African Wild Dog Spoor
Category: Spoor Tracking | Date: Jul 31 2008 | By: okavangocarnivores
Animal tracks can be useful in a variety of different ways. The occurance of animal spoors signify the presence of those animals in our study area. Our project uses these tracks as an indirect measure to obtain large carnivore abundance and distribution in the various habitat types found in the Okavango region. One may ask how this is done. We simply scan and count large carnivore tracks seen along the selected roads (referred to as transects), which requires the ability and skill to identify the tracks. We normally do the spoor count survey early in the mornings and, in some cases, in the late afternoons for easy spoor detection . In the previous post I mentioned to you that I will share with you carnivore spoor pictures. Below are some.
Picture 1: African Wild Dog
African Wild dog Tracks
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Picture 2: African Wild dog tracks. The front foot print is usually larger than the hind. Picture 3: Sometimes counting tracks is not easy, especially for a socially organized carnivore species like wild dogs. African wild dogs normally travel and hunt in groups. This picture show tracks from a pack of wild dogs encountered during the spoor count survey in the Moremi Game Reserve.
Scats
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Picture 4 : Fresh wild dog scats seen on the road about one and a half hour after sunrise.
I hope you will visit again soon for more!
Dungi
Activities in the bush
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jul 20 2008 | By: okavangocarnivores
Work in the field
I have been out of camp for a couple weeks visiting my family in Southern Botswana. Everyone seems to doing very well there and it was nice to spend time with them. However, I am happy to be back in camp and out in the field again. This is our winter season, which is a very good time to do more in terms of field work, regardless of all the freezing nights and mornings. In particular, it is an excellent time to do more spoor count surveys.
People often ask me what I do from day to day. Well, there is quite a lot to say as my life at camp is always busy. The central aspect of my job is carnivore monitoring which includes spoor tracking amongst other things. Below are some pictures and more information about my daily activities, some more welcome than others.
Spoor tracking
Myself in the field
Pic: Scanning for carnivore tracks on the road (transect) during spoor survey conducted two days ago.
Pic. Measuring lion footprint
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Picture 1 and 2. Taking notes in the field.
Other parts of my days
If you are driving a car in the bush, especially off-road, numerous challenges present themselves. It is almost impossible to avoid punctures and repairing tyres is a key aspect of our routine, although it is far from the most enjoyable!
Pictures above show me fixing a tyre, which happens at least once a week as I go out more for spoor counts.
Leopard sometimes conceal their kill
I want to share this picture with you of the remains of an impala that was killed by a leopard. This kill was nicely concealed with pieces of sticks and grass. This is interesting as I have never encountered this behavior with a leopard kill before. In most cases, leopards leave their kills underneath a tree or up in it, they rarely take the time to cover them up like this one. This was very exciting
Pic. Impala kill
New leopard collared, unfortunately, one is lost.
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jul 08 2008 | By: okavangocarnivores
A new leopard discovered was sighted while two of our researchers was radio tracking a mortality beeping leopard radio-collar. He was darted and radio collared. Unfortunately the old radio collared leopard which has been monitored for more half a year was found near by and confirmed dead. The cause of the death has not been identified yet. It is so hard breaking, but we are determined to continue monitoring carnivore species in the okavango area. Our efforts are less of a fortune because, large carnivore collaring is costly, time consuming and difficult. We will continue to rely on and ask for donations from everyone to help with donation so that we can be able to accomplish our mission.e
Pic. The project team working on the the dead leopard.
A loss of a collared animal will leave some questions unansweared, however, it is very important to us.
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