Rising waters

The highly unusual rainfall that we had a couple of weeks ago, with close to 90 mm falling in 3 days, disrupted my planned fieldwork somewhat, since I had to give the ground time to dry up before driving off-road. Once it had stopped, I got a couple of reports of buffalo herds which I found to record age, sex and body condition. Once I had recorded the age and sex of most of the second herd, numbering around 400, I went in to collect faecal samples. The herd was still fairly close, so I was leaning out of the car to pick them up. I then spotted a lone cow on the other side of my vehicle to the main herd, looking rather upset. I saw movement, and realised that there was a very small calf next to her. I moved out of the way so that she could rejoin the herd, but she moved back towards her calf. I kept going, collecting faeces, only to see the cow again, looking very agitated. She charged towards my vehicle and veered off at the last minute, but then decided she had had enough, and put her head down, connecting with my car on the back right hand corner, where I now have some extra dents. I moved out of her way quickly, and saw that she still had afterbirth coming out of her, so she must have been giving birth whilst I was counting the herd. She rejoined the herd, and brought the tiny calf over, at which point several other animals came to greet the new arrival. I got the last couple of samples and moved off quickly to avoid disturbing them any more.

On Wednesday last week, Janette and I went out to collect data from Bongolo, one of the collared cows that has been hanging out on the Boro. When we reached the Thamalakane, we found a BDF truck that had managed to drive off the admittedly narrow bridge there. We were roped into assisting them, and lending them my highlift jack, which fortunately allowed them to free themselves after only an hour and a half. They went off to rescue another vehicle that had gotten stuck.

We made our way along the road that we usually take, which is barely visible and very little used, until we found it to be flooded. We cut inland to some other points that needed to be sampled, making our way around flooded areas on the way. As we were finishing with one point, I tried to start the car and the starter motor seized. I swapped it for the spare, but that one just whizzed in a very un-reassuring manner, so I took the first one apart, sprayed some lubricant, and put it back in. Luckily that did it and the car started, but by that time it was starting to get dark so we camped there. There were lions calling all night, but they seemed to be staying in mostly the same place the whole time. The next morning we headed further north, but soon came across long stretches of flood water. The road was sandy, so we drove through, but were thwarted by yet more water and had to give up on samples on the other side. We spent the rest of the day mostly being stumped by floodwater, where 2 weeks previously it had been bone dry, and was now up to my waist with a strong flow. As we were making our last attempt to get to sample points, we came across water yet again and were about to turn around, when Janette spotted something moving in front of us, which turned out to be a pangolin! We got a few pictures of it then let it go on its merry way.

We drove back to the Thamalakane, only to find that in 30 hours it had risen from the top of our wheels to being well over the bonnet. If the water continues to rise, I will not be able to cross that river, and my herd will become inaccessible. However, I am hoping to put out 5 more collars at the end of next week, which will help with finding sample points that I can reach.

Island hopping in Chitabe

I came back yesterday from 3 days of fieldwork. Bambi crossed from our side of the Gomoti across towards Chitabe, then walked northwest so we went after her to sample the sites that she used along the way. There were several in the middle of the Gomoti that were inaccessible, and the Gomoti itself is far too high to cross, so we drove all the way down and up through Morutshe gate and NG32.

We picked our way around the flooded areas and got to several sites along the Gomoti in the very top of NG32 then followed the edge of the floodplains further north. The herd seemed to have walked along the edge of the land, so we were able to access most of the points along the way. Once we reached the top of the main land mass, I walked a crossing that I used last year and knew to be sandy. It almost came up to my waist, but given that I am quite short, this meant that it was still shallow enough to cross and the bottom was very stable, so we drove across, with just a dip that went over the bonnet. I expected the other side to be mostly flooded, but was pleasantly surprised that we were able to drive around fairly happily, with just a couple of muddy patches that I don't think anyone other than me noticed.

We found ourselves thwarted by a large floodplain at one stage, but managed to find a way around it and cross the channel at a narrow point, where buff had crossed, which was also lovely and sandy. We made our way from island to island, hopping channels and driving across mostly dry floodplains, sampling several points on the way and only upsetting a few hippo. However, we reached a point where things started to get a little wet, so we decided to call it a day and head back south. We spotted a small herd of buff on the way, but they were across a large floodplain, so we just got a quick count. We did not pick up any signals from my collared animals, but Bambi had just kept moving north, so that was not unexpected.

We stopped off at Chitabe on the way down, where they kindly invited us to spend the night, which was very pleasant. They have been making ID kits of the leopard in their area, and have 21 individuals identified with photographs, as well as rough territories from the roads that they have been seen on. They had some interesting information about one of their males babysitting cubs for several hours, which I had not heard of before. The next day we continued back to camp, going all the way around again. We sampled a few more points on this side of the Gomoti and arrived back in camp just before sunset.

Starter issues

Janette and I went across to the Boro a few days ago to collect samples from Bongolo . We got into the area where she had been and started tracking but did not pick up a signal, so went to the first sampling point and started collecting grasses. I called HQ and got a fix on the herd, only to realise that we had gone past them earlier. We returned to that fix and did not pick up any signal from Bongolo, although I did get a weak signal from B7. We played hide and seek with them for a bit in a riparian band, but eventually managed to age and sex around 220 of them, including seeing Bongolo, so she was definitely in the herd. I wanted to get a visual of B7 to see if the collar still had its GPS unit on it, but were unable to get a sighting of her.

When I went to start the car again, the starter motor made a strange noise and refused to engage. I called camp and was told to change it for the spare that I carry, so I did that and she started, slightly reluctantly. By this time, it was starting to get dark, so we quickly collected some wood and set up camp. The buff had moved off, but they decided to come and have a look at us while we were cooking. It was slightly eery, to shine a torch and get hundreds of eyes staring back at you, but of course I was happy.

The next morning the car took a few tries to start, so I decided that we would leave her running all day and get as many samples as possible before heading back. So we set off to see where we could get to in the floodplains. We got a total of 11 samples, which was not as many as I had hoped, but quite a few were inaccessible, although if my car had been 100% I would have taken a few more risks. We bumped into the herd a couple more times, and both VHF signals were strong on those occasions so I guess it was just a temporary problem.

We called it a day after the last sample and headed back down the main road from Stanley's airstrip. Some water crossings had dried up completely, whilst others had appeared. The longest crossing was over the bonnet for a while, but it is very sandy, so I have never had any problems getting through. There was a new one that looked like it had a road going around, but it petered out after a bit. I reversed to turn around, then something caught my eye and I noticed a large male lion hiding in a little bush.

We continued down the road without incidents and were coming up the road towards HQ when we spotted a lioness at Elephant Pan. The radios were not working, so I could not call her in, but I thought it might be useful to Dog Camp to get ID pictures of her. By this time it was dark, but we had a spotlight so we made our way across to her and got pictures of both sides of her face for whisker spot IDs. I then pulled off to go home, and fell straight into the largest hole I have ever had the misfortune to find myself in. The front wheels came out again but the back wheels got stuck and the car stalled, which was something that I had been avoiding all day. Luckily she started again with a bit of persuasion and popped out of the hole quickly, otherwise we would have spent a rather uncomfortable night in a hole next to a lioness, since the radios were out and there would not have been anyone available to answer any telephones!

Flying in the SkyJeep

Kevin arrived on Sunday in his lovely yellow SkyJeep, and took me up tracking on Monday afternoon. We picked up all the buff whose location I was already aware of, but failed to pick up any signal from the last three missing animals. Unfortunately I have not been flying much lately so am not used to it and felt fairly nauseous at some points, but generally enjoyed the flight.

On Tuesday, Janette and myself went to sample sites used by Chanel before she moved further west. She walked approximately 10 km over a day, stopping on the way. We sampled twelve sites used before the movement and a couple of the points that she walked through on the way. She has stopped in grasslands on the other side of the Moremi cutline, so has not completed her walk back to the floodplains. I will wait for this before completing the sampling for the migration. I have had several reports from pilots that they are seeing more buffalo on the floodplain systems, but the grass is still quite green in the grasslands, so the buff should not be in too much of a hurry to leave them.

Janette is currently flying with Kevin to check that B74, the double-beeping collar, is still on a buff, since all of the other collars from that original batch have fallen off. It would be useful if this one did the same, since it is not functioning properly anyway.

Finding Bara

Last week I had another attempt to dart Chanel to remove her defective collar. A vet came out and we followed her for several hours, sighting her a couple of times. However, she moved away from us continuously and ended up in dense mopane, where we encountered the same approach problem as previously, being unable to get close to her without a great deal of noise and disturbance. We had to give up after 3 hours without getting close to her. I managed to break one of the springs on my vehicle at the same time, so had to avoid bumps and off road driving until I got that fixed.

I am using baseline vegetation characteristics from habitat types collected by a colleague to compare sites selected and avoided by buffalo to general availability. There is one habitat type that my colleague did not encounter in her study area that has been used extensively by buffalo during the wet season. I have been calling it Low Mixed Woodland, it occurs in sandy areas, and is widespread across NG43. Yesterday, I went across NG34 into NG43 to collect some baseline vegetation samples from this habitat type.

There were a lot of elephants in the area, so a lot of my time was spent creeping round corners and suddenly accelerating when I heard a trumpet from right next to the car. We escaped unscathed, and were able to find a couple of the store on board collars that had gone missing. B6 (Bara) was still wearing her collar, and I was able to get a good visual of it. Unfortunately that confirmed my fears that the GPS unit had been ripped off. The VHF is still strong, so hopefully she will keep that collar until my satellite collars are returned to me and I can replace the store on board with a satellite so that I can track her movements next year.

B5 (Vice) was emitting a rapid recovery signal, so I went to find the collar, which had conveniently dropped off right next to a road. This one had also lost its GPS unit. This morning I tried to retrieve the data from the collar, but it has stubbornly refused to give me anything. I have contacted the manufacturers to see if they can suggest any ways to access these data, since I do not know when the GPS unit was lost, so this collar may have taken fixes including the wet season locations.

Darting Bambi

I obtained a darting permit last week to remove the collars from two buffalo with malfunctioning collars. A vet agreed to come and try to dart these cows from my vehicle. I was not sure that this would be possible, as they can be difficult to get close to, especially in dense vegetation.

On Monday, we went out to where we had got a signal from Chanel's collar. We went into very dense mopane to find her. It took us 3 hours of tracking a deceptive signal that bounced from the mopane on all sides. Eventually we managed to see some buff, only to realise that she had been close to us the whole time, but was in a tiny group, consisting of 2 bulls, 2 cows and 2 calves. Needless to say, they did not hang around for us to get to them. They ran from us for a while, and the dense mopane made it impossible to get close to them without spooking them with crashing through trees. They headed off after a few more hours, crossing the Sankuyo road and disappearing off into more dense mopane. We decided to call it a day as we had made no progress at all.

On Tuesday, we set out for the area where Bambi had been most recently. We found three lions on the way, an adult female, a sub-adult male and a sub-adult female. These were thought to be the remnants of a pride that had a collared female in it until she died a few months ago. I radio-ed Dog Camp, then continued on our buffalo mission.

We did not manage to get a signal for the buff, but asked someone else to track down a different road for a couple of kilometres to see if he picked her up. He did get a signal, so we headed down that way. We found the herd fairly quickly and then spent 3 hours following them until they got to the point where they were comfortable with the vehicle being within darting range. It then took us a further hour to get a good visual on the collared buffalo. We spotted her in the herd, with other animals blocking the line of fire, but I kept her in sight and told the vet which rear end was hers so that he darted her, even though we could not see the collar at that point. She flinched slightly when the dart went in, but only started to move when she started feeling the drug. We think that she was one of the dominant females, since she was usually close to the front, and when she started to move the rest of the herd followed her, which made things a bit more difficult, but we had the signal from the collar to follow anyway. She went down after 12 minutes, but was still trying to get up, so we left her to settle for a bit. We went in and the vet gave her a top up, but it still took all of us to keep her in a sternal position at first. Most of the time she was kicking with her back legs, which made things a bit tricky, but we changed her collar and got blood samples from her. We reversed her within 45 minutes of the dart first going in, and she was up and moving within a couple of minutes.

We then went back to the lions to see if Dog Camp wanted any of them darted. Unfortunately the sub-adult female was too young and the adult female was in poor condition, so the decision was taken to leave them, which I think was the most sensible thing to do.

On Wednesday, we went back to Chanel to try again. She was in a larger herd, but still in the same dense mopane. We managed to get within 12m of some buffalo, but spotting the collar was very difficult and getting a clear shot was not possible. We spent about 4 hours trying to get to her, but had to give up in the end.

Another vet will be in the area next week and he said that we could try then if he gets done with zebra darting with time to spare, so we may have another shot at it.

Recovering collars

I went out on Tuesday to collect the last of the samples that I need for this season. Janette was not feeling well so I left her behind. I had checked on the fixes from Lasanya and found that the collar had not moved and had given a mortality signal, so I went to find it. It had fallen off in the middle of a large grassland, so was very easy to get to. It looked like it had been chewed a little, but otherwise no damage, simply a failure in the remote release mechanism. I continued northwards towards the last three points that I needed to sample. I managed to collect all my samples without problems, although it took slightly longer without an assistant. I came back along the main Khwai road in Moremi.

When I returned to camp, I found Janette being tested for malaria. I told her that it would be highly irresponsible of her to get malaria having only been here one month, and on anti-malarials, so she listened and the test was negative. Good assistant.

On the way back to camp, I developed a sneaky suspicion that Bianca's collar was also off, which was confirmed when I checked the fixes. It had not sent a mortality signal, but the fixes were very close together, so I set off yesterday to collect that collar. Janette told me that she felt better but I refused to let her come with me in case she decided to feel worse again. This collar was in the middle of the NG32 area, between the Gomoti and the Santantadibe. Given the high level of the Gomoti, I decided to go all the way around, which took a lot longer, but is better than drowning my car. I drove up the middle road, stopping to move a leopard tortoise out of the road, then struck out off road for the 2 km to reach the collar. I went through a riparian tree island and bounced over several logs before coming out into fairly open mopane with lots of grass hiding yet more logs. I made it to the fix for the collar and drove to a tree to leave the car in the shade so I could look for the collar, when I saw it lying next to the tree. It was more battered than the others, and the fabric connecting the release mechanism was very frayed, but it was still the release mechanism that was the weak point. I returned to the road and made my way back to camp.

Unfortunately, this means that I now have only one working satellite collar out. I hope to dart next week and replace Bambi's collar with a refurbished collar, so that I will have two collars, but this is still a very low sample size, especially as I want to collect migration data from when they move in the next month or so. However, there is not much that I can do, and the collar company has said that they will be as quick as possible in getting the collars back to me to be put out again. They will remove the release mechanism and shorten the belting, so hopefully the collars will not fall off again!