Fieldwork

I shared this photo on facebook, but wanted to put it here also...

While out in the field the yesterday measuring grass, 4 white rhino were very close to us. So our guard Robert took photos of us working with the rhinos in the background. He kept saying, "You don't get a photo like this very often." The little one on the far right is the baby born just last August that I posted photos of last year at 8 days old. For being less than a year old, it sure has grown fast.

Just in case anyone is afraid for our safety in this shot... these are white rhino, which are much less aggressive. It is the black rhino that will charge you or your car. And our guard had a gun... just in case.

Hello hyena

I really wish I could show you all these camera trap photos in sequence. When motion-triggered, the camera takes photos 1 second apart until the animal is gone, so when you click through the photos on your computer is it like stop-motion video. There are some funny sequences of animals exploring the camera, playing with each other, or running away.

Here is a hyena who wanted to say hello

Camera traps

I have learned a few things this week....

1. Camera traps are my new favorite thing. Collecting the memory cards and pluging them into your computer to see what is on there is like opening presents. You never know what you are going to see, are there is almost always something awesome, amusing, or just cool.

2. I think lions like camera traps as much as I do.... because they seem to show up on almost every single camera. And usually they do not just walk past. They come and inspect it close up from both sides, and occassionally leave the camera tilted when they go.

So far, creepiest photo:

And coolest-- mother lion and two young ones. Note the guy in front is carrying a spinal column from something in its mouth!!!

This same young lion explored another one of my cameras on the same plain and left it kind of askew as he walked away...

Curious hyenas

I had the cutest interaction with some young hyena the other night.

I was driving one afternoon and spotted a group of hyena sitting up out of their den along the side of the road. So I stopped and turned off my car to take pictures. This group consisted of a mom, 2 young pups, and 3 older cubs (I don't really know if young hyena are pups or cubs?).

The three older ones were very curious and instantly took a fascination with my car. Here is what followed:

What is this??? It is very interesting...

Let's investigate. Hello!

Hmm, and it tastes pretty good too!

Camera trap success

I already posted this photo on Facebook, but for those of you who do not check there, I thought I would post it here also

We had put out some of our camera traps for only 2 days and then collected the memory cards to check that they all worked. In going through the photos of zebra and warthog and the occassional buffalo or elephant, suddenly this popped up on my screen. It was awesome!

A lovely lioness walking right at my camera.

On another good note: Dan came to Ol Pejeta today to check up on us and drove around my sites with me. He was generally happy with them and helped me work out some good improvements so that I feel more confident in my set up now.  Now I just have to get to work. He plans to come back again in a week or so.

Northern White Rhinos

Here is a short photo diary of my visit to the Northern White Rhinos the other day.

There are only 7 Northern White Rhinos left in existence in the entire world, making them one of the most endangered species. 3 are at a zoo in San Diego and the other 4 are here at Ol Pejeta. The four here were brought from a zoo in the Czech Republic in 2009 to try to give them one last ditch shot at species survival. These 4 rhino (2 males and 2 females) were not breeding in the zoo, so people decided to relocate them back to the "wild" in hopes that a more natural habitat might allow them to start breeding again.
(A note on the photos: The rhinos have been de-horned to discourage poaching and for the safety of their keepers, otherwise they would have large pointy horns)

At Ol Pejeta, the 4 Northern Whites have been put into a large enclosure covering something like 50 acres where they can roam, eat grass for the first time in their lives, and hopefully produce the first offspring in many, many years. In this enclosure Ol Pejeta also put 4 Southern White Rhino females. The Southern White Rhino is a closely related subspecies that they can cross-mate with. So while any resulting Northern White-Southern White crosses born would not be pure Northern White Rhinos anymore... with only 7 individuals left in the world, hybridizing might be their only shot.

And the good news so far... they have started mating! And this female below may be pregnant right now.

And to end with a few close-up shots:

Lions! and car fixed!

Finally saw lions... and now two days in a row.
Yesterday evening we saw 2 female lions, lying in tall grass. They eventually got up and stretched and I got a nice yawning shot.

Then this evening I came across three young (subadult) lions. They were without their mom, so she might have been off hunting, leaving them to look cute for tourists.

And on another positive note-- my car was fixed and ready for me this morning. So I still got a full day of work in (camera traps in the morning, vegetation measuring in the afternoon). The workshop took my fuel tank off and welded the holes where it was leaking fuel. The guy also told me, "we tried to flatten your tank out a bit too"-- i.e. they hammered out all of the lumps and bumps it had accumulated over the years from driving over stuff. And now without all of those bumps, it holds an extra 5 liters of fuel!
So all in all, a pretty good day. I will write another post later about my visit with the Northern White Rhinos yesterday.

Africa days

Not too much new to report for the past few days. We have seen a few more cheetahs, but no lions yet. Several people are trying to find them with no success… They must not want an audience right now and are in hiding in the tall grass.

Work setting up my project has been moving along with varying levels of success. We changed the plan with the cattle GPS collars a bit. We are now giving each herd 3 units, 2 to put on the cows and 1 for the herders to carry... and trying to see if the battery will last 2 days with a logging interval of 2 minutes instead of 30 seconds. I got the first set back last night. Good news-- the battery does last 2 days. The units that the herders carried worked great, the ones on the cows not so much. There must be interference from either the metal chains or the fact that the units are under their necks. So I am wondering now if it is even worth it to put units on the cows, or just have the herders carry them.

My car has a fuel leak and is at the workshop right now. Hoping it is fixed by tomorrow noon-ish. Until then, I am grounded. For now, here a just a couple photos.

I think this hyena has cataracts...

 And a little baby elephant

Research Update

I know most of you only care about the pictures anyway, but I thought I would give a research update for those who are interested.

I had hoped to work on the Eastern side of the Conservancy again like I did last year. Unfortunately, there are no cows on that side of the Conservancy this year! So I have had to change my plan. We picked a couple plains on the Western side with cows and I gave GPS units to these herds for the past two days to see where the cows go. Some of the GPS units are not working very well... sadly. So we are going to try giving each herd 3 units, 2 on the cows and 1 that the herder will carry. It is always something.

I will probably also work some on the East side where there are no cows. This will give me a "no cows" site for comparison to the sites with cattle. Once I make sure this plan is definite, I will put out grazing exclosure cages and camera traps at around 20 sites across, measure the vegetation, and then begin with the behavioral observations.

As far as the research center goes, there was an undergrad group from Marymount University here when we first arrived, but they left on Monday. A few German researchers have been here for awhile, but are leaving tomorrow. So then it will be just me, Blair, Youngin, and 2 guys who I believe are leaving in a week or so. We don't know of anyone else arriving until mid July, so it may be quiet here for a few weeks.

And to end with a photo-- here are two male Eland fighting it out

Wild dogs!!!

It has been a good few days of animal sightings. I finally saw the wild dogs! There is a pack of 9 that came to Ol Pejeta from the north about a year ago. I somehow missed them all last summer, but finally saw them today.

They looked like they had just eaten-- their bellies were very full and they were mostly just napping along the side of the road. Later they moved 100m or so over to the water tank and all curled up together in the shade of the tank.

African wild dogs are endangered and there numbers took a big dive in the 80s I think. But they are beginning to rebound in some places... which would be wonderful. I think they are really cool-looking.

Cheetah cubs!!!!

We got a call this morning from one of the guys who works here telling us there was a cheetah with young cubs on Scotts Plain. So Blair, Youngin, me, and 2 Germans who are also at the research center jumped in my car and high-tailed it out there.

We got the most amazing view of a cheetah with 5 young cubs. We are told they are probably about 3 months old.

At Ol Pejeta

Sorry for not posting sooner, but I am in Kenya, safe at Ol Pejeta.
We arrived in Nairobi late on June 7, spent the 8th driving up to Mpala where we packed up our cars and drove over to Ol Pejeta just in time for dinner. On the 9th we ran errands in town.

Today, I went out and drove around to see the sights and test out my new (dad's old) camera. Here are some photos I took this morning.