WE’VE GOT AN APP FOR THAT!!

Trying to keep track of 20 groups of cotton-top tamarins is a challenging task! Over the years our field team has taken thousands of pages of notes as they watch what happens every day in the tamarin groups.  It’s a bit of a soap opera trying to keep up with who is pregnant, who is plotting to take over as the dominant male, or who might be looking to leave their family.  Add that information to what they are eating, where they are sleeping, and how they manage to avoid being eaten by a very large snake, and you can image the wealth of information that we need to manage on a daily basis! 

Thanks to Greg Shear we now have a custom designed app that allows the field team to enter all of this information on an iPad.  Within minutes of collection, our team in Colombia or in the U.S. can be reviewing the data and begin to analyze the information for use in our management plans.

You can only image how exciting it has been for Soto, Felix, German, Juan Carlos, Francy, Jeisson and Zamir, to learn how to use an iPad in the field.  Even the cotton-tops are interested in the iPads.  Támara has been observed to look at her reflection in the glass and thankfully the water proof case stands up to being “christened” by a cotton-top!

PLASTIC PELLETS IN OUR FUTURE!

As we continue to look for ways to engage communities in conservation efforts, we are very excited to announce our newest program Proyecto Titi’s Plastic Pellets!  We have purchased a machine to grind plastic waste collected from our community recycling program. Last year we worked with 12 families to recycle plastic and we collected over 3 tons of plastic waste! 

With no effective public program to manage waste in rural Colombian communities, much of the waste ends up polluting the forest and waterways in the area.  Now we will be able to engage more families in community recycling and we will be able to process the plastic into pellets that can be transported and sold to businesses in nearby urban centers like Barranquilla and Cartagena.  We look forward to another productive year in keeping our rural areas cleaner and providing jobs for people in local communities, as we continue to protect the forests for cotton-top tamarins.

WELCOME TO THE TEAM

We are pleased to welcome Francy Forero to our field team. Francy is a Field Biologist who joined our team to help us monitor the activities of more than 20 cotton-top tamarin groups in the protected area of Ceibal. Welcome Francy!