Colo-I-Suva

 

On the outskirts of Suva is a protected park called Colo-I-Suva. It has a lot of walks through the forest as well as water pools to swim in for both locals and tourists. There is a healthy sized population of Pacific Flying Foxes in this park however the site of the camp has been moving around recently. A local ranger with over 20 years experience helped me locate the current site and set up the plastic sheets one afternoon. It was well off the beaten track so we had to meticulously mark the path there so we could find it again. 

 

There was some rain overnight but all 3 sheets had lots of faecal samples with fresh urine samples still being dropped during the collection. Not all bats returned from the previous night's foraging which seems to be their behaviour at the moment the ranger advised. There is a lot of infrastructure work occurring to upgrade access to the pools however there are no plans (that were shared) to involve the rainforest which the bats currently live in. Hopefully this remains the case. 

I am almost at the end of fieldwork with lots of weather delays but hopefully there is one more site before I get on the plane!!