After 12 weeks at CRES it is time for me to say ” Adios” and continue my education. Being a summer fellow has been an invaluable experience. Beyond what I have learned conducting my own research with cheetahs and Gabriella’s crested gibbons (see Sagan’s blog, Cheetah Chirps and Gibbon Duets), I have taken in information about all the projects going on around me. It is incredibly exciting to be surrounded by so much great research that is being carried out by people who are truly passionate about what they do. If nothing else, this summer has me excited for the possibilities that lay ahead”¦and there are many!

Over the summer, we have made a lot of headway in developing our understanding of cheetah and gibbon vocalizations. Now, as I leave, I am preparing the information I have collected for publication and use for ongoing projects.

We have used the cheetah vocalizations I recorded earlier in the summer to create a basic ” dictionary” or vocal repertoire (see Sagan’s blog, Cheetah Dictionary). This is an important first step in achieving some larger goals. In the future, CRES researchers aim to better understand the meaning of these vocalizations by documenting their behavioral context. We can then learn what these vocalizations tell us about how cheetahs perceive their environment and one another by playing the vocalizations back and seeing how they react. Most importantly, we hope that the sounds cheetahs make can tell us when they are ready to mate. Ultimately, this information will be applied to improve captive breeding efforts and cheetah conservation.

The recorded duets from Gabriella’s crested gibbons will be used to look at long-term changes in the complexity of duets in an effort to better understand how these songs reflect the quality of their bond. Recordings from the gibbon family at the Wild Animal Park will then be compared to the Gabriella’s crested gibbons living at the San Diego Zoo and eventually to those in the wild to fully examine the variability of their vocalizations. Ultimately, these studies will help us to understand what factors are contributing to their monogamous bond and therefore help to increase captive breeding success.

Overall, it has been a productive summer in both contributing to CRES research and in improving upon my own research skills. In the fall, I will be using the skills I have acquired at CRES while working towards a master’s degree in primate conservation at Oxford Brookes University in England.

Sagan Friant was a Summer Fellow with the Behavioral Biology Division of CRES.

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