Dispatches From The Field

1 June 2003 -- Po-Hon Liu (Boris)

Today is my third day in Antananarivo and another sunny day as well. We are heading to Crocodile Farm. I was looking forward to seeing my first fossas there. It is more than exciting because this will be my first non-pictorial fossa encounter before Ankarafantsika National Park.

Before seeing fossa, the first thing that came into my sight was a lemur. A farm ranger was pointing upward to the tree and showing us the black-and white ruffed lemur. This is one of the most amazing species in the world. It curled up its body, sat between twigs and looked at me without any fear (they probably get used to hundred of visitors every day). Somehow, the lemur did not distract me too much since I desperately couldn’t wait to see fossa, the species that I flew across the Atlantic Ocean to study.

I saw three immature fossas (about 8 months) in the cage. They have brown hair, mongoose- and panther-mixed faces, big round eyes, and are about a meter in length. They are curious and also swift. Whenever I stick my finger onto the net, they will approach my finger and smell it or taste it. I was able to see and photograph many birds, reptiles, and crocodiles as well. I was thinking that I am so lucky to join the fossa team this summer and possibly learning more about these incredible and rare animals.

Just as I was thinking how the fossa reminds me of the clouded leopard, now extinct in my home country of Taiwan, I heard familiar sounding voices. There was a family having their lunch and they spoke Chinese Fu-Jen dialect, a language used in Fu-Jen province of China and Taiwan. I approached them and asked them if they are Taiwanese; they said they were from Fu-Jen, China and they are the second generation of Chinese Malagasy. This is another unexpected experience to me in Madagascar since I still meet people speaking my home language after crossing three Continents (Asia, America, and Africa). Before I left Crocodile Farm, I said zai-jen (meaning “good-bye” in Chinese) to them, and thought what a small world this is.