News from Kinda Camp: May 2012

A hello from the Kasanka baboon Projects Girls Math and Science Club

A New Baby:

On the 11th May we observed that Norah had given birth to a healthy white infant. This is her third known infant and will join her other offspring; Natalie and Nina. Norah appears to be very protective of the new addition to her family, running away from the other inquisitive baboons, and even spending very little time with Natalie and Nina. Let’s hope as her baby becomes older Norah starts to interact with the group once again, in particular, with the other females with new-born’s.

Norah with Natalie and Nina before the birth

All-male foraging unit:

On the 12th May I noticed some really interesting behaviour between 3 of the males in our troop. They appeared to form their own social unit and go off foraging together, leaving the rest of the group some 50+ metres behind. This type of behaviour is often observed in other baboon species, particularly those living in savannah habitats where food is scarcer, but to my knowledge this is the first time we have observed it in our troop of kindas. What was even more surprising was the group consisted of the dominant male, Muma, and 2 immigrant males, Garcia and Otis. I observed them happily foraging together in a Brachystegia tree, eating pods for just under 30 minutes. The group only disbanded when other members of the troop advanced towards them, with Muma exerting his dominance and displacing Otis.

Muma, Garcia and Otis

Community Development:

As well as continuing the baboon research, it has also been a busy week with the community side of the project. I attended a seminar by Open Africa, a South-African based non-profit organisation, which combines tourism with community development and wildlife conservation. They’re doing some great work in Zambia, so please have a look at their website; www.openafrica.org.

After teaching Grade 8 at Kafinda

I also spent 2 days teaching at the Conservation Club, and a morning teaching English at Kafinda Basic School. As mentioned in my previous blog, as part of community development, I wanted to involve some of my students and colleagues in writing the blog. This week, it was the turn of the girls from the Conservation Club....

GIRL’S CONSERVATION CLUB:

As part of their English lessons and skill development I decided to start teaching them how to use the computer. I asked them all to write a small introduction about themselves, and collectively write about some of their favourite moments of being in the club…

Charity Kapambwe: My name is Charity Kapambwe and I am aged 19 years oid. I stay at Mulembo village. In our family there are 9; two sisters and six brothers. I do not have any children. Currently, I do not have a job, but in the future I want to be a teacher. I joined the Conservation Club to improve my English, Biology and Science.

Victoria Mwamba:

My name is Victoria Mwamba. I am 20 years old. I live in Malatas village. I have 4 sisters and 2 brothers. I have 1 child; a baby boy who is two years and five months old. I am doing nothing at the moment, but in the future I want to become a nurse. The reason why I joined the conservation club is that I need to improve my English and knowledge, and to learn further education in Biology and Science.

Selina Mwamba:

My name is Selina Mwamba. I am 22 years of age. I live in Malatas village in Mpulumba. I have one child who is two years and nine months old. I am doing nothing at the moment, but in the future I want to become a secretary/chief accountant. I joined the conservation club because I want to learn more about how to conserve nature and improve my knowledge in English and Biology.

Leah Mwamba:

My name is Leah Mwamba. I am 15 years old. I live in Mpulumba section at Malatas village. I have 4 sisters and 2 brothers. I don’t have any children. In the future I want 2 become a maths teacher. I joined the conservation club for further education and to improve my English speaking.

Betty Nkandu:

My name is Betty Nkandu and I am 39 years old. I live in Kafinda. I have three brothers and four sisters. I don’t have children but I am supporting 2 children which my elder sister left; she passed away. I am a general worker here at Mulaushi Conservation Centre. In the future I want to become a lodge manager. I joined the conservation club to improve my English.

Abia Mulombe:

My name is Abia Mulombe and I am 26 years old. I live in Chalilo village. I have 5 brothers and 4 sisters. I have one child aged one year and eight months. I am an up and coming chef working at mulaushi for international clients and non-international clients. I also cook for pre-school children in the Kasanka community school. I joined the conservation club for further education and to improve my English for when clients come to visit Kasanka Conservation Centre.

OUR FIRST BLOG:

Last year, in October, we went on a visit to Kinda Camp. In the game drive we saw a big crocodile and two hippos. We also saw sitatunga, warthogs, baboons and water bucks. We stayed overnight and we had a nice dinner.

This year in January we had a new teacher called Liz Winterton. We come to school twice in a week and learn about Science, English and Conservation. In March, we went to Kafinda Basic School to teach Grades 8 and 9 about food chains and biodiversity. It was very fun and interesting because the pupils were participating.

Before we went to Kafinda, we also received some t-shirts from the Baboon Project. In May, we had a First Aid Course which was a lot of fun. We learnt how to put a casualty in the recovery position and perform CPR. We also learnt how to bandage. Today we are learning how to use a computer. It is our first time using one. It is a useful skill so we hope to receive more computers so we can practice.

We hope you have enjoyed reading our first blog, and we hope to write more in the future.

Introductions

Before I launch into giving you lots of information about the goings on at Kinda camp, I thought I should introduce myself. My name is Liz, and I am currently volunteering for the Kasanka Baboon Project as camp manager. I have been here since January, and will remain until December 2012, continuing the work of the project whilst Anna is writing up her PhD.

I’m hoping to keep the blog regularly updated and provide you with news on all the exciting things happening at Kinda. I’m also hoping to give you a bit of an insight into the work of the Kinda team by asking them to regularly contribute to the blog themselves.

So, it’s been a busy few months for myself and the project, with firstly getting to know the baboons and the research methodology, and secondly implementing a regular presence within the local community through the initiation and continuation of various projects.

As I arrived in January we also welcomed 2 new scouts; Marley and Kennedy. They both work for the Kasanka Trust and have been on the anti-poaching patrol teams for many years so have excellent tracking skills and knowledge of the forest. As well as continuing with their important anti-poaching patrols, they are now part of the research team, and accompany me in the field 20 days per month.

We also saw another new arrival in January in the form of an adult male, now named Garcia. He integrated into the group with ease with no aggressive interactions being observed. He seems to have quickly established himself as a trustworthy male and is often seen interacting with Floyd, Frieda’s 9 month old son. He has also managed to maintain a courtship with the youngest adult female, Indigo, during her periods of estrous. He has however not yet tried to contest Muma for alpha status.

Garcia and Floyd

Kennedy and Me

Muma

Births and Migrations

The last month has been a busy time for the kinda group. As well as having to travel further to find enough suitable food, we have welcomed the arrival of 4 babies, and said goodbye to 3 males. Two babies, one white and one grey, were first observed on the 13th April. Due to the forest habitat, it is nearly impossible to see the majority of the group all at once, and it’s very easy for individual’s to hide away and rarely get seen, so when I first saw Clover’s infant, now named Cash, I was surprised to see him moving (if somewhat unsteadily) around on the forest floor and starting to gingerly interact with some of the more inquisitive juveniles and infants. Due to this relative independence from his mother, it appears Cash was already at least 1 month old! The grey infant on the other hand still appeared to be only a few weeks old and readily clung to her mother.

The next 2 new arrivals, both of which are white, were observed on 25th April and were approximately 1 week old. Unfortunately since the first glimpse, we have only seen one of the females and her infant again, so the other female seems to have disappeared. This unfortunately coincides with the disappearance of one of our regularly viewed females, Beth, so it is possible that she was the 4th female with an infant.
Rather surprisingly, it seems to be the females who are most interested in the new arrivals, with the exception of Mr Wizard who has now ditched his long-term ‘partner’ MJ for Clover and Cash. However, it will be interesting to see whether the males become more interested as the females get less protective and the infants start to become more independent.

We have also had 3 migrations, with males Cat, Leon and JK all leaving the group within a few weeks of each other. Hopefully it is not the last we see of them, and we will keep an eye out to see if they have joined the neighbouring baboon troop. The shift in dominance hierarchy the emigrations have produced seems to have spurred one of our adolescent males into the equivalent of his stroppy teenage years, seeing him pick fights with anyone and everyone, and even redirecting some aggressive interactions towards us! Hopefully he will grow out of this quickly!

Godiva and Jojo

Aretha and Indigo coming to inspect the new arrival

Clover and Cash

Mr Wizard keeping a close eye on Clover and Cash

Floyd and Frieda with Beth and her unnamed infant

Cat, JK, Leon

New male?
As well as having to adjust to 3 new babies in the group, the males in particular are also possibly having to adjust to an even bigger arrival; a new adult male. Once reaching adult hood, between 8 and 10 years of age, the majority of males will migrate from their natal troop and enter a new group in the prospect of finding new females to mate with, and in some cases, attempt to attain alpha status. Our new male, yet to be named, has only been observed once so far, early in the morning at one of the regularly visited sleeping sites near to camp. Seemingly unimposing he was calmly sitting near to some juveniles; however he did not try to interact with any of the group members. Maybe he was just observing the troop and deciding whether this was the group for him. We will keep a close eye out over the next few weeks to see if he returns.

The New Male

Community project updates.
The girl’s Science Club is still continuing, and proving to be a great success. With the help of the community relations team at Mulaushi, we are continuing to teach English, Science and Maths as well as life skills. This week the girls attended a First Aid course run by myself and Mary, a Peace Corps volunteer working at Mulaushi. The course covered basic first aid and the girl’s all got stuck in practicing their recovery positions, CPR and bandaging.

As a qualified TEFL teacher, I am also attending Kafinda Basic School once per month and giving English lessons to students in grades 8 and 9. My first lessons were rather daunting for myself, as well as for the students; I was not used to teaching 50 students at once with no resources except chalk and a blackboard, and the students had never been taught by a British person before! Although understandably shy at first, the students are now starting to interact more in lessons and improve their English speaking skills in particular which is great.

Kafinda is also continuing with their Conservation (Chongololo) Club, and last month the girls from the Science Club at Mulaushi travelled to Kafinda to teach their very first lesson on food chains and biodiversity! This proved to be a great success, with the usual class of 20 students escalating to around 40 students by the end of the lesson.