Darting Savanna

Another of my collars (B77) has started malfunctioning. It seems to be very confused about the date and is sending me old fixes instead of new ones. Televilt (the collar company) said it is a problem with the processor and could I send it back so they can fix it? This is not as simple as it sounds, and involves a vet, a helicopter and the means to pay for those!

I was supposed to dart on Friday but Peter, the pilot, got in touch with me to say that he had to fly for the King of Spain that day, so we did it on the Thursday. Guy kindly flew for me on Wednesday to get a fix on where they were so we headed straight for that point and found a herd close by. We landed so that Rob (the vet) could load darts and we took the doors off the heli (which made the flight even better!). I checked for a VHF signal and got a strong one from in front of us. So we took off and spotted them almost immediately in a herd of around 120 individuals. We managed to spot the collared cow, Savanna, with her calf. They were close to water and quite a thick stand of crotons, so we spent some time trying to get them to run into an open area. Eventually they cooperated and Rob got a good shot off. We then circled the herd for around 20 mins but the cow showed no real signs that she was feeling the drug. This was lucky in some ways, as she got charged by an elephant whilst we were watching her. There were at least a hundred eles hanging around in various groups and some were getting a bit upset by the helicopter.

We went in again as it became apparent that the dart had somehow malfunctioned. Rob got off another good shot and she went down in 6 minutes while her calf ran off with the rest of the herd. I went in and got the collar off without problems. Peter pulled the first dart out and it discharged on his shoulder but we cleaned it up quickly. Rob thought that the tip of the needle just got clogged up with skin so that the drug could not get out. She was reversed and got up within a minute so all was well and we flew back to Maun.

Recovering a collar

One of my collars (B78) has not moved in a couple of weeks, so I went across to Stanley's on Wednesday to retrieve it. The camp managers organised everything so we were able to head out that afternoon. We tied a mokoro to the top of my vehicle and drove up the Mombo road until we were as close as possible to the fix that I had for the collar. We drove off-road for a little while but we encountered what looked like a quite extensive stretch of water. So we unloaded the mokoro and headed out, at which point we were approximately 1.9km from the collar. We were able to push the mokoro through water for a while, but soon realised that there was more land between us and the collar. So the Shaun (the manager) and Rex (the poler) carried the mokoro, refusing to let my assistant or I help them, even though neither of them had brought shoes and they trod on thorns repeatedly. We made it to the main channel that we had to cross and were able to pole along it for quite a while. It was really quite deep and I think that using a mokoro was the only realistic option. We left the mokoro in a safe spot on the other side and continued on foot (having first taken a GPS fix for the mokoro!) for a further 500 m.

When we got within 20m of the fix I had for the collar, I said that it could be anywhere around that spot. I then took two more steps and spotted the collar lying on the ground right in front of me. It was not on a carcass, as I had thought, but one of the points where the belting connects to the battery unit had been ripped. The collar must have caught on something, possibly a branch or the horn of another buffalo, but it is good to know that the collars will break in that case, and not the animal! Unfortunately I will need to send it back to Televilt for repair, but I downloaded all of the data from it without a problem.

We re-traced our steps and made it back to the car without any mis-haps, then drove back to Stanley's, arriving quite soon after sunset. The managers said that since it was quite late, we could stay in the pilot's tent and join them for a braai after the guests had finished, which was very kind.

We then drove up onto Chief's Island to collect some data from one of the herds. We went off-road and collected some vegetation data, but the habitat was really difficult to drive through. It was short stocky mopane with logs and fallen trees everywhere, presumably because of a high elephant population. It took us 2 hours to drive 2 km, so we decided to leave the rest of the fixes as I was only testing new methodology. We managed to get the car stuck on a hidden log and bent the steering somewhat, tho not enough to affect the vehicle. After that I got Laura to walk in front of the vehicle and scout a route, but it was very slow going, with some areas being completely impassable.

We drove back down into NG32 and had a look at an area to see whether we could drive there, but I think it will be a job for a mokoro. We tracked the herd there and did some counts of the herd and the age and sex classes therein. The cow in that herd is looking very healthy and has a young calf. We came back to HQ yesterday, having found a lovely road, complete with bridge, that was built to go around the water where we got stuck last week, which was a lovely surprise, but I wish I'd known about it before!!

Giving myself a concusssion

One of my collars in the NG32 area (B78) does not appear to have moved more than approximately 20 m in the last two weeks. I took a little while to realise this as the collar is supposed to give a mortality signal in these circumstances but instead it has been giving me slightly different fixes every hour. The collar itself is on the edge of a large island, which I thought might be accessible from the south. I therefore tried to reach it from that direction at the beginning of last week. All the roads that I tried ended in swampy floodplains with quite a few mokoro stations. I asked for directions to NG17 (as the collar is just in that concession) and was told to go towards Stanley's and take a road east. So we tried that, and the road had been worked on, with small bridges and dirt piled up to make a road. However, this road stopped suddenly. We kept going off road but got stuck when we were still 10 km away from the collar. There was a lot of water, but we would have tried to continue if I hadn't had a slight mishap.

We got stuck in mud and while jacking to get out, I stupidly got too close to the high-lift jack and it pinged up and hit the side of my head. My ear was ripped, but I didn't pass out or vomit. We finished getting the car out and Laura sensibly told me that I had to go back to Maun. So we drove back. I felt a bit light headed and spaced out, but not too bad, but Laura correctly diagnosed me as having a concussion. We almost got back to the veterinary fence, but went through the last big stretch of water and stopped. I checked the wheels and realised that they were not buried, so my somewhat muddled mind came to the conclusion that the car was broken. My radio was not getting through for some reason, so I used my satellite phone and got in touch with Guy (the camp manager), who luckily had not yet left for camp. I explained that I thought my gears were broken as I was not moving when I accelerated. I somehow forgot to tell him about my concussion, but he very kindly said he would come out and rescue me.

I realised after about 40 minutes that it was very likely that my vehicle was merely stuck on the diffs, but by that time Guy was on his way and I thought my faculties wouldn't be up to much anyway. When Guy arrived, he found me swimming in the ruts in the road with a big smile on my face. He looked at my pupils and told me I was indeed concussed. He pulled me out and then changed my engine oil, which was full of water. The one positive thing about the concussion is that it made me very happy and stopped me from being stressed about being stuck. Laura drove my vehicle back to camp and Guy took me to town to get checked out. Brett, the paramedic, said that I couldn't go back to camp and had to be supervised, so Guy again helped me out and let me stay in his house, before we flew back to camp the next day.

As for my collar, Guy flew the next day to track and also had a good look at the GPS location of my collar. He said that there was a big channel between the road and the collar, but he was yet again willing to help me by swimming across, or walking with me. I got in touch with Stanley's Camp and explained the situation. They very kindly agreed to let me borrow a mokoro, a poler and a man with a rifle to walk to the collar and recover it, so I will not need to inconvenience Guy, even though he did not seem to mind. I should be able to go and get the collar tomorrow or the next day, and then continue on to do field work in the area - hopefully without hitting my head!!

My ear is mostly healed now and the lump on the side of my head is going down. I had a few days where I couldn't concentrate on much, but my mental faculties are coming back to me now too. I had to stay in camp for 4 days and not do anything too strenuous. A couple of the carnivore researchers took Laura and I out to a spotted hyaena den as they wanted to get photos of the cubs. We spent a few hours watching the cubs and adults playing and jumping around, which was lovely. There were 6 cubs of varying ages and several adults, and they managed to get photos of all of them.

Still too wet for fieldwork

I have been spending far too much time in front of my computer over the last couple of weeks, but I have developed a protocol that I hope will work. I have looked at the last two weeks of fixes for the three herds up at Stanley's and have tried to work out their activity patterns for each fix. I have also worked out the habitat that they were in from the vegetation map. I will be heading across there tomorrow for a few nights to check that this will work, and to take vegetation samples from the sites that I have identified.

I am still quite worried about the volumes of water over there, but I think that I just have to realise that I will get stuck, probably several times, but that is just something I have to deal with. Some of the buff have spent most of their time in what should be accessible places, but there are also plenty of fixes in floodplains and on islands, so I will definitely have to hire a boat and mokoro soon after this trip to go and collect the remaining data from those sites. Can't say I am very keen on that idea, but hopefully will avoid the hippos and not fall in to be eaten by crocs!

We had very little sleep in camp last night. Yesterday, some lions killed a zebra right next to the pan in front of HQ. I did not see them myself, but apparently it was a female and 3 cubs. They stuck around all day yesterday and last night the hyaenas came in. They were calling very loudly most of the night, until at 4.15 this morning one of the lions had enough of it and roared at them, in a way that I interpreted as telling them to shut the hell up! There was one whoop after that but then everything went quiet and we all got a couple of hours of sleep.

Getting stuck at Stanley's

I recently drove across into NG32 to try and get some data from the collared buff over there. I was planning on spending 6 nights there, to combine data collection from two individuals. I have not been back to that area since the end of January, when the ground was too wet for off road driving. I thought that things would have improved, as we have not had much rain on this side and most areas have started to dry up. Unfortunately, Stanley's have still been getting significant amounts of rain, with a 40 mm storm just a few days before I went across. Some of the flooded parts of the road had dried up, but most were at the same level and some were higher. There was one section that was completely dry in January and has now become a huge lake that the road goes straight through.

We managed to get almost all the way to Stanley's before getting stuck in a channel, thankfully with the bonnet out of the water, but the rear section of the vehicle was decidedly under water. We radio-ed Stanley's and they were very helpful and sent a car out. By that time, water had gotten into the fuel tank and we sputtered the rest of the way to Stanleys. They were very helpful there, and offered to drain the fuel tank for me, which is when we realised that my silly fuel tank does not have a drainage plug. Eventually, we realised that there was nothing for it except to just drive through until the water had been used up. Luckily there was not too much water in there, so it only took a couple of hours for the vehicle to behave almost normally. Needless to say, we avoided deep water while it was struggling, but that meant we ended up driving in circles for a while and interrupted a game drive 3 times!!

Anyway, having looked at the terrain, with full floodplains and a pan in almost every dip in the grassland areas, I decided that trying to follow buffalo for 3 days would not be possible, as they seem to have no problem with crossing channels. Around Stanley's, there is a network of roads, but further out there are no roads, and crossing floodplains and channels off road is not something that is recommended. So, feeling stressed and defeated, I came back to camp.

I will have a meeting with my supervisor tomorrow and discuss these difficulties. They are not likely to be resolved any time soon, as I doubt the ground will dry up enough before the flood comes through. Since the water levels are already high, the flood is likely just to pour through and cover everything, which will add to my problems. Everyone keeps joking about me using a mokoro (a dug-out canoe), but I am starting to consider it!

Seven hours of overheating

I just got back from a few days of field work in the bush. We started out in NG34 and found all three of the buffalo on that side in the same herd. We followed them for the rest of that day and camped in a nice little spot. There were lions roaring in the distance and we saw three sets of tracks on top of the buff tracks later the next day. We had no signal from any of the collars the next morning, but the herd was quite large so we were able to follow their tracks for a while, and then we just kept heading south east as they had been going.

Eventually we got a signal and made our way to the main road towards Sankuyo, where we found the spot where they had crossed the road. I got in touch with the concession manager for NG43 and got permission to go in, then we bashed our way through the mopane till we found them.

There were buff tracks all over that area and we saw a couple of groups split off from the main herd. They seemed to join up for the 8 km walk over night, then split up when they reached their destination, although that might just be circumstantial. NG43 is filled with mopane and not much else, but they definitely chose to move into that area, and then move continuously to be able to graze in the small open areas.

We stayed with them for another night and then headed back to camp the following day, as we had managed to forget part of the disc pasture metre (used to sample grass). So we spent one night in camp then headed back out for the vegetation sampling. That went ok, though my car was starting to over heat a bit at the end of the first day of vegetation sampling. We had some fixes from the collars for overnight, so were able to work out what they had been doing from their tracks. Despite not looking for them, we still came across four herds or small groups, all quite relaxed with the vehicle, so presumably most of them are getting used to us following them, which is great, but unfortunately not always helpful, as we can be 20 m from them and still not be able to work out what they're doing because of the dense vegetation.

We finished the vegetation sampling and foolishly decided to bash through the bush for the 5 km to the main road instead of driving up the concession road that we knew went all the way up to Sankuyo. Unfortunately, that was a grave mistake. By that point, the car was overheating continually, so we had to stop every 10 minutes to let her cool down for 15 minutes, making for very slow progress. We also managed to choose the worst kind of mopane to go through, with all of the dangers associated with mopane - dense small bushes so we couldn't see the logs, stumps and sometimes the big trees, and quite frequently, large pans and sometimes just large expanses of mud cunningly disguised as grassland. We managed not to get stuck in the mud, but we did fall into a big hole or burrow, so we had to jack ourselves out of there. I discovered that my winch (whose solenoids sit at the front of my bull bar) was damaged beyond repair. Soon afterwards I hit a stump that bent my bullbar in such a way that I was unable to open my bonnet (which didn't help with the overheating). Eventually we made it to the road and the car was ok on the main road, but we had to stop 4 times between getting onto the flycamp road and reaching HQ. We spent 7 hours to get around 35 km, which should have taken under 3 hours.

The camp mechanic has helped me to clean my radiator thoroughly, and hopefully the overheating will be cured. We tied the bull bar to a tree and reversed until the bonnet could be opened again.

We will be heading to Maun tomorrow to try and get some extra bars put on the car to try and protect her a bit more and for a few other things. But at the moment, Laura and I are just glad to be back in camp and away from the mopane!!

Close encounters of the buffalo kind

I came back yesterday from 4 days spent in the field with the buffalo. We were very lucky with the weather and only had a spattering of rain. The ground was dry and sandy for the most part, although there were a few pans in the open mopane, which seem to be starting to dry up with the recent sunshine. We got stuck once, driving over a large log that got stuck on the front diff, but we got free with a bit of jacking. The vehicle has suffered a little from all the mopane bashing, with scratches along her side and a bit of bent body work. I dread to think what she will look like after two years of this!

We found the buffalo without too much difficulty, although staying with them was a different matter, especially in the mopane, where they spent most of their time, as I scared them when I came crashing through, which made them run away and was very counter productive. After 4 days of us following them, however, they became quite used to the car and only some of them ran for a short distance and then relaxed again. They were mostly curious about us, as opposed to aggressive, although some of the bulls tossed their horns at us. But several times they came to investigate us, from about 10 m away. The first night that we camped, they had headed off in another direction but 20 minutes later they came walking up to our camp and had a good long look at us from about 20 m away. Something spooked them and they ran away, luckily away from our camp and not straight through it!! The second night that we camped, one came and stood next to me tent, breathing quite heavily and sniffing around. Laura (my assistant) fell straight to sleep and was completely oblivious to the large curious animal right next to us. We heard lions roaring yesterday morning, but that was the only sign of any carnivores around. In fact, apart from steenbok, we only saw buffalo, not even any impala, which was interesting.

Luckily they did not move too far over night and we were able to pick up a signal every morning and find them within an hour or so. We tried to stay with them throughout the day, but inevitably lost them for a couple of hours each day. This has made me think about revising my data-collecting protocol, which I will be discussing with my supervisors next week.

The map shows the recent movements of the collared animals. Two sets of two buffalo are in the same herd, the northern ones in NG32 and the western ones in NG34, which is why there are only 4 red dots (current location) in the overall map. The three in NG34 were all in the same herd for a few days, but they have split up again. We will be heading out towards the end of next week to follow another individual (or two if they are together), probably in NG34 again, as NG32 will take longer to dry up.