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I arrived here last
Monday at the Chudleigh-Lilydale Royal Tasmanian Primatological
Observatory deep in the heart of north-central Tasmania and I've
been hard at work writing my “Report from the Field” ever
since. Tasmania is not exactly just around the corner, so it took
me a while to get here, and my trip was not without incident. Although
Tasmanians are as a rule very friendly, they are not very good drivers,
and I had a number of collisions to contend with. My bumper
fell off, my drive shaft was damaged, and I lost all my hubcaps
before I even got to Mole Creek, but when I finally got here, the
venerable Drs. Mawbanna Waddamana and Basil Smith were waiting for
me with a mug of hot, steaming, black Tasmanian tea. For several
hours, while the Observatory staff struggled with my suitcases,
the two contentious scientists argued about who had originally devised
the Dendrochondrial Split Gene Mapping and Protein Rearray test
proving that orangutans and tarsiers are actually close relatives.
Then I was escorted to nearby guest quarters for the night
and my car was towed to a local garage by a couple of camels.
On Tuesday the huge
36" optical telescope that is the pride of Chudleigh-Lilydale
was made available to me for a whole hour, and I approached it with
some trepidation, grasping the well-worn controls and aiming it
out into the surrounding area to see if I could spot any primates.
Unfortunately, most scientists agree that there are no primates
on Tasmania, so it would appear in retrospect to have been a rather
poor place to establish a primatological observatory, and all I
was able to see was a pair of scruffy Tasmanian devils lounging
on a distant hillside. I had hoped to interview Drs. Waddamana
and Smith, but their noisy bickering and wrangling continued on
Wednesday and Thursday, finally reaching a climax on Friday over
whose idea it had been to locate in Tasmania in the first place.
By this time they were at each other's throats and had several times
almost come to blows, and the Observatory staff suggested obliquely
that it might be a good idea for me to leave. They were kind
enough to help me get my suitcases in the car and gave me a good
push, and my last sight as I was coasting down the hill was of the
two old curmudgeons rolling around on the dusty ground and attempting
to strangle one another.
That's about it
for this issue. Pretty disappointing, huh? Not what I'd expected.
Anyway, next time I'll have my car inspected and try to make it
to Nosy-Varinda Nature Reserve on Madagascar to meet Professor Ambato
Ambilobe. So until then, I'll just say “So long.
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