Pilot Study: Day 2 - Sunday 20 June 2010 (rest of the day)

I have been away for a bit more than a week and that is the reason for the silence on the blog. But, I did not forget about the rest of the blog or where we left the study, so here we continue with the pilot study on Kamonande.

The rest of the Sunday was mainly spend walking and driving on nearly all the roads and various game foot paths where we expected to find predator tracks.

Busy looking for predator tracks... → 












Tracks are usually the first indications of the predators are actually in the habitat and this is what we found during the day:

• Various red (black backed) jackal tracks in 4 different location on the reserve.
• Caracal tracks – a female with a cub.
• Civet tracks at three different locations.
• Genet tracks at two different locations.
• Brown Hyena tracks at two different locations.

We recorded the exact GPS locations where we came across these tracks.

Picture of a Sivet →

 

←  Picture of a Genet

By now we know how Floppy Ear's (the female Brown Hyena’s) tracks look, therefore we were able to identify that at least two different brown hyenas that roamed the reserve and that they are very active every night.

Sunsets are special moments, and what a way to end an amazing day in the bushveld.

It was already late Sunday afternoon when we returned back to the chalet and relaxed with around a log fire.

Obviously we were speculating and hoping that hyenas and the leopards would pass the camera traps during the night, so that we can build more accurate identikits from these special predators on this special reserve.