The bushbuck as the baboons found her

On Tuesday afternoon the habituated baboon troop happened across her remains next to a river, just a few hundred meters from our tent (thanks Pete for the tip-off!). They must have spooked the leopard, who had just made the kill and had started feeding. Baboons from this troop kill and eat bushbuck young and other mammals fairly frequently, but as they had not killed this animal they had no interest in eating it. Baboons and leopards have very different killing styles. Baboons kill when they encounter prey opportunistically, which they then they rip apart, frequently feeding upon it while it is still alive. It gets messy, but then for baboons hunting is just a hobby.  Leopards are professionals. They deliberately stalk their quarry, remaining undetected until near enough to pounce. They use their sharp claws to catch their prey then kill it with a bite to the neck. You can see where the leopard grabbed the hindquarters, and the canine puncture marks from the canines on the underside of the neck where it suffocated the bushbuck. Clean, quick, and efficient.

Wounds to the hindquarters and neck where the leopard caught and killed the bushbuck. 

We were able to put up a camera trap at the kill site to determine which leopard made the kill. Just ten minutes after we left the site the leopard turned up and dragged her prey away to safety. It was a female known as Jenny, the sister of Annakin, one of our collared male leopards. She clearly isn’t too disturbed by the human activity in this area and feels comfortable enough to make a kill.  Two nights later one of our Research Assistants, Gregoire, came across a leopard on his way home to bush camp. Maybe it was Jenny eyeing up her next meal… 

Heeeeeeere’s Jenny!

This year our Earthwatch project, Conserving Leopards and Monkeys in South Africa, was given the opportunity to invite local people to join the project as Community Fellows. We received a grant to allow local people to join an Earthwatch expedition who would not normally be able to attend. We were initially allocated nine Community Fellow spaces but this has recently been extended to 15.

Our first team for 2013 was composed of a combination of international volunteers and local participants. Several local postgraduate students from the University of Venda who are studying biology and nature conservation joined the team. We were also able to offer the opportunity to join the team to a local person who is setting up a research project north of our field site in association with Lajuma Research Centre. She will be able to apply the methods she learned on Earthwatch at her site.

Our Earthwatch volunteers with me (far left) and Kyle, our amazing chef (far right). Photo by Wilbert Yee.

Sam (PPP Research Coordinator) checking camera trap images in the field with a local and an international volunteer. Photo by Caswell Munyai.

From the beginning the international and the local volunteers clicked. One of the main advantages I observed on this team was the learning and teaching between participants, rather than just between the staff and the volunteers. The local volunteers were able to talk about life in South Africa and especially in regards to how people in the area interact with and perceive animals. The Venda students enlightened us all about how animal parts are used in traditional medicine and told us some of the traditional stories about animals. They talked about how these traditional stories shape the culture and the relationships between people and animals. The exchange went both ways. The international volunteers talked about how they manage their environment in the UK or the US. The local participants were extremely surprised to learn that in the US and the UK people will pick up their dog’s poo and take it home to throw away!

Radio tracking collared leopards and brown hyaenas. Photo by Caswell Munyai.

Big smiles from Evans while out radio tracking. Photo by Ian Dodimead.

Working together to prepare equipment for a giving up density experiment on samango monkeys. Photo by Kate Nowak.

One of the international volunteers, Wilbert, has attended about 20 Earthwatch teams and he commented that never had local volunteers on a team with him. He appreciated the cultural value that this added.

Washing leopard scats for analysis! Photo by Wilbert Yee.

All the volunteers went to a local school to participate in an environmental education day through Eco-schools. This is an integral part of all our Earthwatch teams and the children love meeting Earthwatch volunteers from all over the world. This time however, the children worked with international volunteers and also people who were from the same community as them and who spoke their language. This was an inspiring experience for them. I believe that with previous Eco-schools days the children learnt a lot and gained a great deal but perhaps never felt like they could relate too much to the volunteers. This time they met Earthwatch volunteers who were local and who had gone on to achieve amazing things such as PhDs and jobs in conservation. The children and their teachers found this very inspirational and I hope that meeting them has helped them realise that they too can achieve so much.

Caswell teaching the children about environmental management. Photo by Ian Dodimead.

Wilbert with his new friends. Photo by Wilbert Yee.

Owls are a feared animal in the Venda culture. Like many nocturnal animals they are associated with witchcraft. Our Venda Earthwatch volunteers talked to the children about the important role that owls play in the ecosystem and this seemed to really sink in. For me, as a researcher, this experience reiterated the importance of community engagement and involvement in conservation. Getting locals involved should be key in our management strategy.

The school’s amazing recycled greenhouse. Photo by Caswell Munyai.

This Earthwatch group helped us achieved a great deal towards our research aims. I know they all had a great time. The local volunteers from this team specifically requested that we thank Earthwatch for giving them this opportunity. As one local volunteer commented, "We didn’t have time to do everything that needed doing which leaves the gate open for a second visit to Lajuma.” I hope they all keep in touch and revisit. I am looking forward to further participants this year that will benefit just as much from the Community Fellow grant.

- Katy Williams, Field Team Leader

GUDs stands for “Giving up Densities” and represents the density of a patch at which an individual ceases foraging. How long an animal stays in a patch before deciding to forage elsewhere represents a trade-off between meeting energy demands and safety from predators.

The question we are addressing is: do samango monkeys deplete patches to lower levels when there’s no, or relatively less, perceived risk of predation?

We have established artificial food patches by suspending tubs filled with sawdust (the substrate) and peanuts (the food) at four different canopy heights. Our 6-day pilot phase took place in the home range of one of the two habituated study troops of samangos called Barn Troop, and consisted of 20 tubs hung on 5 trees at 0.1m, 2.5m, 5m and 7.5m above the ground. You can view a video of samango monkeys foraging on these patches below. We baited the tubs in the morning at 0600, and counted remaining peanuts in the evening at 1700.

As previous studies indicated that access to peanut halves was too easy for samango monkeys and consequently many patches had no food remaining, it was imperative for us to extend the amount of time required to forage in each GUD patch by reducing forager access to the tubs. By criss-crossing ropes in a grid pattern across the tops of the tubs, we were able to slow down monkeys’ foraging time at these artificial food patches. Our pilot data suggest that a grid of 9 cells is significantly more difficult than a grid of 4 and 6 cells (based on the number of peanuts left).

The larger objectives of this research are to determine if significant differences in GUDs are related to canopy height, and if we can manipulate samangos’ perceived risk by playing leopard growls or presenting visual stimuli such as fake snakes in the GUDs area. It is expected that predation risk will be higher at the lowest and highest tub heights, and prompt higher vigilance and co-feeding, i.e., individuals foraging in closer proximity. We hypothesize that GUDs will be raised following the presentation of predator stimuli.

Check back for an update in August!

Since then we have been observing Michel on the camera traps and downloading data from his GPS collar. This picture of a collared Michel was taken at a scratching tree he used.

The collar was supposed to drop off automatically in September this year however we haven’t seen Michel on any camera traps nor have we received any communication from his collar since mid-March. Two of our assistants, Marion and Noeks, spent a night looking for him with a VHF and a UHF receiver in his territory the other week. Unfortunately they did not have any success. Our recent Earthwatch team also went out and tried to track leopards one night as well.

On Tuesday Katy, Noeks and Oldrich went to the last recorded GPS point we received from Michel’s collar. The point was on a part of the mountain none of us had ever been before. We set out just after the VHF receiver became active in the early afternoon and began hiking all the way up to the top of a steep cliff.

We climbed all the way up to the cliff line by scaling loose rocks and crawling through bushes. We kept trying to radio track along the way but didn’t hear Michel’s collar.

The views from the top were stunning.

Later in the afternoon we tried the UHF receiver but unfortunately it didn’t yield anything. We also searched caves and rock crevices for Michel, but no luck.

We made our way back down again feeling a bit disheartened that we still don’t know where Michel is but at least confident that we have thoroughly searched the last point we received.

We will try other areas within Michel’s territory over the next few weeks. We are hoping he is alive and well, but it’s a big unknown at the moment. Once we have any information we’ll post an update.

Trevor Jones is the PPP Primate Coordinator and will be overseeing the primate data collection and analysis. He worked in East Africa, and especially the Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania, from 2001-2013. He carried out the first habituation and ecological study of the Udzungwa-endemic Sanje mangabey, found the new genus of monkey Rungwecebus kipunji in the Udzungwas in 2004, and has worked on wildlife corridors and community-based ecological monitoring. His PhD study looked at predictors of Afromontane forest mammal distribution and abundance. In 2008, Trevor and Kate Nowak founded the Udzungwa Elephant Project, and they also campaign together on elephant poaching issues, and against the ivory trade. During 2009-10 Trevor worked with the Tanzanian government to develop their current National Elephant Management Plan. He is a member of the IUCN Primate Specialist Group, and also a keen birder and raptorphile. 

Dr. Katarzyna Nowak (Kate) joined the PPP as a post-doc researcher. She is currently developing a project on risk, fear and cognition in samango monkeys at Lajuma. Kate has worked in Africa since 2000. Kate has done fieldwork in "refuge" habitats such as mangrove and montane forests. She studied Zanzibar red colobus in unprotected coral rag and mangrove forests in the Zanzibar archipelago, and forest-dwelling savanna elephants in the Udzungwa Mountains, Tanzania. She’s a member of the IUCN Primate Specialist Group, and is interested in primate cognition and behavioural flexibility, primate-predator interactions, and in mitigation of human-wildlife conflicts. Kate is also co-editing a volume about primates in flooded habitats.

We wanted to share some more recent photos of the progress and our excitement about its nearish completion.

This was the office in the second week of April.

Above photo taken by Benny Rebel.

Above photo taken by Benny Rebel.

By the end of April the building work had progressed by leaps and bounds thanks to the hard work of Oldrich and the workers at Lajuma. The office now looks like this!

The research assistants had an explore yesterday and are loving the views we are going to have.

Bush Camp will also be gaining new accommodation in the form of six large safari tents. These will be used to house staff, research assistants and guests of the project. The concrete platforms are now in place after a lot of hard work.

Above photo taken by Benny Rebel.

Above photo taken by Benny Rebel.

This is not the first time since working in wildlife conservation and academia that things have been more challenging than imagined. A few things that I learnt over the years include:

1) Cheetahs are not easy to catch even if you dress up like one.

2) It is almost impossible for me to do statistics without crying.

3) Getting the paperwork to do research in Africa approved is tricky and time consuming, and makes one become good at hoop jumping.

Since Chomma and Betton were collared neither individual has been photographed on any of our 48 camera traps despite being caught at a central point within our 60 km² camera trapping grid. I set out another camera trap at the spot the animals were caught in case they pass by again. So far I’ve photographed baboons, civets, genets and people but no hyaenas.

Noeks and I have been trying to find a signal from the hyaena collars a number of times. We haven’t heard a single blip on the VHF radio tracking receiver (other than the blips we hear in our heads because we so desperately want to hear something that we are starting to imagine it) and we haven’t managed to get any UHF communication from the collars despite covering a lot of ground by driving across properties on the mountain at night.

I decided that rather than always chasing around after hyaenas I will let them come to me. I set up a camp on Mount Lajuma in the hopes that the animals will pass by either side of the mountain and I’ll pick up a signal.

Here’s my tent at the saddle of the mountain. The tent has only been up there for about 4 nights now and mice have already chewed a small hole in one side and the wind already blew the rain cover off and left it exposed for water to come in. So it’s not such a great long term plan but I’m going to stick with it for a bit longer.

I climb the mountain at about 18:00, which is when the UHF receiver becomes active. Every half an hour until midnight I listen for the hyaenas with the radio tracking equipment and use the UHF receiver. So far not a thing has happened. The most exciting thing was on my first night when I went out for the 23:30 check and an unidentified but fairly large animal just outside the tent got scared off by me coming out.

This is the inside of my tent and all the essential gear needed to survive a night on the mountain. As I slept in my wet sleeping bag last night on the top of a mountain I could certainly sympathise with Frodo’s equally challenging quest.

Here’s the view as dawn broke this morning at the top of the mountain. Not too shabby.

So the plan at the moment is to just keep camping and keep hoping that the hyaenas will pass by. 

A local newspaper is publishing an article this week which talks about my PhD research and asks landowners with camera traps on their land to get in touch if they take a photo of a collared brown hyaena. I have also organised for a microlight flight in a few months time to help me search for the hyaenas. But basically despite the hyaenas seemingly ‘laughing’ at me, I’ll keep trying! It was supposed to be so easy.

Katy – PPP Field Team Leader and PhD student

Katy and Benny at Wilderness Camp

Benny also helped give the project a publicity boost by sharing stories of his week at Lajuma on his blog and through his numerous social media networks. Benny’s website is here and it can be viewed in English. Through his blog and his facebook group he shared information and photos of  Lajuma.

We really appreciate Benny and Teresa’s contribution to the project and their devotion to wildlife and conservation. Here are some of the wonderful photos they took for us…

Samango monkeys

Scenery

Research assistants in action

Baboons

To trap leopards or hyaenas, we must prepare the trap sites in advance and bait them almost every day. Our assistants are always happy to help and be part of it…at least for the first time! Indeed, looking for and cutting down piles of suitable branches in order to build the many bomas in 30°C with no shade to cool down, is not always easy.

However, that’s not all – I think the most anticipated part is the prebaiting. Everyone wants, at least once, to cut the meat used to lure the animals into the trap. Yet when they are presented with the ‘chicken breast’ they’d imagined actually taking the form of a bloody (often rotting), stinking and maggot-infested cow foetus, the smile on their face tends to waver. The foetus can be in early stages of formation or almost fully grown and is provided by the abattoir as an unwanted by-product.

Sometimes to increase our chances of catching, we use fresh bait. Some of our “luckiest” assistants found themselves buying a live sheep that minutes later was to become future bait. After choosing and transporting the sheep from a local farm, it was then their job to prepare the fresh bait…is sheep-skinning a skill that can be put on your CV?! It is now.

At the end of a busy day of trap building, our assistants are often still smiling, yet tired and covered in scratches – not to mention stinking of foetus and sweat…they could almost be the bait themselves!

After weeks of prebaiting, the exciting part of the process can begin and the traps can be opened. Traps are checked throughout the night to ensure that any leopard or hyaena will not be held for a long time. Though exciting as it is, checking traps can be hard work. With few hours sleep and exceptionally rocky roads to contend with, the thrill of a potential catch is what keeps the enthusiasm high. With every bone in your body rattled and your stomach shook, the first check at 11pm involves driving to a ‘signal hotspot’ to detect whether or not a trap has been triggered using a remote sensor. Assistants then clatter their way back along the road to grab a short 4.5 hours sleep (if they’re lucky enough not to have the screech of bushbabies outside their room keeping them awake!) before another check at 4:30am. If nothing is caught, this final check involves actually driving to all the traps (which took 1.5 hours round trip) in order to close them for the day. Despite the lack of sleep and bumpy drives when half asleep, checking the traps is the job that our assistants enjoy the most – to be on duty on the night that an animal is caught is amazing!

The last, and surely the most glamorous part of trapping, is the burying of old bait. That is, the bait that was already bloody, stinking and maggot-infested, which has now been sat in the baking sun for at least a week. The bait that has now become a liquid soup of putrid green slop that has so many maggots it could almost move across the floor on its own…nice!