First camera trap results

    We have recently been in Bulawayo to collect our 1PZ Land Cruiser and to shop, and organise materials and equipment for National Parks. The Land Cruiser has had a complete engine overhaul thanks to very generous funding from Patrick Jacquemin, a former Planete Urgence volunteer. Patrick supported us in 2010 and 2011 and actually bought the vehicle for us in the first place last year. We are very grateful for his support.

 

The 1PZ Land Cruiser

Patrick Jacquemin talking to Sinamatella Area Manager Moses Gomwe

    While we were in Bulawayo we spent nearly three days finding supplies we need and getting quotes for all sorts of equipment ranging from cutting blades for a grader to solar pumps to tents. We returned with the car loaded with tyres for the Parks vehicle at Sinamatella (bought by the African Wildlife Foundation), a solar pump donated by John Brebner from Wildlife and Environment Zimbabwe and water containers, paint, plumbing materials etc donated by ourselves.

    The solar pump was left at Main Camp with Gary Cantle, pending a decision on where to install it. I am hoping it can be used at Baobab Pan in Sinamatella sector. At Main Camp we received two pieces of bad news. A few days previously poachers had killed white rhino number 29 and her three month old calf, outside the Park on one of the Gwayi farms. As a result the SAVE Foundation has decided to stop funding its rhino monitoring programme at Main Camp so our son Nicholas, who has worked there for nearly two years, suddenly finds himself out of work for a while. SAVE are hoping to arrange a transfer for Nick to Matobo where there are more rhino. The loss of number 29 has upset everyone in the Park. The poachers even shot her tiny calf and removed his little horn stubs. What a terrible waste.

    Back here at Sinamatella we have collected the memory card for one of our camera traps. This is the camera set at a small spring which I mentioned in my last posting. We got no rhino (so far) but there were some nice photos.

    By day the commonest visitors were Impala….

Male Impala. Aepyceros melampus

Warthogs……

Warthogs. Phacochoerus aethiopicus

Elephants........

 

Some of which came very close to the camera……

And of course, Guinea Fowls…..

Helmeted Guinea Fowl. Numida meleagris

On one morning some Zebra accompanied the Impala……

And once an unusually smart-looking Spotted Hyena came for a drink…..

Spotted Hyena. Crocuta crocuta

By night, when we hope a rhino might come, there were very few animals using the pan. Most nights there were no photos, occasionally there were elephants and twice a leopard visited.

   The camera is still in place and may get a rhino eventually. The other cameras that are in action are more difficult to get to. I went out to check on them last week but ended up helping rangers look for one of the implanted rhino that had not been detected for three days. She sometimes wanders far from her core territory into an area that is difficult to search as there is not much high ground for finding the radio signal. We drove many kilometres but were not successful. At one point two rangers in the back of the car stopped us because they had smelled the tell-tale scent of a dead animal. We all got out of the car and spread out into a line, walking up-wind to find the source of the smell. With the killing of number 29 in mind I was afraid we were going to find a dead rhino and I’m sure the rangers all had the same thing in mind. On the first sweep we found nothing but then someone found a lot of hyena tracks and we followed them until, with some relief, we found the cause of the trouble – the very, very smelly remains of a warthog.

 Skull and upper tusks of a warthog.

   Good news for us – but less so for the warthog of course.