OKAVANGO BUFFALO RESEARCH

THE ECOLOGY OF THE AFRICAN BUFFALO (Syncerus caffer) IN THE OKAVANGO DELTA, BOTSWANA

A PhD study by Emily Bennitt

Blog

I have been sending accounts of my field work and associated adventures to some of my sponsors for several months, so I decided to add them to my website as a blog so that anyone who is interested can keep track of my activities. There are also pictures of the movements made by the collared buffalo, as well as photos of interesting wildlife that I see on my travels. With the buffalo movement maps, each colour represents one herd and each dot represents one GPS fix. The red symbols show the position of each animal on the date of the blog.

I mention several locations in the blog, which refer to camps and concessions around my study area. This site has a clear map showing the locations that I mention. HQ is the camp where I am based. The Gomoti is the river that runs through the concession.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me.

10/12/2007 - First collaring session

10/01/2008 - Stanley's and Moremi herds

18/01/2008 - My assistant Laura arrives

03/02/2008 - Rain in Stanley's

10/02/2008 - Tracking buff through mopane

16/02/2008 - Close encounters of the buffalo kind

02/03/2008 - Seven hours of overheating

10/03/2008 - Getting stuck at Stanley's

24/03/2008 - Still too wet for fieldwork

31/03/2008 - Giving myself a concussion

06/04/2008 - Recovering B78's collar

21/04/2008 - Darting B77

14/05/2008 - Chief's Island

07/06/2008 - Trying to get around water

15/06/2008 - Sampling from a mokoro

24/06/2008 - More mokoro-ing and a short break

15/07/2008 - The beautiful island

20/07/2008 - A lion amongst buffalo

27/07/2008 - B75 goes exploring

05/08/2008 - Counting buffalo

12/08/2008 - Island hopping

08/09/2008 - Stuck on the Gomoti

15/09/2008 - Counting running buffalo

21/09/2008 - Fires!

29/09/2008 - Still burning

08/10/2008 - Sampling on the Gomoti

12/10/2008 - Santantadibe

18/10/2008 - Darting and collaring nine cows

26/10/2008 - Big herd of buff

02/11/2008 - Lots of faecal samples

09/11/2008 - Darting Casey and Athena

15/11/2008 - B77 migrates

24/11/2008 - Fatty the lion

03/12/2008 - Albino lechwe

07/12/2008 - Post-migration

15/12/2008 - Lion tracking

21/12/2008 - Wet season sampling

27/12/2008 - Christmas in the bush

06/01/2009 - Happy New Year

12/01/2009 - Tracking buff

20/01/2009 - Between the Boro and the Santantadibe

29/01/2009 - Duba Plains

17/02/2009 - Crossing the Gomoti

23/02/2009 - Collecting samples in the dark

06/03/2009 - Tracking flight

10/03/2009 - Getting stuck

17/03/2009 - Avoiding pans

25/03/2009 - Wild dogs

02/04/2009 - Recovering collars

10/04/2009 - Darting Bambi

20/04/2009 - Finding Bara

29/04/2009 - Flying in the SkyJeep

13/05/2009 - Starting issues

22/05/2009 - Island hopping at Chitabe

23/06/2009 - Rising Thamalakane

01/07/2009 - Darting again

22/07/2009 - Water problems

11/08/2009 - Water still rising

04/09/2009 - Lions at Chitabe

13/09/2009 - Waiting for Harpy

30/09/2009 - Elephants

16/10/2009 - Collar issues

24/10/2009 - Chief's Island