End of Fieldwork

Last week, I finally managed to remove the collar from my last buffalo, Valkyrie. I found out that Peter Perlstein (the helicopter pilot) and Larry Patterson (the vet) were both flying from Maun to King's Pool on the 3rd September to dart elephants. This took them right past my last cow, so I arranged for a quick detour and drove up to meet them at Khwai airstrip.

I am not very familiar with the Khwai area, and had no idea what to expect in terms of water. The first crossing was fine, just a small dip where the bonnet went under. The roads had clearly changed from the ones that were on my GPS, but I could hear planes at the airstrip, so I followed roads that went in the right direction. I reached a crossing that looked sandy and pretty well used, so I decided to walk it just to see how deep it got. It reached my armpits, but only for a brief dip so I risked it. It turned out to be quite a lot deeper than I had hoped, but we made it through with only shallow puddles in the footwells and a heavily thumping heart. I was about an hour early for my rendezvous with the helicopter, so I decided to try and find a better way out, as well as checking for a signal from the collar. I managed to find both, and made it back to the strip with plenty of time to spare, so I turned off my engine and waited.

Peter came in and landed at the other end of the strip, but when I went to start my engine, the starter motor just laughed silently at me. I always carry a spare, so I quickly swapped them round, then drove quickly to Peter, who had by now been waiting for about 15 minutes. He had obtained a fix from only a couple of hours before, so we flew to that fix, less than 4 km from the strip, and found the herd very easily. We spotted the collar quite quickly and separated the cow off from most of the herd, then pushed them into an open area where we could dart. Removing the collar took only a few minutes and she was up in no time. I saw that she had an old wound on her back that was not there when we darted her in January, so at some point in the last few months a lion must have tried his luck with her. However, as we all know, buffalo are tough and I have no doubt that she taught that lion a good lesson!

So for now, my fieldwork is done. I have no more collared buffalo to follow, which is a very sad state of affairs, but one that was inevitable. I am still going to be going into the bush most weekends for the next couple of months, so I will let you know if I have any more exciting adventures!

Removing collars

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.

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.

Khwai

Last week, Roz and I collected some samples from both Valkyrie and Jezebel. Valkyrie chose a relatively dry area of Khwai to use, which made me rather happy. We used the eastern boundary road for Moremi, which I had not driven up before, and was mostly fine, except for some very bumpy sections that must have been a nightmare in the rainy season. Valkyrie had moved back into NG41 by this time, so we did not find any buffalo, although we did bump into several waterbuck, which was lovely as I do not get to see them very often.

At one of the points that I wanted to sample, we found a large bull elephant resting in the shade. We left that point for a couple of hours in the hope that he would move on. By the time we went back, he had only moved as far as the next tree, but looked like he might move further, so I drove away to wait for him to move on under a tree. Unfortunately it turned out that the tree I had selected was also his next target, because the next I knew was Roz saying he's here, and there he emerged from the bushes, mere metres away. It was too late to move away, and my car was not starting on the first try, so I just decided to sit and wait. He was after the camelthorn pods and when he had scooped up the ones that were already on the ground, he shook the tree for more. As he picked them up delicately one by one, he stared at us from just a few metres away. After about ten minutes, he moved on to the next tree and we went back to sample the site.

Despite a bit of waiting, we managed to get everything done in time to get back to camp that night, and then sampled a few sites used by Jezebel the next day. On the way back from Khwai, my accelerator had become stuck and was progressively getting worse, but Moses had a look at it and made a plan with something he found in the workshop. His plan stopped the accelerator sticking, but created another problem, but that was fixed this week.

I flew up to Kasane this week to give a talk to the heads of primary schools in Botswana. It was lovely to go somewhere new, and they covered all of my expenses, including a cruise on the river. I thoroughly enjoyed watching elephants chasing baboons on the bank, as for once their trumpets were not directed at me!

Hippo Pools

Last week, Roz and I went to sample from the route that Jezebel took from her wet season home range to the flood season area. On the first day, we set out and bumped into a herd of buffalo just in front of HQ, so we got some population dynamics data from them, then continued down to Kazikini, where we sampled from the area that Jezebel had been using prior to the long distance movement. We then headed back towards HQ, but spotted a cheetah lying on the main Moremi road. We realised that there were three cheetah there - a mother and two cubs. We radio-ed Dog Camp, and they were preparing to come out and try to dart the mother, but the cheetah were in fairly dense mopane and I unfortunately lost them before the guys from Dog Camp could reach me.

The next day, we sampled further along the route, which went up to Hippo Pools, where we found another herd of buff. The area is fairly wet, so I wanted to see whether it was still possible to get to the Gomoti, or whether it was completely inaccessible. After a small amount of battling to get around water and palm scrub, we found our way around and were able to get to the channel, which is very impressive. Jezebel has since returned to the Gomoti, so being able to reach it will be useful! We came across a secretary bird trying to get comfortable in a tree.

The last day of sampling was along the Mogogelo drainage road, in the hunting area, where we managed to spot two eland running off into the bushes. We finished and were back in camp by lunchtime, after which a collared zebra was called in, keeping an eye on 6 lions eating a warthog. Hattie, the zebra researcher, was preparing to come out and dart the zebra, but they got a bit freaked out, especially after they ran into two leopards whilst evading the lions. They ran off, and Gabriel could not keep up with them, so that was another aborted darting.

Tomorrow, I am heading up to Khwai, which is where Valkyrie has been for the last few days. I have no idea what to expect in terms of flooding, but I hope to be able to access some sites at least!

Floods!

I realise that it has been quite a long time since my last blog. This is because I have been severely hampered by large amounts of water, both in the form of late rains and high floods. The heaviest rains fell at the end of April, filling all the pans and stimulating a new growth of annual grasses, causing the buffalo herds to stay in their wet season home range until the last couple of weeks. We have had several herds in the vicinity of my camp, but only last week did a collared animal, Jezebel, come our way. I recorded population dynamics from her herd of about 300 animals last week, but as yet she has made only one trip to floodplains that used to be grassland but have been flooded for several weeks now.

Of my other collared animals, Lilith's collar has been misbehaving for a month now, but has just started sending through occasional fixes again, so I have not entirely lost hope. However, she is on the edge of Chief's Island, and there is absolutely no way for me to drive anywhere near her. Pandora is currently taking refuge on a small island on the Boro, since her usual home range has been subjected to very high water levels - again, I cannot get to her. The last cow, Valkyrie, has been close to Mababe for the vast majority of the wet season. She has recently left the area, and has not gone to Savute as I feared. However, she is currently on the Khwai river, which was not supposed to be in my study area, and I do not know how flooded it is up there, but will soon go to try and find her.

However, as usual, my vehicle has started struggling, so I am waiting for a verdict and quote on repairs. Of course, I am coming to the end of my fieldwork, but I still need the vehicle for a few more months, and need to be able to sell it for a decent price, as I am relying on proceeds from its sale to support me for a while in the UK during the write-up.

The hydrological difficulties have meant that I have had a lot of time to read scientific articles and think about how to analyse all my data. I have also finished the first draft of my methodology chapter and am waiting for comments from my supervisor.

I will let you know if I manage to do some fieldwork!

Darting zebra in the Makgadikgadi

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!

Emily to the rescue!

The end of March was supposed to be the end of the rainy season, according to my protocol, but of course the weather rarely cooperates with researchers! It feels like we have had more rain in the last couple of weeks than in the rest of the rainy season put together. The other night it rained for 6 hours, but luckily I managed to find enough containers to catch the two bucketfuls of rainwater that leaked through my roof!

On Thursday, Sven answered a radio call from Michelle, who was stuck just off the Moremi cutline. A couple of hours later, I answered a radio call from Sven, who was stuck just off the Moremi cutline. I borrowed one of Rodney's cruisers, with functioning winch, and went out to the rescue. We managed to pull Sven's cruiser out using the winch, then manoeuvred ourselves into position to reach Michelle's vehicle without getting anyone else bogged down. Sven and I agreed to use both cruisers to pull the TDi out, as it was sunken in fairly deeply. With two cruisers pulling, the TDi popped out very quickly, and we were soon on our merry way. We headed for the driest route back, via Jackal Pan, and arrived there just in time to see at least 100 elephants making their way across the pan. They took a while, so we turned and headed down the inside cutline, where an African wild cat bounded in front of the car.

Roz and I went out quickly on Sunday morning to sample from the last two sites for the wet season, which were very close to roads, which was lucky since all the pans are fuller than they have been all season and the ground off-road is generally quite wet.

Yesterday morning, Michelle and Kelly came across a hyaena and cub, which promptly bolted into a hole nearby, which turned out to be a hyaena den. We went back there yesterday evening to check it out and saw 3 adults coming up to the den. One of them was collared, but we failed to pick up a signal, so the collar might have gone down. As we were leaving, a youngster came up, with a brown body but a spotted neck, and lay at the entrance to the den. We moved off shortly after, and had a little night drive on the way back, seeing another hyaena, three wild cat and a total of 15 chameleons!

I am off to Maun this afternoon to prepare to go down to the Makgadikgadi salt pans tomorrow to help a colleague with zebra darting.