reflections from the field
By Nagarathna Balakrishna, Student Researcher, La Mananara Field Site
Fieldwork has been a defining part of my professional journey as a primatologist and early-career conservationist. Being in the field brings me immense joy, along with countless memories and stories to share with family and friends. I have encountered some extraordinary wildlife in some of the most breathtaking landscapes and met incredibly talented and passionate wildlife biologists and conservationists who have since become lifelong friends.
From observing butterflies and their host plants in a semi-urban landscapes of my hometown, Mangalore in India, for my Bachelor’s thesis, to studying the feeding ecology of Nilgiri langurs in a disturbed habitat within a tiger reserve in Kerala, India for my Master’s research, and spending 13 months at India’s first ecotourism site, Thenmala, investigating relationships between bonnet macaque mothers and infants, to now studying lemurs in Madagascar—fieldwork, to me, is nothing short of an adventure. It’s where I get to combine my scientific curiosity with a deep desire to understand nature and our place within it.
There is something quietly thrilling about waking up before dawn, groggily pulling on the same set of khaki or grey pants, a full-sleeved shirt, and a jacket under the flickering beam of a headlamp. Breakfast is often another meal of rice and beans accompanied by a strong cup of coffee. We gather around the fire or in the outdoor dining area, sharing jokes and field stories, before setting off into the forest, ready for whatever the day brings: cold, misty mornings, torrential downpours, or the sweltering heat that leaves you drenched in sweat. Like clockwork, we wake up, get dressed, have breakfast, and head into the field where we follow our study species from dawn until they settle in their sleeping trees.
The monotony of doing fieldwork is often broken by unexpected and sometimes heart-racing encounters. I have bolted down a hill after seeing an elephant calf on the trail while searching for langurs. During a break from data collection, I once found myself staring at an Indian gaur, a massive wild bovid with long horns. He snorted loudly and swung his head aggressively, so I ran all the way back up the hill and took another route to my field camp, deciding to take the rest of the day off from field work. On another occasion, a large male bonnet macaque, named Jack, who was notorious for his unpredictable behavior, lunged at me and bared his canines in what was clearly not a friendly greeting. All of that just because a twig snapped under my foot as I was trying to move along with the rest of the group.
Fieldwork is far from a passive observation—it’s not simply watching and recording data in isolation, as though research happens in a vacuum. Instead, it’s a continuous act of reflection: on how we think, act, and respond to the world around us. It demands flexibility and humility and reminds us that each day in the forest offers a new story, a new way of seeing. Fieldwork is as much about becoming as it is about questioning the many assumptions we carry with us.
I first traveled to Madagascar in June 2024 to carry out a pilot survey assessing potential field sites and collect preliminary behavioral data on indri groups. Before that, my initial plans to study the effects of habitat fragmentation on the health and behavior of Nilgiri langurs in India had fallen through. It was a stressful period, but being a PhD student often means learning to adapt and stay flexible, both intellectually and emotionally. I was drawn to a broader question in primate ecology: how do primates persist in rapidly changing environments? What are their behavioral and physiological responses to habitat disturbances? After consulting with my advisor and several researchers, Madagascar emerged as the ideal site to explore these questions.
That pilot trip proved to be quite fruitful. I collected behavior data and fecal samples from indri groups across several locations, including the community-managed forests of Mitsinjo and VOI in Andasibe, Mantadia National Park, and Wildlife Madagascar’s La Mananara site. The visit and the overall experience ultimately sealed my decision to conduct my PhD dissertation research in this remarkable island country.
Ten months later, I returned to Madagascar, in June 2025, for my first long-term field season. My project investigates how ecotourism influences the behavior, stress levels, and parasite load of indri groups across two sites: Parc Mitisnjo, a community-managed ecotourism site in Andasibe, and La Mananara, a pristine primary forest with zero tourism. I have since then trained two Malagasy students, Ravaka Ratsitoharana and Miora Ramanantoanina from the University of Antananarivo. They have helped collect simultaneous data from both sites, gathered hundreds of hours of behavioral data, collected fecal samples for parasite and stress analysis, recorded human and lemur interactions at Mitsinjo, and laid 10 vegetation plots across both forest sites. Currently, we are at the Mahaliana laboratory in Antananarivo, analyzing indri fecal samples for endoparasites.
This has truly been a rewarding first field season, and I can’t wait to be back in the forest next year! Stay tuned for more updates on my research and stories from the field.