Hello to you all.
As you can see I am back on line. I have left updating my blog until now due to the problems you sometimes get in Malawi as well as the cost of updating anything on the internet. Some news in brief:
We eventually got fuel back in the country after around 6 weeks with no diesel.
A German (Bernt) who was looking after the lodge was killed just before Christmas by an elephant. To my knowledge the local police never came into the reserve to question the locals who witnessed it and no real enquiry was set up. Life seems to be so cheap out here.
The elephants are angry at the moment and do attack people due to their interactions with poachers and scouts. Both groups are inclined to use their guns when in the vicinity of the poor old elephants. One even charged the director the other day.
The project has been running along fine but the rain makes it difficult to travel and the grass being so long makes it difficult to see a lot of wildlife so in February I flew down to South Africa to spend several weeks in Valencia, the Kruger and Hluhluwe national parks. As usual I was not disappointed and managed to take many excellent photos of leopard, lion, cheetah, elephant, rhino and crocs as well as a good picture of a hamercop tossing a fish in the air just before eating it. I actually managed to see 5 different leopards which doubled my sightings for leopard in Africa.
The camera traps have been working well and I have many pictures of animals including genet, civet, bush babies, water and selous mongooses, hyena, leopard, elephant etc.
I have also got evidence of cheetah in the reserve. The pictures I have are of spoor and scat which experts from SA have confirmed as being cheetah, so this is good news for my project as well as Malawi because this is the only hard evidence of cheetah in many years.
As you can see I am back on line. I have left updating my blog until now due to the problems you sometimes get in Malawi as well as the cost of updating anything on the internet. Some news in brief:
We eventually got fuel back in the country after around 6 weeks with no diesel.
A German (Bernt) who was looking after the lodge was killed just before Christmas by an elephant. To my knowledge the local police never came into the reserve to question the locals who witnessed it and no real enquiry was set up. Life seems to be so cheap out here.
The elephants are angry at the moment and do attack people due to their interactions with poachers and scouts. Both groups are inclined to use their guns when in the vicinity of the poor old elephants. One even charged the director the other day.
The project has been running along fine but the rain makes it difficult to travel and the grass being so long makes it difficult to see a lot of wildlife so in February I flew down to South Africa to spend several weeks in Valencia, the Kruger and Hluhluwe national parks. As usual I was not disappointed and managed to take many excellent photos of leopard, lion, cheetah, elephant, rhino and crocs as well as a good picture of a hamercop tossing a fish in the air just before eating it. I actually managed to see 5 different leopards which doubled my sightings for leopard in Africa.
The camera traps have been working well and I have many pictures of animals including genet, civet, bush babies, water and selous mongooses, hyena, leopard, elephant etc.
I have also got evidence of cheetah in the reserve. The pictures I have are of spoor and scat which experts from SA have confirmed as being cheetah, so this is good news for my project as well as Malawi because this is the only hard evidence of cheetah in many years.
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