I apologise for my recent lack of communication. I have been finishing up fieldwork, removing collars and organising grass samples to start analysis, as well as fitting in a couple of weeks leave.
In July, I organised for a sponsor to come out and help to remove collars from buffalo. Everything went smoothly, but actually spotting the collared animals in amongst several hundred and then getting them into position to hit the buffalo from the helicopter took a bit longer than anticipated, so we had to give up after two animals, having already gone over the sponsor's budget.
When I returned from my leave in Madagascar (where we saw 15 species of lemurs and lots of chameleons), I organised with Dane, a vet who visits every few months to dart cheaply, to remove the collar from a cow close to camp. For the 5 months before the darting date she was in open areas, so of course the night before we got to camp she missioned down into thick riparian woodland, interspersed with flooded areas. We reached the herd around 11:00 and spent the next 4 hours driving around the herd, trying to move them into more open areas, whilst not having a clue exactly where the collared animal was.
The buffalo got quite used to us, and we were able to shift them without scaring them too much, and indeed we were driving within 20 m of them without them moving off. At one point a cow was lying down 12 m from us, but of course she was completely naked and collarless. After 4 hours, I suddenly spotted the collar through the mopane leaves, and we managed to keep her within sight as I pushed them towards the open and even managed to split the herd so that she was with only a dozen other animals, including her calf. We then tried to get into a position to dart them, but they were a bit skittish and my car was overheating from all the sage. I had to stop to clean the radiator, and then we lost them for 20 minutes, by which time it was 16:30 and the sun was definitely heading for the horizon. After much swearing on my part, we found them again. They were relaxed and we just managed to drive around to a point that Dane could fire a dart into the collared cow. After that it all went very smoothly, and I stopped swearing. We removed the collar and sent her on her way.
I now have one collar left out, but the cow wearing it is fairly tiresome and seems to be determined to walk all the way around the Delta, making it difficult for me to get to her by vehicle, and expensive to reach her by helicopter - she has been about 100 km from Maun for the last couple of months.
After the darting, I went out to complete my grass sampling, alone because my assistant left in July. It was harder work alone, but quite relaxing and I definitely enjoyed pootling around on my own and enjoying the bush.
In July, I organised for a sponsor to come out and help to remove collars from buffalo. Everything went smoothly, but actually spotting the collared animals in amongst several hundred and then getting them into position to hit the buffalo from the helicopter took a bit longer than anticipated, so we had to give up after two animals, having already gone over the sponsor's budget.
When I returned from my leave in Madagascar (where we saw 15 species of lemurs and lots of chameleons), I organised with Dane, a vet who visits every few months to dart cheaply, to remove the collar from a cow close to camp. For the 5 months before the darting date she was in open areas, so of course the night before we got to camp she missioned down into thick riparian woodland, interspersed with flooded areas. We reached the herd around 11:00 and spent the next 4 hours driving around the herd, trying to move them into more open areas, whilst not having a clue exactly where the collared animal was.
The buffalo got quite used to us, and we were able to shift them without scaring them too much, and indeed we were driving within 20 m of them without them moving off. At one point a cow was lying down 12 m from us, but of course she was completely naked and collarless. After 4 hours, I suddenly spotted the collar through the mopane leaves, and we managed to keep her within sight as I pushed them towards the open and even managed to split the herd so that she was with only a dozen other animals, including her calf. We then tried to get into a position to dart them, but they were a bit skittish and my car was overheating from all the sage. I had to stop to clean the radiator, and then we lost them for 20 minutes, by which time it was 16:30 and the sun was definitely heading for the horizon. After much swearing on my part, we found them again. They were relaxed and we just managed to drive around to a point that Dane could fire a dart into the collared cow. After that it all went very smoothly, and I stopped swearing. We removed the collar and sent her on her way.
I now have one collar left out, but the cow wearing it is fairly tiresome and seems to be determined to walk all the way around the Delta, making it difficult for me to get to her by vehicle, and expensive to reach her by helicopter - she has been about 100 km from Maun for the last couple of months.
After the darting, I went out to complete my grass sampling, alone because my assistant left in July. It was harder work alone, but quite relaxing and I definitely enjoyed pootling around on my own and enjoying the bush.
I have since moved to Maun for the last phase of my time in Botswana - analysing samples in the lab. I have managed to organise all of the samples and am now getting down to the actual analysis. I still plan to come out to the bush some weekends, and am trying to maximise my last few months here before I reluctantly have to go back to the UK in November.
