Earlier this week one of my collared cows, Lasanya, was on the Gomoti in a location that I knew would be accessible. She was on the other side of a main channel, but we could see the herd very well from the Moremi side. It worked out better than us following them as they seemed to feel less flighty with a decent volume of water between us and them. The first herd we found I estimated to be between 400-500 animals and I got data on age/sex/body condition for 247 individuals. The signal from the collar was coming from further north, so we continued and found another herd of a similar size, where I got data for 265 individuals. Earlier that animal was in a larger herd that was probably these two combined. We continued along the Gomoti to see if there were any other herds in the area and found a small herd of around 70 animals, and I managed to get data from almost all of them.
Lasanya then crossed to Black Pools, which is fairly inaccessible by vehicle (we tried unsuccessfully) and spent a few days in that area before crossing the land tongue again back to the Gomoti and heading north. A couple of days ago we followed the route that she took and got vegetation samples from the sites that she used.
Lasanya and Nokya are currently in the northern part of the Gomoti. Chanel is still further up to the west of Mboma. Bianca is on the Santantadibe, not too far from the buffalo fence.
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