DAY THREE
Five AM wake-up, breakfast in bed (we ate in the back of the car, which was technically my bed), and tracking cheetahs through the bush was not a bad way to start the morning! I was pretty tired by this point, but my enthusiasm for seeing the boys was not diminished and I FINALLY could identify them pretty well. Anakin is the one with the really dark spots, Omadillo has the fluffiest face, and Obi-Wan has smaller spots. Really, that is pretty much how you ID cheetahs; they are practically IDENTICAL!
The boys were still pretty lazy and I finished my book while we were sitting with them. They moved only once to find some shade when the sun came out for a bit. It was sprinkling by the time we walked the 2 kilometers back to our camp site. The rain came on VERY suddenly actually and we ate lunch huddled in the back of the car again.
When Rachel arrived to give Ryan his supplies for the day, she came bearing CHESTER! We were going to release him with the boys! So another volunteer and I hopped on the back of the truck with Chester’s crate and we tracked the boys as close as we could get from the road (Rachel’s car has 4-wheel drive). Since we were in the truck that they used to be fed from when they were in captivity, they came running when called. Once they were about 30 meters down the road, we opened Chester’s box. He came right out and went up to the other three and they all started purring and licking each other. They were so cute!
The only other exciting thing about the day (besides the fact that we arrived back at CCF at 7:30, aka over 4 hours later than expected) was that we almost got stuck in a giant mud puddle. Really stuck. Jess and I (the volunteer that was with me in the back) gamely hopped out and pushed the car from the front while Rachel reversed. We were knee deep in mud and water; but joking about it brightly when we eventually got un-stuck. Getting stuck is a huge fear out here in the rainy season since the tractor takes about 5 hours to get out to Bellebino farm to get you unstuck. I was COVERED in mud, but it was okay because my clothes and shoes were already FILTHY from tracking anyways.
We got to CCF in time for dinner and I was very happy to shower after our mud adventures. Really, I have no IDEA how Ryan does it day after day. It is EXHAUSTING tracking those boys!
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Cheetah Tracking Adventures, Part B
DAY TWO
Waking up at 5am is not high on my favorite list (it’s not on the list at all!), but the fact that I was waking up to track cheetahs made it SO much better! It had rained all night, so we couldn’t get the car out of the lot, so we tracked them on foot. They weren’t so far away and when we found them, they were hunting again! We heard an oryx death cry and Ryan took off at a run! I was VERY hard pressed to keep up and I pretty much failed. I mean, from when we first saw them trot off to the kill spot, it was over 300 meters! Luckily, Ryan was wearing a bright red beanie that was easy to follow.
When we got there, the boys were already on their kill: an oryx calf. I was so proud of them! Omadillo was holding it down while Anakin went for the throat bite (classic cheetah kill which strangles prey pretty quickly) and Obi-Wan protected them from… well us. He was very weary of Ryan for a bit. But then it started getting very sad… and gory. Since these boys are still learning, they couldn’t quite get the neck bite right and kept getting startled by the oryx’s little horns… so they eventually gave up on the neck bite and Omadillo started eating the hindquarters… while it was still alive. It took the poor thing 35 minutes to die. Ryan and I were so angry at them when Obi-Wan and Anakin just laid in the grass instead of helping with the kill, but they are LEARNING and apparently Chester usually does the neck bite. It was pretty horrific and so sad because the little oryx was fighting the whole time. When it finally died, Obi-Wan and Anakin started eating, too. Moral of the story is that it was hard to watch and very sad, but I am glad the boys are hunting and getting their own food successfully. They will learn to kill properly with time.
The rest of the day they were pretty lazy. They were so full of food that they looked pregnant! Ryan and I actually sat down and did data entry/ read a book respectively. They were just flopped on the ground, so we didn’t have to record much. It was VERY surreal to be sitting 10 meters from 3 technically WILD cheetahs reading a book about dragons… but there you have it. It didn’t rain ALL DAY so we got a fire when we got back to camp! Dinner of leftover mystery meat (possibly goat we decided), garlic bread, and pasta was awesome! (BUSH FOOD TOUR!)
Waking up at 5am is not high on my favorite list (it’s not on the list at all!), but the fact that I was waking up to track cheetahs made it SO much better! It had rained all night, so we couldn’t get the car out of the lot, so we tracked them on foot. They weren’t so far away and when we found them, they were hunting again! We heard an oryx death cry and Ryan took off at a run! I was VERY hard pressed to keep up and I pretty much failed. I mean, from when we first saw them trot off to the kill spot, it was over 300 meters! Luckily, Ryan was wearing a bright red beanie that was easy to follow.
When we got there, the boys were already on their kill: an oryx calf. I was so proud of them! Omadillo was holding it down while Anakin went for the throat bite (classic cheetah kill which strangles prey pretty quickly) and Obi-Wan protected them from… well us. He was very weary of Ryan for a bit. But then it started getting very sad… and gory. Since these boys are still learning, they couldn’t quite get the neck bite right and kept getting startled by the oryx’s little horns… so they eventually gave up on the neck bite and Omadillo started eating the hindquarters… while it was still alive. It took the poor thing 35 minutes to die. Ryan and I were so angry at them when Obi-Wan and Anakin just laid in the grass instead of helping with the kill, but they are LEARNING and apparently Chester usually does the neck bite. It was pretty horrific and so sad because the little oryx was fighting the whole time. When it finally died, Obi-Wan and Anakin started eating, too. Moral of the story is that it was hard to watch and very sad, but I am glad the boys are hunting and getting their own food successfully. They will learn to kill properly with time.
The rest of the day they were pretty lazy. They were so full of food that they looked pregnant! Ryan and I actually sat down and did data entry/ read a book respectively. They were just flopped on the ground, so we didn’t have to record much. It was VERY surreal to be sitting 10 meters from 3 technically WILD cheetahs reading a book about dragons… but there you have it. It didn’t rain ALL DAY so we got a fire when we got back to camp! Dinner of leftover mystery meat (possibly goat we decided), garlic bread, and pasta was awesome! (BUSH FOOD TOUR!)
Cheetah Tracking Adventures, Part the First
DAY ONE
The morning was pretty hectic as there was a little bit of a miscommunication in the time we were leaving and who was ALLOWED to go to Bellebino to track the cheetahs, but it went okay in the end and I arrived at the Bellebino camp around 1pm. I re-met Ryan, who pretty much lives at the camp and tracks cheetahs every day. I had been introduced to him once before when he was at CCF to catch up on data entry and have his first day in 16 days not trekking through the bush. He is a VERY enthusiastic guy who is willing to do pretty much anything for the release cheetahs.
How the tracking works is that we WALK twice a day (we go back to camp for lunch) to find the cheetahs and using a radio collar system. Once we find Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Omadillo (the three boys we were tracking), we follow them and take GPS points and notes about any significant events (such as marking, kills, movement from one resting spot to the other, etc). There is actually a fourth cheetah in the group called Chester, but he got into a fight with Omadillo a week or so back and had to be recaptured and fixed up. They were probably fighting for dominance of the group. Anyways, it is important that we track their progress and ability to hunt because the Bellabino farm is only the first step (the “soft release”) of their release. Their end goal is actually India!
The first afternoon of tracking was very interesting. We used the car to drive half-way (it does not have 4-wheel drive, so it can’t go very far with all the large puddles on the roads) and found the cats closer than we thought they would be and they were hunting! This was VERY exciting even though I had to run after them more than I would have liked. They didn’t catch anything though because they haven’t QUITE got being sneaky yet and so the adult oryx kept running them off with their horns. They eventually gave up and wandered off, but it WAS very exciting. We had to leave the boys a few hours early because there was a HUGE storm rolling in. We pretty much RAN the kilometer back to camp, and it started raining buckets and thundering shortly after we got back. Thus, Ryan and I huddled in the back of our car and ate cold lasagna and fries from last night’s dinner at CCF. It was so rainy that I didn’t even WANT to try to set up the tent that Rachel had brought to replace the flooded one that was supposed to be mine. So I set up a pad and sleeping bag in the back of the van and slept there! Great first day!
The morning was pretty hectic as there was a little bit of a miscommunication in the time we were leaving and who was ALLOWED to go to Bellebino to track the cheetahs, but it went okay in the end and I arrived at the Bellebino camp around 1pm. I re-met Ryan, who pretty much lives at the camp and tracks cheetahs every day. I had been introduced to him once before when he was at CCF to catch up on data entry and have his first day in 16 days not trekking through the bush. He is a VERY enthusiastic guy who is willing to do pretty much anything for the release cheetahs.
How the tracking works is that we WALK twice a day (we go back to camp for lunch) to find the cheetahs and using a radio collar system. Once we find Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Omadillo (the three boys we were tracking), we follow them and take GPS points and notes about any significant events (such as marking, kills, movement from one resting spot to the other, etc). There is actually a fourth cheetah in the group called Chester, but he got into a fight with Omadillo a week or so back and had to be recaptured and fixed up. They were probably fighting for dominance of the group. Anyways, it is important that we track their progress and ability to hunt because the Bellabino farm is only the first step (the “soft release”) of their release. Their end goal is actually India!
The first afternoon of tracking was very interesting. We used the car to drive half-way (it does not have 4-wheel drive, so it can’t go very far with all the large puddles on the roads) and found the cats closer than we thought they would be and they were hunting! This was VERY exciting even though I had to run after them more than I would have liked. They didn’t catch anything though because they haven’t QUITE got being sneaky yet and so the adult oryx kept running them off with their horns. They eventually gave up and wandered off, but it WAS very exciting. We had to leave the boys a few hours early because there was a HUGE storm rolling in. We pretty much RAN the kilometer back to camp, and it started raining buckets and thundering shortly after we got back. Thus, Ryan and I huddled in the back of our car and ate cold lasagna and fries from last night’s dinner at CCF. It was so rainy that I didn’t even WANT to try to set up the tent that Rachel had brought to replace the flooded one that was supposed to be mine. So I set up a pad and sleeping bag in the back of the van and slept there! Great first day!
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