Leopard watching = Loooong hours

This past week we had the wonderful priviledge to watch Shiloweni rediscover his freedom in the park. Sadly, he did very little of interest. He came out all fat and out of shape from 5 months of being delivered his meals in his enclosure. Yet his ego was huge and he scent marked his new territory like it was going out of style. Sadly he didn't take into account that the other male leopards are much bigger and in good shape. So he promptly got his ass kicked. No big injuries but since then he has spent most of his time sleeping and laying low. Since the other group was on the mountain portion of their trip, our group had to do double duty. We'd have a day of two 6 hr shifts following the leopard, then switch to two 5 hr shifts of general drive the next day. The schedule of trying to grab a meal and catch a few hrs of sleep in between shifts certainly wore us down. I was paired up with another girl, Kath, and we made the most of our time - chatting, reading, getting in quick naps while the leopard slept.

Oh! One funny story. When we need to take a pee break on our shift, we try to get a good sense of where the leopard is (either by sight or by the reading on the telemetry), drive back a decent distance, then pee as fast as we can. So the second night, our guide went first, me second, then Kath hopped off to pee. At this point though Shiloweni stood up and started walking in our direction so Kath had to hop back on the back with her pants around her knees! Pretty amusing to all of us. Seems Shiloweni was very intrigued by my 2 gallon urine sample :) I was flattered. Life is odd, hunh.

Now we have two days for the most part off. We are going to an animal rehabilitation center today, and perhaps town tomorrow. I'm half way through this project, and while I'm loving it and look forward to the next 2.5 wks, I'm glad I'm not doing the 10 wk program. It'll be good to try something new and to get some R&R with Drew in Cape Town. This has shown me that field guiding is great, but not a prospective career :)

Leopard tracking

So we are back on the reserve and have some exciting news. One of the leopards, Shiloweni, has been recuperating after dental surgery in an enclosure on the reserve. He has been signed off as in good health and is about to be released back into the reserve. We will be following him in 6 hr shifts to see how his release goes. We'll be on from 6 pm - minight or midnight - 6 am for the next week. It will be amazing watching him take down kills or interacting with the other leopards on the reserve (fighting/mating). It could also be extremely boring if he decides to just sleep throughout your shift :) But good news nonetheless. And yes, it will be safe and we will be in the car the whole time. We'll be fighting chills and boredom more than anything dangerous...will get back to you on how our week goes!

Catching critters in the mountains

This week my group headed to the Drakensburg Mountains to Mariepskop Reserve to catch small mammals and reptiles. So far the research groups (of previous trips) have found new species and provided some of the only data on the where and when certain species can be found throughout the year. Sadly, as we are going into winter, most of the animals were inactive so we only caught a few striped mice, a shrew and a doormouse :) We use little, humane traps to catch them, then anesthetize them with a little ether in a bag, and measure and weigh them quickly before they wake up. That part was ok but it consisted of a lot of long uncomfortable incredibly bumby rides in the back of a pickup to find very few animals. It got old kinda fast. And we weren't successful at all with the lizard catching. I found I was a decent hand at frog catching though, which was good times. The weather got a bit crap the last few days which put a damper on the mood. The mtns were beautiful but with the mist you couldnt see much of anything and the others were getting pretty soaked in the back of the pickup (I was fully cloaked in waterproof but it was a downer nonetheless). We also didn't have power in the cabin. It was nice and quaint but we tended to go to bed very early to wake up to more rain and no animals. All in all I'm glad we went for a few days but will be glad to get back to the reserve. I've posted some pics from this and last week including the elephants charging, catching frogs in the river and some of the other gorgeous animals I've come across. Should be getting tons more this coming week. And with the fast connection here in SA I should be able to upload the pics every week of so. Take care!

South Africa!!!

Ok so i only have internet once a week down on this project so i'll write as much as possible in as little time as possible. So i flew down to Joberg for an uneventful night in a hostel behind a barbed fence. that was scary SA but everything since has been splendid.

all of us volunteers for the GVI program were picked up the next day at the airport and split into two groups for the two sites. i really lucked out and went to the "better" site with really great people. this one is just better established and has a better building and more animals. we all settled into our dorm living at a nice enough group house which has its share of critters like spiders and scorpions and occasionally snakes. but we went to a reptile center and learned more about the above so we feel much more comfortable and informed. our location is karongwe reserve, about 5 hrs north of joberg and an hour west of kruger. it used to be several farms but the landowners decided to lose the fences and bring back some animals and now there are a couple research centers like ours and some ecolodges.

so the first week was lectures and game walks and drives. it was amazing! class was a few hrs a day and very interesting and easy. also we did a day of first aid training and i got certified which was a nice bonus. on top of that we did walks and drives to see birds and all sorts of antelope, big cats, hippo, rhino and elephants. our group was on a drive that accidentally spooked some elephants and we got charged. it was incredibly crazy but i got it all on video! i'll upload it soon...promise! one female rushed us from the front. we reversed and that wouldve been the end of it except an adolescent was several hundred meters behind us so we had to stop backing up. thus she was still upset as we hadnt given her sufficient space so she trumpeted and flapped her ears as she came around our truck. fyi this is a narrow road with trees on both side so she was close! then the other matriarch and all the babies came running up to the front of the car and also came around the side. it was intense and couldve been dangerous. thankfully that didnt stop me from recording the whole thing :)

we also learned to do telemetry tracking so we're following the collared lions, cheetah and leopards. the cheetah are habituated so we can actually walk up to them (staying about 20 m away though, with a rifle and a well trained researcher). the others would not be so blase but are also very used to people being around and arent "maneaters" so we are fairly safe at all times (the elephant situation was potentially way worse!). so two days ago we were tested on our lecture information (everyone passed) and then split into two groups of four and went on a long walk through the reserve to a campsite. we cooked over the fire, and each team sang songs and presented the photos we had to take while on our walk. we also had collected giraffe poo which was used in a giraffe poo spitting contest (it's really hard and all leaves). i came in second for poo spitting and our team won overall thanks to our funny photo we had to take. we had collected a bunch of poo and wrote "gvi is the shit" and then mooned the camera squatting over it. anywho, it was very fun and we took turns staying up to make sure the hyena didnt come too close in the night. we saw one just on the perimeter before we went to bed. soooo amazing. lets seeee - what else. my group is headed up to the mtns today to do some work with small mammals, reptiles, insects etc. basically we are just supposed to humanely capture a bunch of stuff and record it. should be easy and fun and a different landscape. this will be wetter and colder but really gorgeous. might even get to swim in the river up there.

ok! my ride is about to leave! i'll write more when i'm on next week. it's such a great experience! i'd recommend it over a safari drive anyday to anyone who can cope with some communal living and some dirty work. such a great experience :)

at Di's - ie photo post!!!!

enjoy :)

Lake Naivasha

Hm, I dont have much more to report from here besides this keyboard sucking...

Through the doorway of the internet place I can see the lake and a cow grazing about 10 ft from the door. We saw a hippo last night from the bar, outside the electric fences of the campsite. And this morning we saw black and white colobus in these huge trees that shadow the truck and our tents. A very nice site for sure. One couple from our trip rented bikes and a guide to go visit Hell's Gate. I was going to head to Elsemere to the home of Joy .... who Born Free is based on. But I opted to stay in camp to buy more gifts, repack my bags and read. Not too exciting but worthwhile :) Make sure you email me if you can think of anything specific you's like me to bring back!