Me & IBAMA Out in the Field

My day with IBAMA (and it was a good day!)

While doing fieldwork in Fortim, I received a phone call from my contact at the IBAMA (Brazil Environment Department) office in Fortaleza. She said she was coming to Fortim and wanted to organize spending a day in the field with me. I was slightly nervous, what if I don’t find any seahorses while she’s with me? Will she think I’m not qualified? What if she doesn’t like my research metods….will she delay my permit even more? Will she think I need to add more safety precautions into my work? I mean some days I just swim to the other side of the river, about a 10 minute swim. Since she is coming do I need to try to organize a boat? Will she get in the water? Ay, ay ay!

When we met up in Fortim, I was surprised to see that it was not only her, but also another guy I had met named Livio, and an intern. Wow! Three quote unquote official IBAMA people, meeting with me. This is crazy. They told me that there was a guy requesting a permit to fish for seahorses who lived in Fortim and so we all got into the IBAMA-mobile to go hunt him down. After driving around this small town, and for me experiencing the hilarity of how everyone hides from the IBAMA-mobile for fear that they will be questioned, we finally found our man. (Although one person when we were trying to ask for directions literally ran inside the house and shut the door, refusing to talk to us….hmmm I wonder what activities he was up to…)

Anyway Mr. Seahorse Fishermen, arranged a boat for us to go out on for the day, and I began a fun-filled day of fieldwork with the IBAMA crew. Livio got in the water and helped me to transects, while the intern and my official contact, remained on the boat. It was also a little funny, because the Official, brought a life jacket, and she wore it. On this tiny little boat, at low tide, in a river that got maybe 4 feet deep at low tide. I tried to stifle my chuckles as best I could. The first day, sadly, we found no seahorses.

The second day, we went out my motorized boat, to a location farther away and low and behold, I spotted a juvenile! Hidden in the mud and oysters. Whew! What a sigh of relief. I was able to show the crew from IBAMA how I do research in the field and everyone was on board! They started calling me the seahorse champion for finding the juvenile seahorse on the second day. A great experience for all and my first successful collaboration with IBAMA! Hopefully more to come!