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.