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# 10 – 27th September 2012
By: Elizabeth Winterton
A
bad week for the baboons
In my last blog I mentioned our oldest
female, L.P., was not looking so healthy after developing a tumour in her cheek
pouch. Well it seems I was the kiss of death as she now hasn’t been seen since
the 10th September. Although she does disappear from time to time it
is unusual for her not to be seen for this long, so I fear she may have died.
With the probable death of L.P. there were
further shocks in the baboon troop this week with Sarah, her 2 month old infant
Slash, and Garcia all disappearing on the 15th September. All 3
seemed healthy, so presumably they were either killed by our resident leopard,
or by poachers. Although Garcia could have migrated to another group it seems
unlikely as he is one of the 4 high-ranking males, and he is almost certainly
the father of Indigo’s baby. He also has a regular mating partner in Yoko who
is thought to be Sarah’s 4 year old daughter.
After spending so much time with the troop
this last year it is obviously a sad time for me that we appear to have had so
many die within a matter of days. However, the baboons seem to show no
compassion at all and are merrily getting along with their socialising and
feeding, and do not seem saddened at all by the recent losses of the troop.
Muma already seems to be eyeing up Indigo as a potential new girlfriend and
Yoko has chosen Ella to be her new best friend, so where she used to spend the
majority of her time with Sarah she now spends her days by Ella’s side trying to
hug her baby!
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| L.P. |
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| Sarah and Sufjan |
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| Garcia |
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| Yoko grooming Ella |
Girl’s
overnight – 19th/20th October.
Each year the girls in the conservation
club come for an overnight at Kinda Camp and have a game drive down the Kasanka
River. This year we had 6 girls come down to camp accompanied by Kasanka’s
community outreach workers Mwati and Given, Marcel Inge’s brother, and Erik the
intern student.
With Bastiaan acting as guide, the girls
had a lesson on animal tracks in the afternoon, followed by a lesson from me on
how to bake a Victoria Sponge cake! After a great evening of good food and a
movie we got up early the next morning to check out the sitatungas from the
Fibwe Hide and go on the game drive. Unfortunately we didn’t see too many
animals, but it was enjoyable none-the-less.
I won’t say too much more as the girl’s
will be writing their own blog on the overnight in their next computer lesson.
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| The overnight crew with their certificates |
