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.