Apologies for the long delay in blogging - a few of you are wondering how we are doing. In a nutshell fine. The car problems set us back for a while and then I have been on a workshop and took a break for a couple of weeks.

The workshop was about Animal Sampling Techniques and was a wonderful opportunity to be taught by incredible people in the field of Biostatistics. It was really hard work to follow all the maths that was thrown at us - but I walked away understanding more of the concepts and problems behind evaluation animal population sizes. I have also met some great people working throughout the world and hope to maintain these relationships so we can work together to make animal research more effective. This workshop was in Evora, Portugal and having got the coach back to Lisbon with one of the lecturers we set the seed of ideas to have one in Africa sometime!!!! That really would be great.

I am currently in the UK sorting out Mphoeng’s (our scholarship student) masters degree at the University of Bristol as well as my post doc on the hormonal analysis of puberty in male elephants.  Graham and Mphoeng continue to work hard in Botswana and will be updating us all soon on life in the bush.

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A frustrating couple of weeks with a broken down car…
While out driving in the south of the concession there was dubious clunk from underneath the bonnet followed by a delicate plume of steam.  It was then that the driver of our car, who although was not part of the research team and shall remain nameless(!), realised something may be amiss!  After a long wait on a chilly night, a small rescue team of a mechanic and tractor driver began to survey the damage.  At first glance it seemed like the timing belt had gone.  However, a more detailed inspection the following day revealed the more serious condition of a broken cam shaft.
As anyone who has spent time in the bush knows, your car is your lifeline, you come to rely on it for everything out in the bush.  Yet it is also by far the most expensive piece of equipment to run and maintain which tends to make for a bit of a love/hate relationship.  Despite the money you pour into it, the time and effort spent maintaining it, and the gentle coaxings whispered to it on chilly mornings to get her started, there are times when you just have to admit defeat and spend a few days in camp while she rests.
Never to be thwarted by such trivial problems as broken cam shafts, the research has been swinging along nicely.  Poster has been tracking the released elephants from the internet, using GPS positioning and newly developed skills with ArcView mapping software.  With good news, it looks like our latest release, Pula, has for the most part been staying with Nandipa in the bush.
Mufunyane, ever obliging to our problems, decided to return to Seba camp for the past three days giving us a chance to catch up with him for the first time in a while.  Although a little thin from his excursions he is otherwise looking well.  Thando has continued to frequent his usual areas up in the Jao concession and Seba is still proving elusive due to a collar malfunctions.
One of the challenges to carrying out research in such remote areas is the abuse that the car and other equipment inevitably sustains.  While every effort is made to take the upmost care over this equipment it is unavoidable that the researchers will be dogged by equipment failures at some point.  While the support from Elephant Back Safari Company is a huge help, it is the donations from our supporters and donors that enable us to maintain the essential equipment needed to exist in the bush and continue the research on a day to day basis.
The EFA research team would like to say a BIG THANK YOU to all those that have supported us so far on the project and to please keep up the support.

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