Fatty the lion

Last week Shavaughn and I followed the path taken by Bambi and Chanel from the floodplains to the mopane. We sampled several sites along the Gomoti and managed to drive all the way along to the fence. Unfortunately, there was a very wet and sticky backwater there that thwarted our best attempts to get across. We had to go back upriver until we hit a road and then drive all the way around to the gate and along the fence. That lost us a couple of hours, but we made it all the way along the fence and into mopane before camping on the second night. There were a couple of sites along the route that we could not access, but we managed to sample the majority of them. The next day we sampled points that they had used in the area that they reach, on the eastern side of NG34, close to the hunting camp. We had to give up on reaching the last couple of points as they had disappeared into really thick stuff. We did manage to sample 44 sites in 3 days, which is the most that I have done so far!

We only saw one buffalo on that trip, which was a juvenile that was being eaten by the fattest young male lion that I have ever seen. As we headed for home, we came across 3 female lions and 8 cubs, just at the right time of day to be able to watch all the cubs playing, which was really delightful.

We spent one night in camp and then headed across to Chitabe the next day for another 2 nights camping. We stopped off at Chitabe to say hello and they were very interested in all our goings on. Apparently they can ID 24 leopards in their area and are working on a photo database for them, which is impressive news that I have passed onto Dog Camp.

We somehow managed to avoid any serious downpours, which was a blessing, but I have still ended up with a nasty cold.

Two more of my collared animals, again in one herd, moved across to NG43 yesterday. Shavaughn is leaving on Thursday and my next assistant (Jennifer) is arriving on the 2nd, so I will be itching to go by then.

Bambi migrates

I have not been able to do any fieldwork this week, as I have had to write my first year report and deal with immigration issues. These have now been sorted for the next 3 months.

The rains have caused two of my collared buff (in one herd) to move away from the floodplains. They walked almost 30 km in 11 hours, pretty much in a straight line, and followed the buffalo fence for some of it. They have stopped in NG34 and then split up. I have attached a map of the movement pattern in the last couple of weeks. They walked on the evening of the 12th November.

Unfortunately one of these, collar 74, which is one of the original collars, seems to be experiencing difficulties similar to those that the collar 77 had in April, when I had to take it off and send it back for repair. I have emailed the collar company to see whether there is anything that they can do, but they may well tell me the same thing as last time. Needless to say, this is not good news, but the collar does appear to have started working properly again

I will go out tomorrow for a few days and follow the path taken by the herd, sampling sites from the area that they left, all along the path that they walked and in the area where they chose to stop.

Darting Casey

Earlier this week Shavaughn and I popped up along the Gomoti to get a few samples from where my buffalo have been. It was just a day trip, but there were so many elephants up there that it took a long time to negotiate the area without upsetting any of them!

We did spend Friday out helping the guys from Dog Camp to find Casey the lion. Rob Jackson (the vet) spent two nights at Dog Camp and they wanted to dart as many animals as possible in that time to change collars from VHF to GPS. On Wednesday Rob darted Valentina the lioness and the fly camp hyaena, both of which went smoothly. I managed to find a space for Shavaughn to go along as she had not seen carnivore dartings before and I was not sure that she would get the opportunity again.

On Thursday morning Guy went to find Tory the hyaena and Rob went to join him, but she was outside the buffalo fence in very thick bush, and kept moving away from them. They got a dart off, but it must have missed her, as they did not manage to get close to her again and she did not show any signs of being affected. So they came back and Rob went to join Gabriel and Femke (carnivore researchers), who were sitting with Claire (lioness). They managed to dart her, but by then it was too late to go for the other hyaena that they had found.

Sven (leopard researcher) meanwhile had set up and baited three leopard traps, rigged up to collars set to start emitting a signal when the door fell. He was checking for a signal every hour for the whole time that Rob was here. One of the traps went off, but it turned out to be a sick lioness that we have seen around camp. Later that evening she tried to take out a honey badger, but after a bit of a scuffle, the honey badger emerged unscathed, leaving the lioness to lick her wounds. She is very thin, however, and it appears that she may die in the near future. She was therefore attracted to the baits in Sven's traps, unfortunately reducing the chances of a leopard visiting them while she was lying outside, unable to actually reach the baits.

On Friday, I radio-ed Dog Camp to see if I could help them, and Gabriel asked me to track Casey (big male lion). Sven had got a signal from him in the direction of hippo pools, so we went to find him while Gabriel and Rob had another go at Tory. They were unsuccessful again, but took a long time, so we left Casey, who had not moved, to go and have some food. When we went back to him, it was after some rain, and he had moved further from the road. We found him next to a relatively fresh elephant carcass and Rob darted him. He had several old injuries, including an infected scratch on his back and the base of his tail looked broken. He was still in good condition though, and the collar changing went smoothly. When the reversal was injected, Gabriel checked for Athena, one of the hyaenas, who turned out to be close by. Rob and I kept an eye on Casey and Gabriel went to find Athena. Rob was able to dart her as well, which was good news. Casey was recovering about 100 m from the carcass, which was attracting a whole clan of hyaenas, but he was quite alert by the time we left him and Rob was happy that he would be ok.

Lots of herds on the Gomoti

On Monday when I checked on the positions of my satellite collared buffalo, I realised that several of them were in areas that were relatively easy to access, along the Gomoti. I first headed south of MTC on our side of the channel to look for Nokya. I tried to go along the edge of the floodplains but was turned back by the water, which is still very high despite having dropped considerably recently. I have been told that my reports are less exciting than they used to be, but I am afraid that I will still avoid getting stuck if possible even if that means a little less adventure!

We found another road going around and managed to upset a few daggaboys, one of which had very pointy horns, but they left us alone after a while. I got a strong signal from Nokya, unfortunately it was coming from the other side of a sizeable channel. I found a nice sandbar in one place, but the approach to the other bank was very muddy and headed straight into trees, so I had to give up.

We drove up past MTC and headed for the Gomoti crossing, as the other herds were on the other side of the channel. We crossed without problems and headed off downstream to the GPS point that I had for the herd on that side (Bambi). We bumped into another herd of around 80 (including some rather ugly cows) shortly after crossing, so we counted them and collected faecal samples. I then checked for any collars and got a very strong signal from B6 coming from the other side of the riparian belt we were next to. So we pottered around and found another 200 - 300 buff, which we also counted. We then continued down and bumped into another herd of 150 - 200, which were very relaxed and co-operative, all walking slowly past a bush so I could count them properly. We left them and continued south. I spotted a bull poking his nose out from the riparian woodland next to a few very large elephants, and that is where we found yet another herd, this one with Bambi and B3 in it, of around 400 - 500 animals. They were all resting up but moved away after we watched them for a while. I collected some faecal samples and came back out onto the floodplains, only to find the herd about the cross the channel. They started off slowly, but quickly picked up speed and started running across my field of vision. I missed quite a few of them but was able to collect data from a decent number of individuals.

All in all, it was a great day filled with buffalo and faecal samples. When we got back, Kevin had been out flying the microlight and confirmed that there were lots of buffalo on the Gomoti, having seen several other herds that I hadn't. They seem to be coming together to form large herds in similar areas, possibly as the floodplains dry up and forage becomes scarcer, forcing them to utilise the same areas.

Before we went out buffalo counting on Monday, we were treated to Matthew's pack of wild dogs coming into the water hole in front of camp, so we sat for a while and watched the pups playing and stalking guinea fowl. A successful cheetah darting took place on Monday as well, adding a new female to the collared population. I believe that she is currently up by Black Pools. Another group of cheetah was seen on the same day, which consisted of one adult female with 3 almost fully grown cubs - two males and a female I think.

When I was in town I was talking to a couple of the guys working for Earth Touch, filming lions in Moremi. The Xaxanaka pride has apparently just taken down their third elephant in the last few weeks. It was not fully grown but was apparently a decent size. They were not sure about the age of the others. One of the film makers was speculating that they are turning to elephants because the buffalo herds have moved off, but none of my collared animals use that area, so I do not know about the movements of the buff herds there, though it would be interesting to look at that area in the future.