AWF Blog
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Follow Me On Twitter
Posted: August 19, 2008, 2:07 pm by Paul
Do any of you use Twitter? I’m exploring connecting with AWF supporters and conservation partners through Twitter, which is a network where people keep each other posted on what they’re doing at the moment.
Thanks to my smart phone (a blessing and a curse), I can send quick updates on my adventures and AWF news directly from the field.
If you’d like to check it out, follow me on Twitter. My name is paulix. I’d like to make some new friends!
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The Delicate and Mighty
Posted: August 13, 2008, 8:29 pm by Paul
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A Typical Afternoon in the ‘Office’
Posted: August 11, 2008, 8:40 pm by Nakedi
11:00am: I take the research car and go and upload pictures from the cameras. I’m unsettled at this stage because I’m alone. I get to the first camera station. I get out of the car, pick up the stones that lay right next to the car and throw them in to the nearest thickets and wait. At this point I’m standing at the door in the Nakedi’s Ready Position: “if something so much as growls from that thicket, I will dive in to the open door and lock myself in,” I make a mental note.
Nothing growls and nothing moves, so I take the laptop, walk towards the camera and start uploading pictures. Sometimes I find ungulates grazing next to the camera station, and then I get relieved that they probably moved as far away from predators as possible. This should have happened in the early morning or during the night. I don’t rule out the possibility of an unsuccessful hunter from the previous night though. However, the sight of ungulates in the vicinity still puts me at ease. I hope that I will not be seen as a prey when the familiar staple food is around.
3:00pm: It is almost time for the Singita Lodge guests to go on the afternoon drive. I must get out of the concession so I’m not in the way.
3:30pm: I arrive at the lodge, get myself some water and head back to Shishangane (aka Shish).
4:30pm: Arrive at Shish and start sorting leopard droppings of the day and analysing the leopard pictures that were uploaded. I have avoided the lion areas. I’ll check those the following day, only if!
5:00pm: Play some football at Shish.
6:15pm: Shower!
6:45pm: Dinner!
7:15pm: I read a scientific paper. When it stops making sense (calculus!), I get grumpy and read a novel. Sometimes I go and have a beer or two with the guys at the bar. After a beer or two I try again. Now it is the beer and me against calculus and stats…. sometimes I win. On such an evening I go to bed with a smile on my face!
10:00pm: Snooze… with a smile on my face.
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The Elephants of West Kilimanjaro
Posted: August 11, 2008, 9:29 am by Paul
It’s too bad elephants aren’t smaller. If they were, perhaps they wouldn’t travel such great distances, and we humans wouldn’t have to drive for so long to map their movements. I spent the entire day bumping through West Kili’s inescapable dust, GPS mapping a snaking network of roads. It’s amazing how tiring all this sitting can be.
I am in northern Tanzania at an AWF research and conservation camp called the West Kilimanjaro Elephant Research Project, or WKERP (we conservationists never shy from a mouthy acronym!). But many call it Kikoti’s Camp, after the Tanzanian who conducts his work from here.
Alfred Kikoti has been running the AWF project in the area since 2000, studying the ecology of elephants, mapping their movements, and setting up a network of anti-poaching community game scouts.
The West Kilimanjaro area supports more than 600 elephants, and is an important ecological link for elephants traveling between Amboseli National Park in Kenya, down to Arusha and Kilimanjaro National Parks in Tanzania, and out to Lake Natron further west.
West Kilimanjaro supports a population of 600 elephants and is threatened by land fragmentation.
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A Typical Morning at the ‘Office’
Posted: August 8, 2008, 8:36 pm by Nakedi
4:45am: Wake up and take a shower (I’m extremely grumpy* at this stage).
5:00am: Still grumpy, I get in to the research car with my backpack and laptop bag and follow the bus from Shishangane (Staff Village) to the lodge (Singita Kruger National Park).
Contents of the backpack:
1. Water
2. Ziplock® bags in case we come across leopard droppings
3. GPS
4. Camera
5. Binoculars
6. My note book
7. A sweater (I wonder why)5:30am: Arrive at the lodge. Still grumpy!!
5:45am: Assemble with the tracking team (this depends on the occupancy of the lodge). If there is no tracking team I try and read. Grumpy still!!
6:00am: Tracking team departs for the Concession. I’m slightly grumpy at this stage.
6:30am: The sun comes out! Hooray! I start smiling.
Any time after departure if we come across tracks of animals that need tracking for that day, we get off the Landy (Land Rover) and start tracking (Depends on how old the tracks are). One of the guys remains in the Landy and drives around the block to meet the team on the other side should they not find anything. I take my backpack in case we come across leopard droppings, a leopard, leopard tracks or a leopard kill. If any of these happens, I note it in my notebook and GPS the position.One of us, usually Glass or Christoff, always carries a rifle and a radio. For my own personal reasons I always walk next to the guy with the rifle. It might have to do with being the immediate building block of the food chain. I refuse to share this sensitive piece of information.
Half the time I step on the man with the rifle’s heels. Christoff complains and someone remarks how scared Nakedi is. Everyone starts laughing. I’m not grumpy anymore, so I also start laughing.
The tracking team is phenomenal; they know the area like the back of their hands. They follow tracks on some of the most unlikely places where one can follow an animal such as on the mountain. I’m not lying; it has something to do with the direction in which the grass is bent. It is incredible what they can do. I’m not that far behind in my tracking skills! I feel like I’m improving by the day.
After walking for a while Christoff might suddenly turn without warning and walk back in the direction we just came from. I know if he does this there is something farther down the path, usually lions. When I first got here I used to stop and look around, extending my neck and asking questions: “What is it? Why are we turning? Where is it?” The response: “Hai, Nakedi u lava ku dyiwa mpfo!? U ta dyiwa buti (pronounced: boot),” Christoff would say. Translated: “Hey, Nakedi do you want to get eaten boy!? You will get eaten brother!”
After walking as far away as possible from the animal that was supposed to eat me I would ask again. 100% of the time the answer is: “Di ta ku dya tingala (lions) mpfo!” (Didn’t you see those lions? Lions will eat you, boy!) And I would say: “Was it lions?“
9:00am: We are all hungry and tired from tracking. I’m grumpy again. We get in to the Landy and head back to the lodge.
9:45am: We are back at the lodge, breakfast time, Yay!! I’m not grumpy anymore. I eat enough food so that I don’t come back for lunch. After breakfast I wait for the guides to bring their guests back to the lodge. While I’m waiting I do some admin (Grumpy!).
10:45am: I try and get an update of where all the lions were spotted on that day. I make a mental note not to go near those areas.
I’ll fill you in on the rest of the day in my next post.
* I’m not really a grumpy person! Nothing really matters when I’m in the bush.
Blah blah blah
Fish cakes
Alas a fish cake.
Yet more fish cakes
Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.
The end of the fish cakes
