Day 5 of My Adventure to the Pantanal

Speaking with My Students on The Rio Negro

Ola! This morning I worked with Manuel, the assistant investigator for the otter project. We traveled along the banks of the Rio Negro and used the Global Positioning System (GPS) to give us the coordinate position of otter sites. We collected the data of what we saw in the banks. As I mentioned earlier, we don’t expect to see many otters because of the flood. However, we still need to collect data in order to provide more evidence that the otters use the Pantanal habitat differently in the wet season than the dry season.

In the afternoon, I went back to the Rio Negro paddling a canoe with Manuel to search for otters. We went to two oxbows (lakes connected to the river). The view in the oxbows was amazing. There were beautiful flowers growing on plants floating in the water. It was windy, so it was hard to maneuver the canoe. At one point we even had to hold onto tree branches to guide the canoe. Manuel communicated with Edson (our assistant) by walkie talkie and he came to rescue us by boat. Unfortunately, once again, we did not see any signs of an otter! During this canoe trip, I was excited to call my students at Fuller Middle School. I was thrilled when I heard their voices on the phone! They asked me very interesting questions that included, “How does the flood affect your research?” and “What kind of animals are endangered in the Pantanal?”