and perhaps a third glance. Does this year
represent typical variation for the area? Is global
warming
rearing its
ponderous
head? How
do high levels
of rain paired
with low days
impact the
ecosystems
and resident
populations of our forest? Unfortunately, we do not
have the answers to these pressing questions;
though happily, we are in a position to make a
difference through the recognition and continuation
of the
important
research
occurring at
our
biological
research
stations.
This year,
our rainy
season coincides with an El Niño event, which
traditionally brings less rain to the Amazon; we are
interested to see what the weather holds. Sarah
Federman.
NEWS
CICRA has unwittingly become the site of a new fashion craze: the musmuqui headpiece, everyone’s doing it, really. The story
goes that one evening Marco, CICRA’s maintenance-man-extraordinaire, encountered a baby musmuqui (night monkey, Aotus
nigriceps) wounded and wailing in the woods outside of the back cabins. It seems to have been a failed predation event, which
caused him to fall from his mother’s back and to the ground. Whatever occurred to leave him on the ground, resulted in a baby
monkey with hypothermia, a broken tibia, a laceration running from his spine to his belly, and a tail severely broken in two places.
After a wonderful station-wide effort in emergency medical procedures, little Muqui, in defiance of everyone’s expectations, made
it through that first night and is struggling on splendidly with Sarah Federman (or rather her hair) as a surrogate mother and
primary caretaker. Sarah and Daniela Lainez of ACCA’s Puerto Maldonado office are working to find Muqui a permanent home,
and in the interim to get him on a research permit at CICRA. The investigation aims to determine the inherency of musmuqui
vocalizations versus the importance of imprinted vocalizations by examining responses of CICRA’s resident musmuqui
populations to recordings of both Muqui and wild Aotus juveniles. Sarah Federman
Muqui 1) Adrian Tejedor 2) Sarah Federman 3) Sarah Carbonel.
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