Feature: MSU Students in Kenya
MSU students conducting research in Kay Holekamp’s lab in Kenya share their unique experiences via blogs along with a variety of media programs.
Zoology professor Kay Holekamp, one of the world's leading experts on spotted hyenas, is having an impact on people around the world and on animal behavioral science. Her ability to intertwine research, teaching, and outreach has, most directly, allowed a select group of MSU students to have a transformational experience in East Africa—as their blogs below reveal.
Recently a film crew from the BBC descended on Holekamp’s research laboratory in the Masai Mara, Kenya, where she has been studying spotted hyenas for more than two decades and has received numerous awards for her teaching and research. The BBC is not alone in finding interest in her work. She has also been the focus of stories in the New York Times, Smithsonian magazine, Animal Planet and the National Geographic Channel.
Holekamp’s research projects are funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and she has published dozens of research papers on topics involving spotted hyenas as well as ground squirrels and other rodents.
While the Natural Science Building at MSU is home to her primary lab, much of the media attention has focused on Holekamp’s field lab— “Fisi Camp” located in Kenya (“Fisi” is the Masai word for “hyena”). Holekamp spends several months each year at Fisi Camp while MSU students are there all year gathering data to answer fundamental research questions in the areas of disease ecology, evolution, behavior and conservation.
Of particular current interest to investigators is the spotted hyena’s ability to survive the diseases that often kill many of the other carnivores inhabiting the areas where the hyenas live. This trait, along with the hyenas’ physiology and social complexities, are larger questions the Holekamp Lab is investigating with long-term benefits of understanding disease transmission, biology of a large carnivore, and the ability to maintain ecosystem health.
In addition to the ongoing research at Fisi Camp, Holekamp started a study abroad class in 1999 which provides an intensive 3-week field course focused on the behavioral ecology of African mammals. The course—Behavioral Ecology of African Mammals, or BEAM—is led by senior doctoral students who have worked with Holekamp, and the program intersects with the ongoing field research.
Holekamp’s work contributes to maintaining ecosystem health in one of the world's richest biodiversity hotspots. This research also offers training opportunities for MSU students in an international environment along with Kenyan graduate students and Masai students in rural elementary schools.
This past summer, students in the Holekamp Lab started a blog to help share the stories of life in Fisi Camp. The blog, at msuhyenas.blogspot.com, serves to enhance understanding of their research and provide an additional layer of outreach in order to improve understanding of the spotted hyena and help in conservation efforts.
What follows are some sample blogs from Kate Shaw, Leslie Curren and Andy Flies, three students currently at the Fisi camp.
? Michael Steger is the communications manager for MSU’s College of Natural Science. He has never been to Africa, so he travels vicariously through the bloggers.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
HERE’S LANCELOT
By Kate Shaw
It's true...the struggle to survive out here can be brutal, shocking, and emotional. However, when new life emerges, it's pretty darn cute.
Here, in a Hyena Blog exclusive, are the first photos of Archer's baby! I tried to sell them to the tabloids first, but they weren't interested. Their loss...
This tiny guy (or girl...we don't know yet) is named Sir Lancelot, and is the first in what will hopefully be a long line of Archer's "Knights of the Round Table" lineage.
After days of waiting, I finally saw Lancelot yesterday, and I can already tell he's going to be a wild child! He had no interest at all in nursing, and he certainly didn't want to be groomed. Instead, he chewed on Archer's ear, used her body as a playground, and head-butted her when he felt he was being ignored. With a gentle swipe of her paw, Archer reeled him in and he reluctantly settled down next to her.
Lancelot seems like a brave little one with a penchant for adventure...this mama's going to have her hands full!
Monday, September 15, 2008
Fisi Camp: Luxury or Basic?
By Andy Flies
Hello from Fisi Camp in the beautiful Masai Mara National Reserve. After a one year hiatus from field work, I am back in the Mara and thrilled about being back. I have been working primarily in the lab (Hello to the Linda Mansfield lab and Jean Tsao lab) most of the summer and have been itching to get back to the field work for the past month. My research focuses on the ecology or wildlife disease and the immune response to infection. I will not elaborate beyond that at this point, but if you want more information about my research, you can visit my website at: www.msu.edu/~fliesand
Many of my friends ask what it is like living in a tent for an extended period of time. For my first post on the blog, I thought it would be fitting to introduce everyone to camp the way I see my home for the next six months. To do this I created a simple map to give blog readers an idea of what the camp looks like. The map is a bit crude and geographers may be apalled, but I think you will get the idea. To supplement the map, I have also made a brief photo tour of some of the important features of Fisi Camp. By the way, for new readers, Fisi means hyena.
When I first arrived at Fisi Camp last year it exceeded my expectations. I thought living in a tent in Africa would be hard, but camp has proven very comfortable to me. The biggest adjustment for me is not being able to eat meat regularly, since there is no refrigeration in camp. We have outstanding cooks in camp that work wonders with an old butane range/oven and I probably eat better over here than I do back in the states. The lack of running water is one of the other major adjustments of living in camp.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
What it Means to be a Masai
By Leslie Curren
I’ve wanted to write a post for a long time about the culture of the Masai, the ethnic group that lives in our area of Kenya. I’ve hesitated for fear of being unwittingly politically incorrect, but that seems like a silly reason to deprive readers the opportunity to expand their worldviews. I figured the best approach would be to talk to a Masai and get the story straight from the horse’s mouth. So I spoke with John (pictured below), a Masai man who has worked at Fisi Camp for over a decade, and asked him to describe his people as completely and objectively as possible, and he did a great job. So if anyone is uncomfortable with my general depiction or specific word choice (ex, use of “tribe”), please understand that the information is all from a Masai person himself, and he approved this post before I published it.
The Masai people are nomadic pastoralists, which accounts for their generally tall and thin body types. According to legend, the first Masai came from the sky with a cow, so Masais believe that all cows everywhere (yes, even the ones in Vermont) really belong to them. They therefore have a very strong attachment to these cows—as John put it, “A Masai without a cow is not a Masai.” In fact, cows are the standard of currency among Masai: one average-sized cow is equivalent to about 10,000 Kenyan shillings or about $150 USD.
The traditional roles of men and women are pretty, well, traditional. Men are the heads of families and the community leaders, and are in charge of the cows and providing security for the family. Women (“mamas”) care for the children and the house, collect firewood and water, do all the cooking and washing, and buy food at the market. They also build all the huts out of dried cow manure, which is grueling work given that it can take two women about six months to build one home. Boys often herd cows, but girls have many more responsibilities, as they are expected to help their mothers pretty much as soon as they are physically able to (it’s not uncommon to see a child as young as four or five caring for a younger sibling).
Historically, education has not been a priority for the Masai. There is much more to be said on this topic, so I’m going to save it for my next post—stay tuned for that. For now, suffice it to say that the Masai have traditionally been unenthusiastic about educating their boys, and extremely reluctant to educate their girls. Instead, girls are circumcised at the young ages of between 10 and 13 years old (more on this next time, too). Once they have been circumcised, they can be married off to men as much as 25 years their senior. The bride is not given a choice in whom she marries, and the bride’s family typically receives between 5 and 10 cows as payment. Mamas then begin bearing children at around age 15. Multiple wives are seen as a sign of affluence, although as more and more Masai become Christian, this custom is becoming less common.
Masai men are typically grouped in “age sets,” which are cohorts consisting of men who are all within several years of each other. A person’s cohort is a big part of his identity, and each cohort has its own songs and dances that are used in celebrations.
The time-honored custom has been that when boys are between 16 and 20 years old, thousands of them will be circumcised together as one cohort. This cohort will then live together and train to become Masai warriors, and those who are able to kill a lion single-handedly are the most revered. Warriors are then responsible for protecting the tribe from other marauding tribes. In recent decades, however, the need for warriors has diminished, since the Masai’s inter-tribe conflicts have subsided almost entirely. That fact, combined with the government’s credo that “all children must attend school” (a law that is not enforced in rural areas), has made Masai warriors slightly obsolete and much less common.
The spoken language of the Masai is Maa, and although John, who speaks four languages fluently, happily claims that it is “not hard,” I can attest that for native English speakers, it is extremely difficult. This is because many of the phonemes are so different that we physically can’t form them with our mouths. (Swahili is much easier, because it’s based on the same alphabet and phonemics as English.)
The predominant foods are milk (cow’s) and meat (cow and goat), and chai tea is both a nutritional and social staple. Fresh cow’s blood is also a popular traditional drink, especially for women who have just given birth so that they might replace the blood they have lost. Fruits and vegetables have really only entered the menu in a substantial way in the past decade as imports and transportation to rural areas have increased.
Masai mamas usually wear wrapped skirts and cloths, and both men and women wear “shukas,” which are all-purpose shawls that can protect against the sun and the cold. Interestingly, Masai in different areas have different colors that dominate their wardrobes. In our area, the major color is red with hints of yellow, but the Masai in nearby Tanzania wear predominately blue with hints of white. The Masai are also famous for their beaded jewelry, which comes in all colors and can be quite elaborate—all of it handmade by the skilled mamas. Some of it has special significance: for example, the large circular necklaces are bridal necklaces, and men who have lost their father will wear metal bracelets on their right arms to honor them. On special occasions, such as the one depicted in the photo, Masai will wear their most formal garments and adorn themselves with literally dozens of pieces of this beautiful jewelry.
As I’ve hinted throughout this post, these times, they are a-changin’. Since the Kenyan government privatized most of the grazing land, the Masai have become significantly less nomadic and have formed more permanent communities. Some are branching out and have started to cultivate crops such as wheat and maize (not in Talek, our local Masai community, but in other parts of Kenya). Likewise, as more Masai get educated, more are opening small businesses and shops. Additionally, the increase in education has started to reverse what has historically been a lack of involvement and interest in politics. As you can see in the photo of John, it’s also getting more common to see Masai wearing western clothing.
I asked John what, above all, he wanted to communicate to Americans about the Masai people. After carefully considering this question for a moment, he replied, “We are very brave, very proud, and very honest.” He said they are not as prone to theft as other tribes, and have excellent manners. They are also extremely friendly, and welcome members of other tribes who come to live among the Masai.
Take it from someone from a very different tribe—I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Gets Trampled By an Angry Buffalo
By Lesie Curren
Hyenas are very curious about other species, this much is clear.
This morning, (we saw hyenas) all very curious about a sleeping buffalo. Since they’ve certainly seen buffalo before, it seemed like they were playing a game of chicken, daring each other to see who could get the closest.
Although these games are usually played by the cubs and subadults, a couple adults were even getting in on the action today. It was pretty hilarious: they’d tiptoe closer and closer, and if the buffalo even twitched its tail they would all freak out and back off. Then they’d get their courage up again and the game would repeat. Truthfully, I’m not sure the buffalo was even aware that it was involved in the game, since it was facing the other direction.
But that game paled in comparison to one we saw a couple weeks ago between a teenage hyena and an adult jackal. When we arrived, the hyena was chasing the jackal, which seemed strange since jackals are not typical hyena prey. But then we realized it was just a game—the hyena was chasing the jackal round and round a big bush (which begs the question, who really was chasing whom?). Our initial impression was that this was great fun for the hyena, but not so much for the traumatized jackal. Oh how wrong we were—the hyena stopped to catch its breath for a moment, and the jackal stood, looked at it, then ran at it teasingly and darted away at the last second, just like my dog does when he wants me to chase him. The jackal did this a few times until the hyena acquiesced and the game resumed around the bush. At one point they even switched directions mid-chase without breaking a stride. Sadly, it was too dark to get any photos or videos, but I think you get the idea.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Mangey Cheetah
By Andy Flies
Most visitors to the Mara put cheetahs near the top of the list of animals they would like to see. A few visitors are lucky enough to actually see a cheetah or two. Unfortunately, many of the cheetahs in the park are infected with mange. This is a skin disease caused by mites. The mites are passed from animal to animal through direct contact.
Cheetahs are solitary animals and are rarely seen together, unless it is with siblings or their mother. Given the solitary lifestyle of cheetahs and the low density of cheetahs in the Mara (it is estimated there are around 50 cheetahs here), it seems unlikely they would have high enough contact rates to maintain a high prevalence of mange. Domestic dogs that are frequently in the park may play in a role in the spread and maintenance of mange in the wild animals in the park. Mange is also seen in other animals such as buffalo, but to my knowledge, few thorough studies have been done at this point.
Special thanks to Linda Mansfield for her input on mites and mange!
HELP FOR KENYA KIDS
Katy Califf, a doctoral student who works in the Holekamp Lab and has led the study abroad class to Kenya, was so moved by her experience with the people of Kenya that she helped create a nonprofit group which raises money to send kids to school in Kenya. It is a registered organization on campus, mostly run by past BEAM (Behavioral Ecology of African Mammals) students. "The students have been so profoundly affected by their visits to Kenya and by meeting school children there, that they are working here and giving their own free time generously to raise money for school children there,” says Califf. “I think that speaks volumes of the lasting effects of study abroad!" For more information, visit www.kilanafasi.org.
