Elephants of Botswana

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Nov 08 2008 | By: elephantsofbotswana

Well its been an exciting few days as we headed out on a recollaring expedition last week.  Seba, a young bull who was released back into the wild in 2003 had gone AWOL.  The last GPS reading for him was on 18th May and given the floods we were unable to get out to look for him but now as the floods drop we took to the skies in the hope of tracking him by his VHF beacon.  With the aerial expertise of Tico McNutt of the African Wild Dog Project (www.wildentrust.org) we set out from Maun airport with his signal programmed in.  We had his latest movements mapped out, he seems to follow a regular pattern of movement between Seba camp, where he was released and the buffalo fence close to Maun.  We planned to start off along this course and see what we find out.  If we can’t find him then we will loop south on the way back into Maun to see if we can pick him up from there.

As the VHF signal follows a more or less line of sight, the range of the VHF beacon depends on its height.  We take off early in the morning while its cool and the air is still.  It doesn’t take long for us to get a signal and after some low passes we confirm a visual on him, only 13 km from Maun!

Now that we have a location on him we can now start organising a darting team to replace his collar and fix the GPS unit.  5 days later we are reassembling at the airport, those present includes Peter Pearlstein (Helicopter pilot) Rob Jackson (Vet) Suminadasa (Head Mahout with Elephant Back Safaris) and myself representing the EFA research project that is monitoring the released elephants.  We check and recheck all the necessary equipment while Tico once again takes to the skies to reconfirm his position.  Although elephants can move up to 50km in a day, Seba has not wondered far.  Tico calls in his GPS co-ordinates and we take off in the chopper to find him for ourselves.

Seba is still hanging out with the 2 males that we saw 5 days earlier with Tico.  Having confirmed we have the right elephant we land on a neighbouring island for Rob to prepare the dart.  We take the doors off to give him a clear shot and then Peter negotiates the chopper over to where we last saw him.  Using the noise of the chopper, Peter separates Seba from the other 2 elephants – the last thing we need is an unconscious elephant and us not being able to get close to him due to his over protective friends.  Once that is done we steer him into the open and away from any water.  Rob fires the dart and we pull back and wait for the drugs to take effect.

This is always a tense time in any wildlife darting mission.  The amount of drugs delivered has to be just right to match his body weight.  Too little and the elephant could wonder off into thick bush or deep water before they take effect.  Too much and it could be dangerous for the animal itself.  Thankfully Rob has judged correctly and Seba drops in a nice open area.  We land next to him and set to work cutting away the old collar and fitting the new one.  Once that is done we take some essential body measurements and Rob administers the reversal drugs.  From the dart being fired to when Seba was standing again took 31 minutes.  We retreat to the chopper and retrieve the doors from the next door island.  On our way out we fly past to check how he is doing, returning to join the other 2 bulls we had found him with.  Success.

For more information about the released elephants and the projects involved visit www.elephantresearch.co.uk