Darting Savanna

Another of my collars (B77) has started malfunctioning. It seems to be very confused about the date and is sending me old fixes instead of new ones. Televilt (the collar company) said it is a problem with the processor and could I send it back so they can fix it? This is not as simple as it sounds, and involves a vet, a helicopter and the means to pay for those!

I was supposed to dart on Friday but Peter, the pilot, got in touch with me to say that he had to fly for the King of Spain that day, so we did it on the Thursday. Guy kindly flew for me on Wednesday to get a fix on where they were so we headed straight for that point and found a herd close by. We landed so that Rob (the vet) could load darts and we took the doors off the heli (which made the flight even better!). I checked for a VHF signal and got a strong one from in front of us. So we took off and spotted them almost immediately in a herd of around 120 individuals. We managed to spot the collared cow, Savanna, with her calf. They were close to water and quite a thick stand of crotons, so we spent some time trying to get them to run into an open area. Eventually they cooperated and Rob got a good shot off. We then circled the herd for around 20 mins but the cow showed no real signs that she was feeling the drug. This was lucky in some ways, as she got charged by an elephant whilst we were watching her. There were at least a hundred eles hanging around in various groups and some were getting a bit upset by the helicopter.

We went in again as it became apparent that the dart had somehow malfunctioned. Rob got off another good shot and she went down in 6 minutes while her calf ran off with the rest of the herd. I went in and got the collar off without problems. Peter pulled the first dart out and it discharged on his shoulder but we cleaned it up quickly. Rob thought that the tip of the needle just got clogged up with skin so that the drug could not get out. She was reversed and got up within a minute so all was well and we flew back to Maun.