Collars

Last week, my assistant and I went out to sample some more wet season sites used by buffalo. We sampled from two collared animals, Jezebel and Valkyrie. Jezebel has been close to the Kazikini hunting camp lately, and we were eventually able to get the herd of about 200 animals to relax sufficiently to get close to them, but they were in fairly dense vegetation and spooked suddenly, so my count was not as detailed as I would have liked, although I did get a good visual of the collared cow, looking nice and fat, possibly pregnant.

We sampled a few sites from Jezebel's herd, then moved on to find Valkyrie. Her collar had shown some irregularities, and the only fix that I had was from the previous day, when she was in the Mababe depression, an area that I had not visited. I tried to head towards the last fix that I had, but found my way consistently blocked by the Khwai river, and areas that had been flooded by it. After several attempts to find a way around, I had to resign myself to the fact that she was inaccessible. We headed back around to the area that the collared cow had been using in the few days before, NG41. We started sampling points, and after a couple I managed to pick up a double beeping signal, which we tracked and got very close to along a road. She was in very dense bush, and for 45 minutes we tried to get a visual without success, failing to spot even one animal, let alone the collared one. I was about to give up when I decided to follow the road for a bit, and luckily it opened out on a small pan. Next to it were Valkyrie and about 27 other buffalo, quite a small herd. They were fairly relaxed, and I was able to see that the collar looked in good condition, with no obvious damages. I checked the signal, and the VHF turned off on the hour (which happens when the collar takes a GPS fix) and then came back on with a single beep. I hoped that was the end of the problem and headed back to camp. Unfortunately, the collar has since taken one fix and then stopped altogether. I have been in touch with the company and will try to arrange a darting. This is the same pattern as happened with Harpy, when the VHF stopped as well, so I am hoping that this is not the case, as finding one collared animal in dense bush will be close to impossible!

Since then, I have been helping Dog Camp with dartings, as they did not have a closed vehicle from which to dart. In three days, they have managed to change the collars on two cheetah (Lia and Franky) and one lioness (Chloe), all of which went smoothly. Lia's was slightly unconventional, in that she started to wake up a bit too soon and the collars had not been swapped. The vet got another little dose for her, but in the meantime we had to physically restrain her so that she could not get up too soon, which would have rendered the entire darting pointless.

The other animals that they are looking for have collars that are not working, so they now have to hope to bump into them. I, on the other hand, have to tow my vehicle into town, as it has developed a worrying knocking sound in the engine. Hopefully, this will be fixed soon and I will once more be driving around in the buff-mobile!

Evil twigs

On Monday, we went out to NG32 to sample from a couple of collared buffalo. The first, Pandora, was in the area south of Stanley's. It rained a lot as we were about to leave camp, but we set out after it eased off. We got through Daunara gate without problems and started sampling. I was pleasantly surprised by the ease with which we were able to get around - there were not too many nasty muddy patches and the mopane was relatively open off road. We sampled 14 sites in that area, although Pandora had moved across very wet areas and we were unable to reach her, although we did find a beautiful moth. We camped in some lovely open mopane and listened to a lion roaring as he moved northwards throughout the night.

The next morning we sampled a couple more points, then headed back out through the gate towards Morutshe gate to sample from that area. We sampled a further 7 sites there, but again were unable to reach the buffalo that had decided to escape to the muddy floodplains. After one point, we were driving through mopane when one evil twig whipped me right in the eye. I was in quite a lot of pain and made my assistant drive us back to the road because I could not open the eye. We stopped for lunch to see if it would improve, and I was just deciding to drive to Maun to get it checked out when suddenly a relatively large piece of bark fell out of my eye and I could see again! We happily headed off to finish sampling and managed to get everything done by 5 pm. By that time a serious looking storm was building, so we decided to abandon camping and drive back to HQ. By the time we got to Shorobe, however, the sky was black and filled with lightning in all directions. Not wanting to drive back through a storm in the dark, I decided to take refuge in Maun and head out in the morning.

We will be heading out to try and find some accessible buffalo tomorrow, including one that seems to be heading to Mababe!

More migration

Last week, Roz and I went out to sample the migration route taken by Valkyrie and Jezebel. We started close to Hippo Pools, but after only 8 points sampled we fell into a hole that we failed to spot and unfortunately broke all but one blade on one side of my suspension. We crept back to camp, after managing to get hold of Gabriel, who was in town and agreed to bring a set out. We borrowed the TDi and sampled until dark, before coming back to camp, only to find that Jezebel had turned around and come back to the Gomoti when I checked the website for buffalo movements. Two of the tyres on the TDi had slow punctures the next morning and we were pressed for time, so unable to fix them and we had to borrow the cruiser. We finished off sampling the next day, taking 71 points on that route.

We high-tailed it back to camp to pick up my car, which Moses had kindly fixed while we were busy sampling, and get straight into town in time for a GIS (Geographic Information Systems) course organised by the University of Botswana for the next four days. During that course, the drag link arm on my vehicle fell off so that I had no steering, but I managed to get that fixed by the end of the course. My supervisor from the University of Bristol gave us short notice that he was coming to visit, so I met up with him and arranged to take him down to the Makgadikgadi for zebra darting with a colleague. Unfortunately the zebra refused to play and spent hours staying just out of range of the dart gun.

Two days ago, Jezebel changed her mind again and moved eastwards. Valkyrie finally decided to stay in the east, whereas Fury, the third collared animal on the Gomoti, is still showing no signs of migrating as yet.

Migrating Valkyrie

Valkyrie, one of my collared buffalo, decided a couple of weeks ago to migrate, which turned out to be a little early. She spent a few days in the wet season home range, then returned to the Gomoti. A couple of days later, after a storm, she left again, this time taking a much longer, more circuitous route before eventually returning to the Gomoti, not far from HQ. I wanted to sample the entire route that she had taken, to see where she had decided to stop as well as the areas that she walked through. Roz and I started this endeavour on the 6th November, following the first back and forth mission. However, we were unable to complete it because my vehicle was giving me problems, refusing to idle and consuming a lot of fuel. I decided to take it to Maun, where I hoped (in vain as it turns out!) that it would be fixed quickly. While we were in Maun, I was monitoring the movements of the buffalo, and saw that Valkyrie had set out on her second mission.

We eventually got the vehicle back on the 20th November, with a new carb, new manifold, a refurbished cylinder head and a variety of other repairs, and headed straight out to finish sampling. We spent the next four days retracing Valkyrie's route, coming out of it with close to a hundred sample sites and a decent level of exhaustion.

We were sampling along the main Moremi road when we bumped into Goose, one of the collared leopards. We followed him for a little while, as it was the first time that Roz saw a wild leopard, and she was very excited. He was checking around, but seemed more interested in marking than hunting, but when we saw him suddenly stop and look interested, we approached cautiously to see what he was checking out, and saw a herd of about 50 buffalo in front of him. He lay down and watched them, and they eventually just moved past him without worrying him at all. It was an interesting interaction, but we then left him and continued with sampling.

I have just checked the website for the latest fixes from my collars, and I see that while we were sampling, Valkyrie has gone again, this time taking Jezebel with her! I believe that I have managed to collar the most indecisive buffalo in the Delta, although it is very interesting. She (and her herd) responds almost immediately to rainfall, whereas all the other buffalo that I have collared have waited for several weeks after the first rains. I am now hoping that the rains come, so that she stays that side and I will go to sample from her latest meanderings.

Cheetah hunt

Last week, Roz and I went out to do some sampling not too far from HQ. When we got up to Hippo Pools, I spotted a cloud of dust that could only be from a large buffalo herd, so we went to investigate. After a few attempts at counting the herd, I managed to see the collar that had stopped working entirely, still on Harpy, the buffalo cow. I got hold of Rob Jackson the vet and Peter Perlstein the helicopter pilot, who were both free, and arranged for them to come out to help me remove the collar. I stayed with the herd, and after a few hours, the helicopter came in and landed to pick me up. Harpy was in a herd of around 500, with no working VHF, so just spotting her from the helicopter took a while. The wind was gusting so we could only dart in one direction and the herd was running all over the place. We finally managed to get a dart into her, and she went down fairly quickly. We recovered the collar and reversed her, then Rob and Peter headed back to Maun.

The next day, we went the long way round to Chitabe, to sample from a few points along the Gomoti. The area has dried up nicely, and we were able to get around without any problems, even bumping into one of the collared lionesses from Dog Camp, Chanel. We went to say hello at Chitabe, where we were well received, as always, and managed to find the wild dog pack of 22 animals before heading out.

Yesterday we went again to sample from areas close to HQ, as the previous trip was shortened somewhat by the darting. We went to Hippo Pools, and found three cheetah: Franky, Fredericks and Flojo's cub just by the side of the road. They got up and slowly walked off, so we followed and watched them climb a tree and deposit their scent marks. They kept walking and spotted some impala, which seemed entirely oblivious. They were behind a riparian tree island, and at first the three cheetah all approached together. Then Franky and the cub went to the right, while Fredericks sneaked round the other side, picking up to a trot to get round more quickly. We stayed with the others, and watched the cub hang back while Franky walked slowly towards the impala before stopping right out in the open about 100m from them. We caught a glimpse of movement and saw Fredericks trotting round the back, then the impala saw him and ran away from him, straight in front of the car with Franky in hot pursuit. Unfortunately sage got in the way of my perfect photo! The other two cheetah ran, but they all gave up a couple of hundred metres later and the impala ran off. It was an incredible sighting, both for the tactics and the proximity to the chase - the sound of their feet pounding the ground was amazing.

Valkyrie, one of my collared animals, decided on the 31st October to walk 30 km east towards the wet season range. This was after about 20 mm of rain fell over a couple of days. After spending 3 days there, she has realised her error and has returned to the floodplains. I will be going out to see if I can work out what changed her mind.

Rhino

On Monday, Roz (my new assistant) and I headed out with the intention of sampling from three different herds of buffalo, ranging from the fence close to Daunara gate up to the top of Chief's Island. We managed to find Pandora, the first of the collared buffalo, close to the fence, in a herd of close to a thousand. When we found the herd, they were in dense mopane, but after a few minutes of following them, they relaxed and headed out into the open. Pandora was in front, leading them slowly in single file right past us, and all was well, until some at the back decided they were too far from the front and then several hundred buffalo were running and soon became invisible through the dust. I managed a decent count though, and left them to go back into the mopane.

We continued on, sampling along the way, and made it up to Stanley's camp, overtaking some trucks as they were stuck in a crossing. We went on a supposedly brief excursion with said trucks (once freed) to Baines Camp, as I was curious to see the camp and meet the managers. We spent the night close to Stanley's, after realising that there was too much water to go off-road in that area. The next morning we started up Chief's Island, only getting stuck once, when the ruts from the trucks were too deep and the diffs grounded out. We dug ourselves out fairly quickly though and continued most of the way up Chief's Island. We went off-road at a spot that I had found on Google Earth, which looked fairly clear out to the edge of the floodplains. We took a few samples, and then stopped in at Chief's Camp to visit some of my friends who are managing there.

We then started to sample at the top of Chief's Island, aiming to make our way down along the edge of the floodplains. The first part went well, and I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to get around. We managed to reach quite a few sampling points, although we had to drive around numerous logs and elephant holes. Most of the time we were stopped by a channel to the north, but we found a good sandy crossing point and drove through. We went a few hundred metres, and then I stopped at the sight of my very first white rhino in the Delta. He was relaxing under a tree, but got up and moved off when we arrived. We continued sampling, and managed to disturb him again a bit later on. We crossed the channel again and continued along the edge of Chief's Island. Unfortunately it became both wet and loggy so we moved inland a bit to try for a clearer space. The vegetation became denser and denser riparian, with lots of fallen trees and huge elephant holes. After battling for several hours, still being 4 km from the closest useful point and heading in the wrong direction because of ridiculously dense bush, I decided to cut my losses and try for some points at the bottom of Chief's Island.

The next morning we drove down, only to find huge expanses of flooded grassland turning into floodplain covering the road as far as we could see. So, reluctantly, I decided to leave the area and headed back to camp, arriving back last night.

Collar issues

One of my collars had stopped sending me GPS fixes at the beginning of September, but I was not sure if it was still on a cow or not. Kris, the new pilot, took me up tracking to find the collar. We had a very strong signal almost immediately, but we could not see a herd, so I took a GPS point and drove in the next day. I spent an hour listening to varying volumes of double beeps, eventually managing to locate the collar, which had exposed wires and had obviously been ripped off the animal. Although this meant that the collar was broken, that is still better than the animals neck being broken.

Another collared cow was spending some time at Hippo Pools, and Roz (my new assistant) and I went out to get population data from the herd. After an hour or so, they cooperated nicely and walked calmly in front of us so that I was able to get a near total count of the herd.

Another of my collars, which was put on in June, stopped sending me fixes on the 7th October. I went out the next day and found the herd and got a visual on the collared animal. However, whilst I was with the herd the VHF stopped working. I tried to get hold of a vet to come out and dart her, but there was no one available for several days so I had to leave the herd. I was hoping that the VHF would start up again, but several tracking attempts have resulted in failure, so the collar appears to be completely lost.

I organised a darting trip that I hoped would allow me to remove the collar described above, among other reasons. We were able to remove the collar from Bongolo, which had been on for just over a year, then put that one and a refurbished one onto new cows, Fury and Jezebel. Everything went smoothly, but there was no sign of the malfunctioning collar.