Living the Okavango Delta

I have been very fortunate over the past few months in that I have met a number of researchers here in the Okavango Delta, all of whom are happy to have me helping them out with their projects. Consequently I have been able to help track and collar one of the most charismatic and fascinating species of African carnivore –wild dogs. Not only that, but I have helped a researcher collect lion DNA using biopsy darts, collected samples from the waterways of the delta looking at micro-invertebrate biodiversity in relationship to land usage, studied population dynamics of roan antelope (a very rare species), and assess the impact of elephants on the surrounding vegetation. To say the least, I have had my hands full – there hasn’t been so much as a dull moment here in Botswana.

Tomorrow I’m being flown out to another premier camp located on a small island in the heart of the Okavango to assist with ongoing biology projects in the area, and I couldn’t be more excited! This island is the hotspot of biodiversity in the delta – it is the place to be if one is looking for wildlife. With an abundance of leopard, lion, buffalo, elephants…. there is no shortage of excitement. Basically it is a dream come true living in the thick of the bush, no doubt an addicting lifestyle!

 

 

A view from above – flying to one of the camps in the delta. You can easily make out the animal tracks in the vegetation heading towards water (or in this case, a dried up waterhole), often referred to as the ‘veins of life’

 

This is why elephants cause such a ruckus on the surrounding vegetation – they scrape off the bark with their tusks and chew on it like gum. They will often remove an entire ring of bark around the tree, thus disabling the tree from transporting liquids and nutrients through its bark, inevitably killing the entire tree.

 

 

Elephant using its tusk and trunk to remove the bark

 

 

The lounge area in one of the camps

 

Elephant wandering through camp

 

 

A leopard on it’s kill – a female impala. Incidentally she was pregnant and only days away from calving.

 

 

Leopard in a tree – lazy in the mid-day heat.

funny story before bedtime..

Four guests arrived in camp the other day, all excited to be here in Botswana. After talking for a while, it was mentioned that farming is very popular here and cattle ranchers own some 60% of the countries land. The guests were intrigued by this statistic as they told us that they hadn't yet eaten any meat on their entire trip. We looked at the information sheet about the four guests, and it mentioned that they were all vegetarians..... That's when they told us that they were, in fact, all veterinarians...







haha funny story! and now a few pictures from this morning

A leopard we stumbled upon just after it had eaten an impala.

Fish eagle taking off

This bird spent most of its afternoon riding this prime example of an 'african taxi'

Car trouble in Africa (and other cool photos too!)

It’s been a very exciting two weeks here in Botswana, action packed could easily be an understatement. Whether its been chasing wild dog, stalking leopard, tromping through the marsh to find the rarest species of African owl, flying around the Delta to help with animal surveys or running into car problems when you are four hours away from town in the middle of the bush, the excitement here never seems to cease. Having said that, I am having the time of my life out here… there’s not a dull moment to be found!

If there’s one thing that Africa teaches you, it’s how to deal with your vehicle. I must admit, when I left the states, I hardly knew how to change a tire..but since I’ve been out here, I must have learned how to take apart an engine and redesign an entire land rover. Firstly, the research vehicles we are dealing with are easily twenty years old so they are quite prone to breakdowns. The second problem – we use land rovers as opposed to land cruisers (land rovers are notorious for being unreliable vehicles). And lastly, I cannot stress how important it is to know how to make a quick fix when your vehicle brakes down 10 miles outside camp and you are surrounded by lions, elephants and hippos. Not a situation you would likely face back in the states, which is likely why I was completely car-ignorant before arriving here, but wow do you pick up quick when you live in the bush. I’ve probably changed a tire a day out here, hoisted an entire land rover back onto a bridge two jacks and some bricks, driven through water over four feet deep while praying not to get stuck, plugged a diff casing with a modified stick, and driven nearly three hours back to camp at a drooling 10mph after needing to remove the drive shaft from a misfit of a truck. One things for sure out here in Africa, never does a day go by when you don’t get your hands dirty.

the water began to flood some of the roads at the camp we were staying at, maximum driving depth 4 feet in some places!




Two particular circumstances come into mind when discussing some of the issues I’ve had with these land rovers in the past two weeks. First was when a few of us had just done an environmental inspection at a new camp about four hours away from town and were heading back home. While we were at the camp, one of the mechanics replaced the oil in the diff housing, but apparently screwed the plug on a bit too tight. As we left camp, the plug actually fell into the diff and was swimming around in the oil, but unfortunately this meant no way to keep the oil from spilling out. None of us knew it had happened of course, and we were driving along merrily about an hour outside of camp when all of the sudden we heard a loud cracking noise and the car came to a sudden jerk. We looked under the car only to notice that the diff had no plug (it had fallen inside, but we didn’t know this at the time). Not only that, but the oil had completely drained so now it was bone dry inside the diff housing. This is a major problem because the gears that spin the wheels would start to catch on each other and completely stall the tires from spinning.

To our surprise, there was an old road maintenance truck abandoned on the side of the road a few hundred meters ahead so we figured we could drain some oil from it and use it in our own car. The oil wasn’t by any means diff oil - it was jet black and very soupy - but it would make for a quick fix that would (hopefully) get us back into town. After a very messy exchange of oil from that ancient machine into our broken machine, we chopped down some branches to improvise a plug for the housing. We stripped the bark off and jammed the tree limb into the hole, crossed our fingers that it would stay in, then headed off again.

Next problem: the diff plug had fallen inside the housing and was now bouncing around, so it snagged on the cogs only a few minutes later causing us to lurch into another screeching halt. Time to get creative…so we removed the entire drive shaft from the bottom of the vehicle and drove at a depressing 10 miles per hour for the remainder of what should have been a three hour drive, but instead took about eight hours. I have to admit though, despite the breaking down and slow going, I was fairly amused throughout the entire situation simply because it was such an unusual experience. Quite funny how you manage to work your way out of problems like that.

The old truck that we syphoned oil from to put into our own beat down land rover

dirty job




The stick plug! coming soon to usa!

here's the stick plug in action, jammed in there and hammered in with yet another large stick

removing the drive shaft altogether, thus disabling the four wheel drive and reducing strain on the rear wheels to minimize the chance of the diff plug getting caught in the cogs



The second car issue I’ve had in the last few weeks was when my land rover’s tires were completely dislodged from a log bridge. Apparently my one of my rear tires had not been completely aligned with the bridge when approaching it, and it threw the entire vehicle sideways and off the track. This was quite a sticky situation because the car was literally resting on the front CV joint and the rear diff, not the tires, which I thought was sure to do some serious damage. I was also worried that we would have to cut some of the log poles on the bridge to get the car off, something that the company would not be particularly happy about. We were, however, able to hoist the car up and over the edge of the bridge and back on it properly with a few jacks and some ingenuity. Amazingly it was completely undamaged, but ironically as we were just about to back it up off the bridge, the steering rod snapped when we turned the wheels and one got caught between two logs. Oh well, for such a dramatic incident, a broken steering rod was the least of my worries.

Despite the occasional serious issue with the car and the daily tire changing/field fixes for random breakdowns, everything around camp has been fantastic. Really quite an adventure, and to say the least the car problems do add to the drama of living out in the bush. I guess it wouldn’t be quite an adventure if we were driving around in brand new 4x4s that could topple trees and float across lakes now would it

This is clearly not how one is supposed to drive over the bridge - here the land rover is resting on the rear diff and the front left CV joint --- not pretty!

getting creative with jacks and hoisting the vehicle back onto the bridge

OK, enough talk, now time for some other neat photos of the things I've been seeing. Presenting....Max's back yard!!!

an unusual sighting... an elephant on all fours crawling out of a mud bath!

baboon with baby

flying into one of the camps, this is the view from the air. Can you spot the elephants??

a view of what the water looks like from above

elephants having a tissy fit

A big yawn! this is about 20 minutes after sunset, not a very nice shot but still kind of neat

blue wildebeest with baby! very cute watching it prance around

Lunch

Barred owl outside my tent

cape buffalo

Living and working in the Okavango Delta

11/3/2010
Collaring wild dogs

The other day I ran into my first pack of African wild dog and it was an experience I won’t forget. These highly endangered species are extremely rare, but we are fortunate to have a pack of 14 near camp at the moment and they are amazingly entertaining to watch. They behave exactly like any dog would (very playful, always running around and jumping on each other) but what intrigued me most was how they work in a team, especially when hunting. The group dynamics were almost hypnotizing as I stared and watched them run through the thick bush and trees, fanning out strategically and surrounding the impala that they would soon catch. It was an amazing sight, and once they had made the kill the excitement of the pack was baffling. The pups were throwing chunks of meat around and wrestling each other for scraps, the adults were playfully chasing each other around, jumping over one another and having what looked like a grand time. That was by far one of the most spectacular sights I’ve seen thus far in Africa, and I spent several hours afterwards following the dogs and watching their behavior as they moved around and finally found a place to rest.

There is currently an ongoing research project studying population dynamics and home ranges of wild dogs, and once the supervisor got word that this pack was found near our camp, we made arrangements for him and a vet to come up and radio-collar two of the dogs. This was great news for me because it meant I was in charge of finding the pack and following them all morning until the researcher and vet were able to fly up and meet me. I was lucky in that a few minutes after driving out of camp, the pack of dogs ran feverishly through the woods and right in front of my car, before disappearing on the other side. Great, now I would have to drive through the thick bush to keep an eye on them, but at least I knew where they were and wouldn’t spend hours searching for them. I was able to keep up with them until ten, at which point the heat of the day is an unbearable 110 degrees and the dogs finally calm down and rest until evening when it cools down again. I radioed in the position and waited (aka cooked) in the car for about three hours until the other two finally arrived.

Once we figured out which two dogs were the best candidates for the collars, we darted them with a dart gun and got to work. Blood samples were collected, various measurements were taken on the dogs and their overall health was analyzed, then lastly we fitted each one with a collar. As we were working, a few elephants were curious as to what we were doing and wandered towards us. Unfortunately this posed a serious risk to the sedated dogs (elephants hate wild dogs and may try to trample them, especially if they are unconscious) so it was my job to jump in the car and ‘push’ the elephants away. One may think that elephants are friendly giants, but let me tell you – wild elephants are not something to be messed with. They are actually extremely dangerous animals - mainly because of their size - and although they look big and slow, they are actually very fast when they want to be and can easily squash a car, and the person inside. In other words, knowing it was my job so approach some curious elephants in the landrover and try to move them back where they came from wasn’t exactly the most comforting feeling. As I got within five feet of the leading big bull who dwarfed the vehicle (he must have been four times the size of the landrover), my heart was racing as I eased ever so slightly on the gas. He shook his head and violently shook his ears as made his threat display. I took a big gulp and could only hope he wouldn’t crush the car with one step as I continued on. Finally he had enough of my big metal box moving just feet away from him as he turned around and walked off, the others following behind. Few, what a relief that was. I headed back to the researcher and vet and we continued working on the dogs. Overall the process took about three hours, and once the two were awake we followed them for another hour or so to make sure there were no problems, then headed back to camp. What an exciting day, there’s nothing more exciting than trying to follow a pack of wild dogs through the African bush for a mornings work then scaring off elephants in the afternoon!

two pups fighting over a piece of stomach that one of the older dogs regurgitated - eeeww

play play play!

the dogs used the vehicle as a play obsticle and would run around it in circles as they chased each other

one of the older males carrying the impalas head. note his bloody coat just after feeding.

you wouldnt want to be on the recieving end of these bad boys.

working with one of the sedated dogs

fitting the collar

dart in the rump

10/26/2010
Living and working in the Okavango Delta

I have been in the Delta for a little over a week now and it has been hands down one of the most amazing weeks of my life. Every moment has been absolutely unforgettable. I am volunteering with the environmental division of a safari company and basically we fly out between camps in the Delta and assess the environmental impact of each concession, as well as make suggestions for improving the sustainability of each camp. Not only that, but we are also responsible for assessing the amount of game that surrounds each camp, therefore part of the job is to go out and run a number of transects where we identify and quantify the animals in each area.

Living in the Delta is not like living in the city. In fact, it’s not even like living in the woods… It’s like entering a world where man has not conquered and nature still has the final say. There are literally things that could kill you around every corner, whether it be the venom of a snake, the poison of a spider, the claws of a lion or even the jaws of a hippo. And believe me, there is no lack of diversity up here. If anybody ever dreamed of a place as wild, exciting, and dangerous as imaginable, the Okavango Delta surely fits the description. Just now I hear two hippos fighting not ten meters from my tent. I fall asleep to the distant sound of roaring lions and barking wild dog (and the funny part is that I’m not even exaggerating). There is a pack of warthog that live under my room at the moment, and boy can they make a fuss when a leopard walks past. It truly is unbelievable, there is nothing more that I can say about this place. I am incredibly excited to continue working with this company over the next few months as I will get to see more and more of the Delta while we move from one camp to another, and I am even more excited to say that even though this past week has been one of the best of my life, that this is only the beginning of my stay here! What an exciting journey to come!



And now, some pictures from my back yard!



prancing zebras

elephant femur

remains of an elephant that was eaten some six months ago

african sunset

when you do research for a luxery safari company, the living is nice! this is a standard room, but when I move from one camp to the next some can be much more 'luxurious' (as hard as it may be to imagine...)

hippo outside my back door. these guys make some very strange sounds throughout the night as they chomp on grass outside the rooms.

this was the first leopard I saw, watching it as it stalked some guinnea fowl was unbelievable as it jumped five feet in the air to catch one that tried to fly away.

one of our resident dominant male lions

a big yawn

mommy and cub

baby elephant - very cute to watch these guys

elephants link trunk to tail when they cross the waters around here.

a big herd of elephants passing by camp

the main deck area of one of the camps I stay at. pretty spectacular views from here, especially of hippo and elephant that wander by throughout the day

the main deck of another camp, also overlooking the water