uMkhuze dag 7: All the cheetah’s in one day and putting on a collar

Zondag 28-10-2018

uMkhuze dag 7:      All the cheetah’s in one day and putting on a collar

Dieren vandaag gezien / Animals spotted:

·         Cheetah

·         Impala

·         Kudu

·         Nyala

·         Giraffe

·         Blue wildebeest

·         Elephant

·         Steppe buzzard

·         Warthog

This morning we were supposed to leave at 4.30 am. When we got on the car we saw the right hind tyre was flat. We knew it had a slow puncture but now there was no way to get going on it. So we had to replaced his one first.

Around 5 am we left camp. First we checked if MCM22 was still okay because he is in the boma. He was doing fine. After this we went to the beacon to scan.

We left and drove to the south of the park. On our way there we saw MCM18. Apparently he was resting on the road but he moved of into the grass. Driving down south we also had a giraffe who blocked the road. After it moved of we could pass. But they just look stunning

The first cheetah we found was MCM20. He was close to the fence where the giraffe went over. Whilst following him we also swopped a camera. Then when we finally found him again he moved over the road and walked on . Zo we followed him for a while. Most of the times I saw him quite quickly.

MCM23 was our next target. He was spotted around the fence line. After a while Megan stopped the car and Pascal was scanning. I saw the cheetah but nobody else had seen it jet. It was not 23 but a female (MCM16) who doesn’t have a collar. This was the first time they saw her in 2 months. So I did a pretty good job there. We radioed Eduard and he arrived about half an hour after we called him. Slowly we left the sight to go and meet hem. He was preparing the darts to tranquilise her. He got on to the car with us and a ranger. They had brought a leg of meat with them. We drove back to the cheetah and tried to position the right way so Eduard could dart her. There was too much grass and bushes so we threw the leg out of the car and moved away a bit. The cheetah got up and walked slowly to the meat. When she stopped Eduard darted her and she sprinted of. Now we had to wait for 4 minutes. After these long 4 minutes we had to go and look for her. Luckily she didn’t move to far  and we found her quickly. The collaring started. I was allowed to participate in this so I had to put on some gloves. Getting ride of the ticks was part of my job (I just hate these things ☹) and to hold her legs while flipping her over to her other side. Then the collar was fitted, this took a while because there were not enough holes on it. When everything was done we left her with the meat so she would have something nice to wake up to. During the whole process she was not under deeply but it took her about two hours too wake up after being darted. We stayed with her till she was awake and started eating. It was 12.30 by now and we still had to find MCM23. We found him just 2 minutes away from the other one. So this morning we have seen all the cheetahs they know that are in the par. Crazy morning.

Back to the reserve we drove through the community instead of going through the park. There is an obvious difference in living standards .

We arrived around 2 pm back at camp and the plan was to leave again at 4 pm. Just 2 hours to get some food and pack our bags for tomorrow.

We did leave at 4 pm. Now the dogs were our priority. We scanned for the male and female but went for the females. We tried to find them but this was unsuccessful. We did see MCM18 again very briefly. We did experience some interesting moments like driving into a hole with the left front tire, meeting a bull elephant who didn’t look very friendly so we backed up and we were all very tiered after 12 hours of session.