On the road...again!!!
Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams
Chronicles of a Footloose Forester
By Dick Pellek

The Javan macaques of Pulau Peucang

Peter Vogel routinely sat in the waning sunlight with his field glasses and notebook to record what he thought was noteworthy about the monitor lizards that came into view.  He was a Swiss graduate student at the University of Basal, studying animal behavior and the Monitor Lizard (Varanus salvator) was his subject. Pulau Peucang had lots of them.

It was Pete Vogel who intimated to the Footloose Forester that a lot could be learned about the behavior of animals if one took the time to study them at all hours of the day; and in every season.   That is when the Footloose Forester decided to spend more time learning about the Javan macaques (Macaca mulatta fascicularis) that also made Pulau Peucang their home.  Oh, there were grey gibbons and the black and gray langoors in the forest, but he was within sight of a troupe of macaques that made it convenient for him. 

A family of Javan macaques

He learned that the nuts of the false almond tree were their favorite food, but they had to climb the trees to pull the nuts from the branches while others in the troupe gathered them up from beneath the tree and proceeded to chew away the tough outer shell.  Since they chose to climb the tree late in the afternoon after the daily rain had stopped, their schedule was accommodating to the Footloose Forester who by then had returned from the forest and was prepared to focus on the many creatures around him. The island was small, not over 10 hectares in size but had three different species of deer, wart hogs, a giant reticulated python that measured about 7 meters (23 feet) in length, at least one peacock, and other lesser creatures—in addition to the Javan macaques and Peter Vogel’s featured Monitor lizards.  

It should come as no surprise that animals in the forest would rather remain dry than get soaking wet from the almost daily rains that were normal in Ujung Kulon National Park in Indonesia, where tiny Pulau Peucang is located. There were few sheltered areas that was composed of 99.9% trees. For the curious, the only open area can be seen at coordinates Lat. -6.7467°, Long. 105.2630° and is part of the living area for the forest guards who live there.

The macaques would seek the semi-shelter of overhanging tree branches, and at least some of the deer would crawl under the floorboards of the small, crudely built research station.  If you looked down when you heard them bumping and scraping their horns on the floorboards, sometimes they would look up at you. Rusa deer were the largest and had the most difficulty crawling under the slightly elevated floorboards, but the smaller barking deer and the mouse deer had no problem.  But when the warn sun of late afternoon shone, the open grassy areas of the living compound of Pulau Peucang came alive with all manner of creatures who went in search of any fruits that had fallen from the trees, or bugs that were still on the bark of tree limbs that were knocked off in the wind and heavy rains.  

When the colorful peacock emerged from the forest to sit on an uprooted tree stump at the edge of the open area at twilight, and when the family goat wandered close to watch the peacock dance atop the stump, that was when the multigenerational family of macaques took to their usual place in the center of the clearing to preen and to play.  As long as the rain no longer pounded down, and the setting sun invited them to perform their family rituals, the macaques would show up.

There were three of four adolescent scamps that spent most of their time on stage in playing tag, a baby or two that were always clinging to their parents, and even an elder macaque that almost always sat apart from the others, perhaps as an ostracized individual.  The other adults sat close to each other to be preened, or to take their turn in preening another individual.  Preening it would seem was to remove ticks and lice, but also to remove bits of broken branches from the trees.

One one occasion, the Footloose Forester and his trusty half-frame camera got lucky enough to snap a picture of three adolescents in a bizarre stance--one monkey on the shoulders of another, and a third monkey on the shoulders of the second monkey.    Alas, when the film was developed in Bogor a month or so later, the photo tech spilled some chemical on the prints, so the evidence was obliterated.   Also obliterated was a photo of that huge, reticulated python. It was taken a distance of about one meter.  Why so close?  The python had recently consumed a large meal, probably a rusa deer, based on the size of the lump that was prominent just behind his head.  That 7-meter python did not move one centimeter.  You just can't make this stuff up.