Volunteers
I’m sorry for not writing in a
while. Although, it always seems like I write that. At the same time, it seems
that I have lots to tell you about and nothing much new at all. The past couple
of months have been keeping my busy. My project has finally been advertised to
take on volunteer field assistants and I’ve had at least one, sometimes two,
steadily for the past 6 weeks. And after a few weeks of working solo, it has
been nice to have some company in the field. I also really enjoy teaching
youngsters (youngsters? How old have I become recently?!) all about fieldwork
and baboons! They’re just about the only things I truly enjoy and can talk
about with any authority now! It also cracks me up that I am finally in such a
role-model-like position that I can actually impart any knowledge and, dare I
say, wisdom? to anyone. The volunteers I’ve had had been volunteering at the
Wildlife Centre before they came up, most of them for a few months. The first
couple must’ve had a good time because they went back to the Centre with rave
reviews and more volunteers signed up immediately. I take them out to the field
with me every day and teach them how to use radio telemetry tracking, field
smarts, how to identify the baboons, baboon behaviors, the data collection
techniques we use, and anything else that might come up during the day.
John
On two of my volunteers’ first day,
I found my troop, but my adult male, John, was not with them. John was always a
good guy, albeit a little laidback for a dominant baboon. He put up no fight
when Roman, my wild adult male, came to join the troop a few months ago. He was
a big slow guy just merrily going through life. That afternoon I went to find
John’s radio telemetry signal from his collar. I picked it up a few kilometers
away from where the rest of the troop was, and immediately had a bad feeling.
After following his signal for almost 2 more kilometers through the bush, we
finally became very close, but did not see a baboon. My assistants and I spread
out and started combing the area. My volunteer found John’s collar. After
inspecting the area, I deduced that he was probably killed by a leopard. There
was his collar, patches of hair on the ground, and…his skull. All this was
underneath a large tree, with leopard claw marks on the trunk, and a patch of
hair stuck about 10 meters up. Surely the work of a leopard. While it is
unusual for leopards to go after adult male baboons, adult male baboons have very
large canine teeth and are quite strong, John was always a slow baboon and
maybe he lagged behind or just couldn’t get away as quickly as the others. I
was very sad about losing John. It’s like losing a friend. I spend more time
with these baboons than I do any human being. I felt bad that I couldn’t have
done more for him, but at the same time, this is wildlife and the bush. It’s
better to die in the bush naturally than to live a long life in captivity. And
John got a great six months out in the wild proudly leading his troop.
Wildlife Visits
We had some exciting wildlife
encounters around camp lately. One night, two leopards could be heard on either
side of camp. A little bit later, in fact five minutes after I had gone outside
of my tent to pee, as I was climbing back into bed, a leopard growled outside
my tent! About 6 feet from my bed. I could feel it in my bones. He might as
well have been INSIDE my tent. It was terrifying and so so cool. Dan and I set
up some camera traps on the road behind my tent and the first night we caught a
gorgeous female leopard walking to and from camp. A few nights later we got
another leopard, this time a very large handsome male. Leopards are amazing and
it’s very cool to have them so close to where I live. Although, it makes
walking back to my tent at night a little wearisome.
I’ve also heard hyenas a bit more
recently. They can usually be heard whooping a ways away, but one night this
week, they were very close to camp, and whooping and yelping and giggling. It
was incredible to hear their multitude of excited sounds so close to camp. They
were clearly enjoying a kill nearby. So nearby in fact that before the hyenas
made their racket, only a couple of minutes after I had gotten into bed, I
heard a puku, a small impala-like antelope that live here, run behind my tent,
and then run back the other way in front of the tents. I’m sure a leopard was
chasing him, and was successful not far off. Going to sleep to the sounds of a
leopard growling and hyenas yelping was awesome.
A couple of months ago, a young
puku was seen milling around our tents. He appeared to be orphaned (maybe his
mother was the victim of one of these leopards?). He continued and continues to
hang around our camp. I’ve named him Petey. He’s usually seen every day
lounging in the grass in the middle of camp. He has quickly become used to both
Dan and myself, and no longer runs away from us. He’s grown considerably over
the past couple of months. Each time I hear a leopard I fear for his safety,
but somehow he manages to escape their clutches and will show up at camp the
next afternoon. I’ve come to really like having Petey around camp.
Last weekend, about 25 elephants,
about half the total population of elephants in Kasungu NP, came waltzing
through camp. They spent the entire Sunday and more than half of Monday walking
by the kitchen and bathrooms, drinking from the dam, swimming in the water, and
rolling in the mud. Usually a few ellies come by at a time and for only a few
hours at a time. So this was pretty incredible. A few of my friends from the
Centre were up visiting and we just spend hours and hours watching and
photographing (I must’ve taken hundreds of photos) the ellies, sometimes from
as close as a few feet away.
The increase in wildlife visits is
most likely due to the onset of the dry season. Water is quickly disappearing
around the park, and the animals more frequently visit the dam where my camp
sits for the plentiful water. And while some of you who have visited various
other African national parks might not think that a few leopards or elephants
is terribly exciting, I assure you that out here in Kasungu, wildlife is
scarce. I saw a couple of sable and a few zebra a couple of weeks ago, which
are both incredibly rare in these parts. Imagine, zebra being a rare sighting.
So, as the dry season continues in full swing, I look forward to these wildlife
sightings!
Friends come to visit
Last weekend, my friends Rob, Kat,
and Olivia came up to Kasungu. Olivia, who had been working here since I came
last December, is leaving Malawi soon so we wanted one last fun weekend all of
us together. It’s nice to have good friends come visit; it gives a nice break
to the monotony and solitude out here in the bush. We mostly watched the
elephants the whole weekend. We also watched a bootleg copy of Jurassic World,
which was great fun. We went up to Black Rock for the excellent view of the
park to the horizon in every direction. Overall, it was a very fun and
restorative weekend.
