There he silently scanned the canopy for brown capuchin monkeys and raccoonlike coatis, while his dog sniffed the ground for the scent of piglike peccaries or reddish brown capybaras. Nate left before dawn on this day in January with his rifle and machete to get an early start on the two-hour trek to the old-growth forest. “The children are sad when there is no meat,” Maito says through an interpreter, as she swats away mosquitoes.
With an infant girl nursing at her breast and a seven-year-old boy tugging at her sleeve, she looks spent when she tells me that she hopes her husband, Deonicio Nate, will bring home meat tonight.
