I had originally planned to collar my buffalo today and tomorrow, but Larry Patterson (the vet) and Peter Perlstein (the helicopter pilot) finished their previous job in Caprivi earlier than expected. So they came through yesterday morning and we managed to get all the collars out by 1pm yesterday.
I put three collars onto females close to Black Pools, one at the south west corner of NG31 and the other two in NG32. I had obtained consent from all the concessionnaires prior to this, and warned the camps of my plans.
We had a bit of an issue with the darts breaking off on impact with the buffalo, which meant that we used more than twice as many darts as we should have needed. I had budgeted for 5 hours of chopper time and 2 days of vet fees, and I estimate we flew for a maximum of 3 hours with only one day of vet fees, so I should be well within my budget, which is a relief!
We had a funny instance when a dart broke off but the cow had received most of the dose. The bulls she was with were pushing her along, but she eventually lay down. Larry got out to shoot her again for a top-up when she got up and started trotting after the bulls. Larry ran after her to get a good shot, but she noticed him after a short distance and turned to start chasing him. Luckily Peter and I were still in the chopper so we were able to turn her away before she caught up with Larry, but he definitely demonstrated the reason that you do not run after buffalo, even semi-doped ones!!
I have had fixes from the collars this morning. Some of them have moved only a couple of kilometres. One moved 13.2 km and was at South Gate at 5 am. Another has moved 18.3 km and has joined up with another collared one in a larger herd. So even at this early stage the data are very interesting.
