My trip started off a little hectic. After rushing around like crazy the week before I needed to leave for nine months I finally got on the plane and after 18 hours of flying I arrived to the Abidjan airport. After I went through customs the last stop was to get your yellow fever card stamped then you are free to go, unfortunately I remembered I forgot it while i was standing in line, I instantly panicked and thought that this trip was to good to be true anyways and I would have to go back to the states already, but luckily the girl I was there to assist had an extra card from the previous years, I was really nervous that I would get caught but the guy just stamped it without looking at me and let me pass.
After we left the airport we headed to the science and research center where the students live before and after going to the forest, there was a really nice meal prepared for us when we arrived consisting of fish with the head still on attieke which is a favorite here and is a mix between cous cous and rice , potatoes which I was most familiar with and a healthy salad. That night as me and another girl were lying in bed covered by a large mosquito net I asked about 100 questions about the forest and the chimps so I could get a good idea of what to expect , but after all the questions I got the hint that she wanted to sleep so I closed my eyes and tried to picture what my life was going to be like.
My bags took 4 days before they were delivered to me . This meant that I had to make do with what I wore on the plane which consisted of spandex, a shirt, one pair of underwear and shoes, which I guess was a good way to adjust me to life in the forest where showering is a luxury as is a clean pair of anything! When the bags finally arrived I was so happy I couldn’t contain myself , that is until I saw the shape of my bags, which managed to come back to me with holes all in them and a broken wheel, but what can you do? …..its Africa.
Hello to all again or should I now say Bonjour! I am so glad you are still joining me on my third journey to Africa! I found out about a week and a half ago that I was offered the opportunity to follow and study the chimpanzees of the Tai National Forest for nine months. Without hesitation I agreed to join a girl from Germany named Lydia on her journey to the remote forests of Cote d I’vore (Ivory Coast) in Africa, to gain as much information as we can on the complex culture of the Tai chimpanzees.
Ever since I was a little girl I dreamed of venturing out into the unknown depths of the mysterious forests to track some of the last remaining populations of the great apes including ( gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans) I was blessed with a once in a lifetime opportunity in July 2008 to go to South Africa for a year and become a certified field guide in the wilds of the African bush, and after a successful year I learned a great deal and grew to love the wildlife even more and most importantly the importance of preserving it through conservation.
I am leaving a familiar area of open golden grasslands and plenty of sunlight with unbelievable species such as lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyena, buffalo, rhino and elephants, and journeying into an unfamiliar place which can only be described as dark, desolate, green, wet, humid, mysterious and intriguing with one of the most fascinating species known to man the chimpanzee. I am nervous, hopeful and excited all at the same time and am interested to find out just how basic I will be living! but Im a tough cookie for all of you who dont know! Apart from learning about chimpanzees I am anxious to start learning French since it is the official language of the Ivory Coast. I am not sure how much contact I will have with the outside world but will try and post to my blog when I can! so Salute for now…………….:)
The Valley is known for its mysterious black leopard sightings
I have spent the past 3 months now in Lydenburg South Africa working for the Ingwe Leopard Project. For many people in South Africa it is known as the area where the mysterious black leopards live , but there have only been few random sightings over the past 40 years. The Ingwe leopard Project has been running since 1999 and its aim is to research the amount of carnivores , specifically leopards as the main focus and brown hyena that are roaming free outside of protected areas, since this is where the majority of wildife occurs. The aims of our research is to find out how many different individuals are living in the Valley we live in. We do this first by tracking for their prints in the sand or what we call spoorand by setting out camera traps all around the valley which can be tricky and take some time since you have to predict where the leopard will move and when it will do so. We have successfully photographed the leopard, brown hyena and honey badger and have made more than 30 different and unique casts from the leopards spoor.
Being the first time I have worked with camera traps I actually really enjoy working with them and feel like its Christmas day when I get to go check them after about a week. The camera trap is basically made up of a little camouflage box with a camera inside designed to pick up movement through a sensor and snap 1-3 pictures of whatever has walked by and triggered it. The camera traps we have are from the States and are more geared towards photographing animals such as deer which move at a much slower pace than a leopard or brown hyena would , so it is a bit challenging to get the perfect photo of these intelligent, shy and illusive mammals.
At the current moment we have a man named Dairen Simpson here from the states as well as a film crew following Dairen for a wildlife film series, as he tries to capture and trap leopards with a safe method of leg trapping. Although he had great sucess on our neighboring research area, we had not such luck on our side since the cats arent as use to people or as we call them street smart.
Below is a video that will give you a better idea of what Dairen Simpson does:
Our lucky break came a week ago when one of the farmers in the area told us of a old male bull kudu that had dropped dead from old age. We immediately saw this as an opportunity to get our camera traps all around the carcass in hopes of getting a leopard or brown hyena. Never before has any of these species been photographed on a kill in our study area, so we were hoping to get success. After 4 nights we retrieved our cameras to find we had snapped different leopards every evening and had 3 shots of a brown hyena which was ground breaking! unfortunately for us during the second night a brown hyena had bumped into one of the cameras and knocked the strap used to hold it up against a tree right in front of the lens , so we have around 40 pics of only half of a leopard, brown hyena ,bush pig, and who knows what else. As frustrating as this was , it serves as a learning experience just to prove that nothing runs 100% smooth in research.
Believe it or not I haven’t seen a leopard in the valley yet! but just looking at the pic below of the area we worked in , you can get a better idea of why this is so. The only signs we have of their presence is their spoor , scat, pictures and haunting calls throughout the valley.
Well sorry i haven’t been on my blog in months! I have been busy with traveling and starting a new job here in south Africa. Since the start of January I have been working at a place called Untamed Africa, at the Numbi gate of the Kruger National Park! We are literally within feet of the Kruger Park. The area is really beautiful , but the only problem is the grass is about 2 meters high! so as you can imagine you cant see anything unless it walks right out in front of the road . I am helping to start a research project on the white and black rhinos of this area. What I am doing is driving around all day and locating rhino middens and for all of you who don’t know its a pile of dung that male rhinos accumulate and use as message stations in their range. We then GPS all of the middens on the Leutla concession and are now starting to study whats association are occuring in and around the middens. We have come to find out that many other species use the rhino middens, for examples elephants take a liking to them because the grass that grows around the middens is nice and fresh when other areas arent as nutrient high. Mongoose love them as well because of all the insects like millipedes and beetles that accumulate in and around them.
Untamed Conservancy
The best part of my job here is going out into the bush every day without a ranger or a weapon. Although it is frowned upon, I do tend to wander off from the vehicle a little further than allowed, but I feel very competent in my ability to detect danger and I am well equipped with what to do should a dangerous situation arise. The other day I went into Kruger for a couple hours and was astonished to see how fast the leopards and lions disappeared into the tall grass right off the road, so ever since then I have decided to be a little more cautious when bending over to measure a rhino midden or wander off trails following some interesting spoor. Now believe it or not the last 2 months that we have been here we have not seen one rhino on the Untamed concession, but all the students and volunteers have a few times! this seems typical to me, when you are looking really hard for something it never shows, but when you least expect it …….. there it is, I am still determined to see a rhino on this conservancy before I leave, I have already had about 30 or 40 rhino sighting since I’ve been here , but not the ones whose middens I have been digging around in all day every day. My accommodation is really nice, some call it a concentration camp, but i think its quite roomy . It is in fact an old railway camp with an active station that runs on the perimeter of the Kruger Park. The only problem is how the train comes by about 10 times a day and is about 20 meters from my head, but I have actually grown use to it, the only problem is that it drains out the sounds of the lions and hyenas at night!
Ive had some pretty cool sighting though, like when we pulled up to 5 wild dogs resting on a rocky outcrop that had just fed on an impala. Another great sighting was when a male leopard came 5 meters from the car, as well as a lioness sitting on one of the map signs made of rock in kruger, which I have never seen before! The leading newspaper asked for the rights to publish that picture in an article which was really neat. Anyways I will try to blog as much as I can when I can get to town, so hello to everyone back at home! wish you were here
Hello to all again or should I now say Bonjour! I am so glad you are still joining me on my third journey to Africa! I found out about a week and a half ago that I was offered the opportunity to follow and study the chimpanzees of the Tai National Forest for nine months. Without hesitation I agreed to join a girl from Germany named Lydia on her journey to the remote forests of Cote d I’vore (Ivory Coast) in Africa, to gain as much information as we can on the complex culture of the Tai chimpanzees.
but Im a tough cookie for all of you who dont know! Apart from learning about chimpanzees I am anxious to start learning French since it is the official language of the Ivory Coast. I am not sure how much contact I will have with the outside world but will try and post to my blog when I can! so Salute for now…………….:)
The camera traps we have are from the States and are more geared towards photographing animals such as deer which move at a much slower pace than a leopard or brown hyena would , so it is a bit challenging to get the perfect photo of these intelligent, shy and illusive mammals.
