Darting and collaring nine cows

I have been preparing to dart and collar nine additional cows, so I arranged for Larry (vet) and Peter (helicopter pilot) to go darting on Monday evening and Tuesday morning this week. Guy kindly agreed to fly for me beforehand to save on chopper time, which is really quite expensive. Guy spotted several herds for me on Monday evening, when we were concentrating along the Santantadibe. We collared 4 cows in less than 2 hours of chopper flying time. All went well, and we put two satellite collars on and two store on board collars on.

We flew back to HQ to spend the evening. Larry and Peter were quick to partake of the pool and we spent a very pleasant evening chatting. Some lions came down to the pan as well.

The next morning, Guy flew for us again and found 2 more herds along the Gomoti. We were able to put 5 store on board collars onto cows in 4 different herds. Again, everything went well and we were finished relatively quickly. We were able to take Shavaughn up for the last collar, which she enjoyed very much. The longest period from the dart going in to the buffalo being up and fully mobile was 16 minutes.

This morning we were woken up by lion cubs calling outside our houses, which was rather a nice way to wake. They caused havoc in the workshop and carried a rag away with them.

Shavaughn and I are going across to the Chitabe area for a few nights from tomorrow and will hopefully collect a substantial amount of data from the three collared animals on the Gomoti side.