Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, Peru

I spent 38 days travelling Peru from June – July 2010. I spent 23 days of this time working to deliver my undergraduate research in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest. Living on a research vessel - the Lobo de Rio, or "river otter" - in the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, I worked in multicultural teams (comprising myself, three fellow students, one Peruvian biologist and a Peruvian research assistant) to perform diurnal and nocturnal visual encounter surveys of frogs along 10 transects in aquatic and terrestrial habitats.

The Wildlife

The rich diversity of terrestrial and aquatic habitats in the Pacaya-Samiria area support an abundance of wildlife. In just 23 days, I personally encountered over 450 frogs comprising 25 different species! I was also lucky enough to witness a number of primate species, including quirrel, howler and spider monkeys, capuchins and tamarins. One day revealed a couple of capybara drinking wearily from the river and diversity of birds, such as kingfishers, macaws, toucan and hoatzin were often spotted flying overhead or perched on low lying branches by the river. Pirhanas and caiman also became a regular site as I travelled the river after dusk searching for frogs by torchlight.

By the end of my stay in the forest, pink river dolphins had become another (albeit beautiful) part of the landscape and I was also lucky enough to witness a family of Giant River Otters while accompanying one of my classmates to conduct her research. It only took an hour of travel in a small motorised boat before we came into contact with these majestic creatures.

Ecology

The Amazonian forests of Loreto reside in the western Amazon basin in which the largest protected area, covering 2,080,000ha, in Peru is located: the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve. The two largest tributaries of the Amazon - the Ucayali and the Maranon - form the boundaries to the reserve. With their headwaters originating principally from the Maranon and Ucayali respectively, the Pacaya and the Samiria Rivers serve as two major drainage basins. The Samiria River basin is the reserve's largest geological feature. There is no wet or dry season in this area of the Amazon but, instead, the local ecology is characterised by fluctuations in water levels, ranging from large scale flooding during the summer months (October to May; high water season) to the low water period throughout the winter months (June to September; low water season). The Pacaya-Samiria area is classified as moist tropical forest, and white water flooded forests, known as "Varzea" in Amazonia, constitute approximately 92% of the reserve.