Last week, Roz and I went down to the Makgadikgadi to help a colleague, James Bradley, with zebra darting. We were slightly dubious, as the pans are notoriously sticky after rain, and the rain had certainly come down there. We had to drive through a puddle several hundred metres long just to get to the research camp, which was slightly overgrown. As we were offloading, James narrowly avoided stepping on a puff adder that was hidden in the long grass.
We started the next morning, driving several kilometres off-road in the national park to get to where several hundred zebra and wildebeest were grazing. We managed to dart all five zebra that day, with only a couple of hours spent watching James drive in circles around recalcitrant zebra before moving onto a more tractable herd. We were all very pleased with the success, no darts missed and most animals were darted from around 50 m.
It was very pleasant to be in a different area, and the pans were beautiful with water in them and green grass all around. We did get stuck once, but we were out fairly quickly, and we even drove across a wet, muddy pan without getting stuck, although the car did get covered in the mud that was flying out from under my tyres!
We started the next morning, driving several kilometres off-road in the national park to get to where several hundred zebra and wildebeest were grazing. We managed to dart all five zebra that day, with only a couple of hours spent watching James drive in circles around recalcitrant zebra before moving onto a more tractable herd. We were all very pleased with the success, no darts missed and most animals were darted from around 50 m.
It was very pleasant to be in a different area, and the pans were beautiful with water in them and green grass all around. We did get stuck once, but we were out fairly quickly, and we even drove across a wet, muddy pan without getting stuck, although the car did get covered in the mud that was flying out from under my tyres!
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