Ecological Surveys Are Like Childbirth

Trip 10: Perth to Koolan Island

Purpose: Northern Quoll Cane Toad Condition Taste Aversion Training

Total Distance Traveled: 3768 km

Distance Traveled Year to Date:  36, 135 km

 

 

I am not one to promote the public discourse by employing catchy titles that grab your attention and stir the ire of minority groups as a means to entertain the majority. But I am not kidding. Doing ecological surveys is like giving birth. It is impossibly difficult and painful whilst you are doing it, but as soon as it is over you can't wait to do it again. I'm going to go one step further by saying it is like being a single mother giving birth: when the going gets really tough you are on your own.

I have been walking the same trap lines for 10 days now. Once in the morning and once at night and most of the time I am alone. Alone but never lonely.

I set out to clear my traps at dawn and the sun rises exactly where it did yesterday and it cooks the same  part of my face every day at the same place where there is a break in the tree canopy. As I set my traps for the night the sun falls towards that same spot on the horizon that it fell to yesterday, cooking the other side of my face on its way down.  

My safety glasses fog up at the same spot every morning as I drop into an abrupt valley that is a degree or two cooler than the hill tops for and aft. I leach sweat to saturate the same parts of my body that rub and chaff the same patches of skin to make walking and moving progressively harder as one day drifts into the next.

The same stick that nearly poked me in the eye on Day 4 stabbed me in the lip on Day 5. I am certain the spider webs that irritate my face each morning are made by the same spiders that are becoming as equally frustrated as I am as Day 6 becomes Day 7, 8 and 9. The ants that I shake violently out of my traps every morning descend on that same trap the second I put it back down and turn to walk away; at least do those that don't race up my arms and bite me anywhere and everywhere they can. I trip on the same log and slip on the same rock; I turn, twist and weave as I step away from the same trap to dodge the same low hanging branch day after day. 

At the end of it all I will pack up, clean up and go home. And I will want to turn right back around and go back to do it all over again. Why? Because I witness change; perpetual change in the landscape and among the plants and animals I work with. 

I have been working on the Koolan Island Northern Quoll for five years now, but this is the first time I have captured these animals at this time of year during this period of their breeding cycle. I am very aware, as it is commonly documented, that male quoll eat, shit, breath and sleep for sex. They literally charge around shagging themselves to death. I do feel sorry for them, but at least they are going out with a smile on their faces. But what of the females? Well, prior to this trip I had absolutely no idea how bad they have it at this time of year. Gestation, parturition and sustaining the young to weaning is a brutal process and most of them won't last to see a second breeding season. Suckling baby quoll literally suck the life right out of the mother. So, have they anything to look forward to? What is sex like for them? Not so good it would appear. In fact, it seems that sex among quoll makes Game of Thrones look tame.

I was well aware that the females took a few bites to the neck as the male makes good his attempt to hold on for the duration of his bout of 'rumpy pumpy' and the photos show the damage. But in handling and measuring the females this trip I was astounded by the damage the females sustain to their undercarriage and hind quarters caused, beyond doubt, by the males digging the claws in front and back.

Very naughty and not very nice. Damage to the neck and hindquarters

Underbelly: males are literally slicing and dicing their females during mating.

I would have thought the implications of this type of damage would have been significant at best. Open wounds from dirty claws that are dragged across the dirt as the animals moves about could easily become infected in the tropics. At the very least there is an inherent energetic and metabolic cost, not to mention and opportunity cost during healing in any animal. This all takes resources from the female that could otherwise be invested in the fitness and success of the young at birth and throughout their development whilst dependent on the mother. 

Maybe the guys need to consider winding it back a notch. I am sure their restraint would be rewarded with better progeny to carry on their lineage. 

So there you have it: ecology is as painful as childbirth, but not anywhere near as painful as sex among quoll.