BLOG # 9 – 12th September 2012
By: Elizabeth Winterton
THE FATE OF EMIGRANT MALES
In most cases, the fate of emigrant males
is unknown. We don’t know if they survived their transfer, whether they are
mating successfully, or what troop they now belong to.
In all baboon species when males reach
sexual maturity, normally around 8 years of age, they leave their natal troop
to go in search of mating opportunities with unrelated females. So, back in
March with sexual maturity reached Leon left the troop, shortly followed by JK
and Cat in April.
Since then they haven’t been seen; that was
until last week. Whilst trying to locate our study group we came across the
troop of 100 whose home range overlaps with that of the study troops. With an
estimated 15 adult males in their group we were surprised to notice 2 very
familiar looking faces. Although a little bit bulkier than when we last saw
them, they were definitely Cat and Leon. We only got to see them for a few
minutes, but they still appeared to be hanging out together and were fully integrated
into the troop.
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Leon
relaxing in his new troop
|
PREPARATIONS
As my time as camp manager is coming to an
end in the next few months preparations are under way for my replacement, which
means it’s time for the camp to have a facelift. As the matete has now been
harvested this meant we could rebuild the second shower and finish off the roof
over the second tent. This also fortunately coincides with the arrival of Erik,
a University student who is coming to intern with the project for a few months.
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| The roof after completion |
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| The shower being re-built |
OUR LITTLE OLD LADY
It appears in many baboon troops within
Kasanka there rarely seems to be any obviously old members. In general, baboons
will live between 15 and 25 years and I would estimate the oldest baboons I’ve
seen in other troops would be 17 to 18 years old.
In our study troop however we have one
female who is distinctly older than the rest (I’m guessing around 20 years
old), our little old lady, L.P. Seemingly the lowest ranking female in the
troop she is rarely seen interacting with other troop members apart from Janis.
Over the last few months since Jojo’s
death, and therefore the demise of her occasional male grooming partner, L.P.
seems to have gotten more fragile and has developed a tumour in her right cheek
pouch. Despite this she still seems to be doing okay although we can go days
without seeing her. Fortunately the tumour doesn’t appear to be hindering her
feeding habits too much so let’s hope she keeps going for a while longer yet,
although with the leopard spoor we found near one of the sleeping sites last
week she will have to keep her wits about her.
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| L.P. with Jojo |
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| L.P. with her tumour |
MORE NEW
BABIES
Last time I said
we were expecting 2 more babies in the next few weeks. Dolly, who I expected to
give birth at the end of August still hasn’t had a baby, however Ella has. She
gave birth to a mixed coloured infant (black head, white body) on the 7th
September. So far the baby seems to be doing great and Ella is already commanding
the attention of quite a few of the females.
Patsy who was
not expected to give birth until the latter half of the month has also had her
baby. Born on the 10th September we now have another black infant.This now brings
our total this year so far to 11 babies with 5 white, 1 grey, 2 black and 3
mixed.
During the first
few days after birth it seems most females don’t like to have their other
children around, and both Elvis and Pearl, Ella and Patsy’s respective children
who were born last year, who were almost guaranteed to be sat with their
mother’s in the mushitu every morning, have been banished.
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| Ella with her new infant Etta |
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| Sufjan (mixed), Patsy with her new infant (black), Yoko, MJ and MJ’s infant (white) |
