BLOG # 10 – 27^th 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 10^th 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 15^th 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!

L.P.

Sarah and Sufjan

 Garcia

Yoko grooming Ella

Girl’s overnight – 19^th/20^th 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.

 

The overnight crew with their certificates