Kant’s Suicidal Attempt

Each day that I go out into the field is new, different, and exciting... Seriously, I’m not sure if it’s just my dumb luck or if all primatologists go through the same experiences as Katie and I have while watching monkeys. Take last week for example. We were watching group Odum on a trail that does not always provide the best visibility for monkey viewing; it is a narrow path and the majority of trees around it are covered in vines, which make it easier for monkeys – especially tiny infants – to hide. During one of my focal animal samples on the new infant Teddy Roosevelt, his mother Trotter, who decided that she was fed up with my obsessive constant staring at her baby, carried Teddy into the bushy vines at the top of a tall tree, which was several meters way from the path in the uncleared bush. In this case, the only available viewing area where I could still keep my binoculars pointed towards Teddy was right underneath the tree, at the base of the trunk. Considering I am a relentless monkey stalker (like all serious primatologists should be), I pushed through the spiny bushes and thorny branches and reached the spot where I could continue my focal.
As I continued watching, I noticed that Teddy and Trotter were not the only monkeys in that particular spot; it seemed to be a popular hang-out for the Odum family at the time. In fact, the small viny area was filled with several monkeys, including one of my other study infants Kant, who was relentlessly jumping back and forth between the tree’s branches and the vines. Although I was observing Teddy, I couldn’t help but notice the wild and sporadic way in which baby Kant flailed her body to and thro, clearly having the time of her life. Several minutes went by... Teddy was nursing and inactive, Kant was jumping from branch to vine, from branch to vine, from branch to ... At some point, during one of her leaps, Kant decided that she would not reach for the security of the vines! Rather, she let her tiny body free fall more than ten meters down from the tree and right on top of my head! I remember watching it happen – and for some reason having the reaction time of a senior citizen (no offense to the elderly) – and thinking how beautiful Kant looked soaring through the air. Her little arms and legs were spread out from her fuzzy grey body, giving her the appearance of a sea star. As she plunged towards me, getting closer and closer, Kant swayed from side to side while simultaneously, her body rotated like a pin wheel. When she finally made contact and we collided, Kant let out the saddest little whimper – high pitched at first but quickly became more like a low weak grunt, and it seemed like the impact had knocked the wind out of Kant’s tiny figure.
The last thing you want to do when an ursine colobus infant falls out of the tree – particularly if it falls on top of you - is to stick around to see if the baby is ok. Adult male colobus monkeys have been known to attack humans that happen to be hanging around an infant that has just fallen from the tree. When I finally got a clue and realized what was going on, I turned to Katie who was nearby and yelled, only slightly emphatically, “Run! Run now!”. At this point Katie had no idea what had occurred and in her confusion began making confused circles around the path, unknowing as to which way to go. One direction led away from the monkey group (i.e. away from danger), while the other direction led towards the majority of the monkeys, which included alpha male Gordon. I bolted past Katie in the right direction, away from Gordon (I may not be so dim after all) and told her to “Follow me!", which Katie did. Before any of the monkeys could clue in to what had just happened, we bolted the area, and fast. I’ve never run away from the scene as quickly as I did on that day.
When we returned an hour or so later, all seemed normal; the monkeys were resting and being lazy in a very colobine way, no one suspected us of anything (hehehe), and Kant was back up in the tree jumping around among the vines, clearly planning her next suicidal attempt. I just hope that next time she will not choose to plunge while I am situated underneath her!