Antsy in Madagascar

In the bleak hour before dawn in southeastern Madagascar, biologist Brian Fisher and a team of five field assistants stand outside a grand, but at this moment lifeless, French colonial railroad station. The passenger train will not be running today, due to some quirk of developing-world travel. When the first railroad workers arrive, Fisher consults with them in French and Malagasy, pointing to a roadless site on a topographic map. A few hours later, suitable friendships having been formed, a freight train squeals to a stop at a rendezvous outside of town, a plume of steam drifting back from the locomotive. Fisher and his crew pile tents, machetes, headlamps, mesh sacks, pan traps, cookware, and a basket of live chickens into an empty boxcar, which carries them thumpeta-thumpeta out into the hills. Or rather, THUMPeta-THUMP-eta. These battered old boxcars have no springs. Hanging out the open door, Fisher cannot help ...