AFRICAN SAFARI NEWS

The bi-monthly follow-up visits build on the learning experience of the initial camp session; providing mentoring and support through regular contact; and allowing us to evaluate the impact of the program. Each follow-up visit has a theme, the first one being “Who Am I?” The culmination of the day’s activities involved focusing on the children’s vision of their own future and the attainment of their personal goals.

In May, Children in the Wilderness Namibia hosted a Follow-up Camp for 30 youngsters in Palmwag Rhino Camp. The program was aimed at older participants, as it focused on job opportunities and preparing for the challenges that they will face when they leave school.

SEYCHELLES - NORTH ISLAND NEWS
The North Island environmental program is beginning to bear fruit. It has been eight months since the successful eradication of invasive European rats and the results can already be seen. Sightings of endemic bird species like the Seychelles Blue Pigeon are becoming regular, vegetation rehabilitation is proceeding apace and North Island is contributing to more and more environmental projects throughout the Seychelles, such as a new shark research program. Another recent landmark is the imminent reintroduction of a small population of Seychelles White-Eyes, an endangered endemic species.

North Island has long been recognized for its exceptional hospitality and luxury, but was recently praised for its contribution to conservation at the launch of the national plant conservation strategy when a member of the organisation implementing the plan singled North Island out for its role in combining conservation and tourism!

ZAMBIA CAMPS UPDATE
Both Kapinga (image at left) and Shumba Camps are now open and look amazing! The first visitors are already praising the camp and the wildlife that they have seen – from puku and buffalo to lion and cheetah.

The Moshi airstrip is also complete, and the two-hour transfer from the airstrip to Kapinga, Shumba and Busanga camps makes for a great drive up the Lafupa River to the camps, with good game en route. Lunga airstrip is now used mainly for Lunga River Lodge.

Game viewing at Busanga Bush Camp has also been good over the last month, with good lion sightings in and around camp, as well as relaxed roan antelope, 300 buffalo and a cheetah!

CAMP UPDATES
Doro Nawas Head Guide Rosalia Haraes has recently been employed as an Explorations guide to be based in Windhoek. Rosie began as a member of Damaraland Camp’s cleaning staff and worked her way through the ranks to become a guide with Wilderness for the past ten years, finally becoming head guide at Doro Nawas. She is motivated, always passionate about nature and loves her work. She is a great example of how Wilderness Safaris Namibia is changing the face of the workforce in that country and we wish Rosie all the best in her new job and in her future.

Little Mombo and main Mombo Camps will be undergoing renovations from 8th of January to end March 2007. Only a few rooms will be renovated at a time and only during hours that guests are on activities, thus having no impact on guests at all. However, during this time, whether guests will be accommodated at Little Mombo or main Mombo will depend on which rooms are being refurbished at the time.

Savuti and DumaTau are also closing for refurbishments next year as follows: Savuti - 11 Jan 7 to 14 February inclusive and DumaTau - 18 January to 3 February inclusive.

A reminder about Abu Camp elephant activities: As a result of Abu's elephant release policy there are currently only four elephants that are able to be ridden. Two people can ride each elephant at a time, meaning that only eight people can ride at any one time. The remaining guests walk along next to the elephants and enjoy the experience from that point of view or do something entirely different on that day such as mokoro or game drives. Every guest does get the opportunity to ride the elephants during their stay and the experience is not compromised in any way.

Those elephants that have been released into the wild are currently the focus of a PhD study based out of Seba Camp with the guests here able to be gain exposure to an in-depth and cutting-edge research project and the principal researcher. One of the released cows, Nandipa, was recently discovered with a newborn calf, indicating the success of this project.

WILDLIFE
Linyanti Wild Dogs
Both the Linyanti Pack of five wild dogs and the DumaTau Pack of sixteen have been visibly active. The dominant female of the latter group when last seen was heavily pregnant, and is now thought to have given birth.

In an incredible sighting at the beginning of the month, one of our guides recorded how he watched with guests as the dogs killed an impala, only to have it snatched from them by an opportunistic spotted hyena. Not to be deprived of their hard-earned prey for long, the dogs promptly hassled the scavenger until it surrendered the impala back to them!

Namibia
There was a very exciting sighting at Doro Nawas recently when two cheetah made their way up the plain towards the small hill on which the camp is situated. The two animals walked past Rooms 16 and 17 before passing the staff accommodation and continuing on their way. As new guide Rosta Janik said: “Oh my goodness… I am happy to be here!”

Nearby Palmwag Rhino Camp has also been enjoying good cheetah sightings lately. The good summer rains have meant a sea of grass across the Concession and an abundance of plains game “hundreds of mountain zebra, thousands of springbok and plenty of gemsbok” and occasional sightings of lions which have colonized the area. Desert specials like the horned adder have been seen.

August has seen quite a bit of unseasonal rain; on one particular day we had a downpour of 50mm within a short space of time. Not that we are complaining as it has been exceptionally dry in Seychelles, with parts of the mainland Mahé on water restrictions.

Fishing has been relatively quiet for us with catch records low. Ocean conditions have ranged from calm, unsettled, choppy to rough over the month. Visibility has ranged between 7m - 15m and this variance has had very little to do with ocean conditions but more to do with currents and then reverse currents where the wind has been blowing from the south-east and the bottom current has been going in a reverse fashion heading south. What has remained a constant is the water temperature, which has remained at 25°C. The changes in wind speed have been largely attributed to spring tides and the full and new moon. We have noticed that over the full and new moon phases, the weather has turned sour with rain squalls coming through, which in turn has seen an increase in wind speed and ocean chop all linked together. Once the rain has passed, the wind dies down and the chop decreases. Within a short period of time the sun is out and it becomes a beautiful day once more. We have also experienced a lot of overcast weather during the month without rainfall. In a nutshell it can be said that the weather has been unpredictable!

From a sighting point of view, we have really enjoyed everything about 'Sprat City' dive site, yet again. We have unashamedly taken the bulk of our dive trips to Sprat because there has been a guarantee of seeing good sightings with loads of action. The baby sprats are no longer that small and some spectacular fish chases have taken place, with the blue spot kingfish and fulvie kingfish almost appearing to hug the reef so as not to be detected but at the same time using spectacular speed at the last minute to totally unnerve these "bait balls" of young fish. Divers have been totally ignored in this hunting game and have floated in one spot, taking in all of this incredible hunting action and predatory behaviour. Fish have circled us or dashed past and through us in an effort to hunt or to hide from being hunted and we have felt almost invisible to them as they have not blinked an eye at our presence (even if they could). Even the trumpetfish have been hovering upside down, waiting to prey on these little fish, also totally ignoring our presence. The spectacular lionfish have been hovering above the reef, often in groups of 4 to 5 in one place and no doubt these fish have also been waiting for an easy meal on the sprats. So as you can see, everything that can hunt has been preying on the sprat "bait balls". We were even graced with the presence of a good size guitar shark moving purposefully across the sand.

Eastern tuna have darted about mid-water at such speed that unless you are looking around for things mid-water, you will not even catch a glimpse of these speedy little game fish. Why would we be looking around mid-water you may ask? Well first off, you often miss out on amazing sightings if you do not look around constantly and secondly, it is whale shark season at the moment in Seychelles, so you just never know what you may see mid-water or on the surface. We have not seen any whale sharks around the island, but it would appear that there has been a bit of activity between Praslin and La Digue islands.

At the time of this report, the people that do the annual whale shark tagging and research have had their microlight pilot on the ground most of the time as there has been little action on Mahe. In the last week however, many have been spotted in the southern regions of Mahe. An exciting find has been that of several 8-metre female whale sharks, which is apparently unusual as the area traditionally gets visits by the 3.5m males. All of these sightings have produced untagged whale sharks. The researcher that usually does the tagging on Mahe has been able to identify at least two animals of late by previous identifying marks taken. This is a healthy signal that these animals have returned to the same area as 2005. The season is still relatively young and we are still expecting sightings. As you know, we are involved in the whale shark research programme and the chance of spending time with this gentle giant of the ocean is always an exciting thought. We are also encouraging the adoption of whale sharks for the season as these funds are used to purchase tagging equipment and pay for microlight fees. The cost of adopting a whale shark for the season is SCR 250.00 per animal.

We mentioned that we had started to work on shark research, together with the authorities on Mahe and members of the Marine Conservation Society of Seychelles. In a nutshell, what has transpired here is that the government has been informed by independent researchers about shark stock depletions here in Seychelles, about overfishing of sharks for meat and fin export. The Seychelles has traditionally (since the early 1900s and prior) had a very healthy shark stock in their waters. In addition, they have also enjoyed a healthy swordfish population, which was an important export. Upon testing the swordfish exports internationally, it was found that the cadmium levels in these swordfish were high and the demand dropped substantially. As the local fishermen had government grants to purchase their fishing outfits and to pay wages, they were forced to turn to an industry where supply was as good as the demand, i.e. sharks. There are two types of operators here at the moment, the first being those that take the entire shark, use the fins and export the meat. The second is those that take the fins and dump the shark, which clearly dies. One of the main elements behind this new research is that dive centres, researchers and officials are talking to the fishing communities in an effort to assist to bring stocks back to Seychelles. This is a new project for the Seychelles and we requested to be fully involved from the start. Our involvement is both photographic identification of individual species/animals, and documenting sightings of the various species. We have been submitting our monthly sighting reports and have been focusing on trying to identify individual sharks whilst on a dive, if we can. We managed to single out two white tip reef sharks, both females, on Sprat City. No easy feat I can tell you because they rest on the sand and appear to be sleeping until you approach closer and then they move off. We subsequently took a group of divers to "Sprat City" a few days after the identifying dive with the purpose of trying to see if these females were still around. Right at the end of the dive and further away from where they were first spotted, we found one of the two females again. This time she was not resting on the bottom but was swimming around, agitatedly, as a remora was trying to attach itself to her and she was not that interested in it! She is larger than the others sighted and upon surfacing I asked the two guest divers that had accompanied me to give her a name and "Domino" was chosen: the identifying features on her are two large black spots that no other individual appears to have. One is below the dorsal fin and slightly to the right and the other is below the 2nd dorsal fin; whether these prove to be ongoing identifying marks remains to be seen. A good identifying feature would be if the tail fin or dorsal fin are chopped or deformed or less than perfect, but these specimens appear to be in a healthy state and it has been hard to single out something different.

Due to the "bait ball" sprats, we have had no fewer than five whitetip reef sharks sighted on a single dive, which has been exciting for the divers. The giant sleepy sharks have disappeared and we have not had a single sighting throughout the entire month of August.

We are thus fully involved in the three research programmes: Coral Reef monitoring, Whale Shark research and now Shark research. We are committed to the ocean and to educating our guests on the importance of all of these animals remaining there so as not to upset the fragile equilibrium in the ocean realm. All of these animals have a role to play in the ecosystem and if we can pass this message on to but one person, a difference will have been made. It is through education, conservation and research that we can understand the role that everything has to play in the ocean and thus ensure that it remains intact for future generations.

Not forgetting the small critters, we have spotted our first rockmover wrasse, which is highly camouflaged in colour, almost resembling seaweed. Quite a few nudibranches have also been sighted and many raggy scorpionfish have been spotted on each dive. The resident regal angelfish have been swimming about on Coral Gardens as well as some very colourful emperor angel fish, adults and juveniles alike.

Debbie Smith

• The western spillway (fed from the Okavango) has now flooded so far along its length that it is less than 26km from the headwaters of the eastern spillway (fed from the Kwando). The eastern spillway has also started to creep west again as the lower reaches of the Kwando River swell from the Angolan rains.
 
• The wild dogs have been extremely active this month and we have almost lost count of the number of kills they've made. One particular happy story is the survival of a kudu cow. She had been hounded and bitten by the pack in a protracted chase before seeking refuge outside the CMU office. Visibly shaken & tired, she managed to avoid further harassment and after recovering wandered off back into the woodland.

• Although we await confirmation, it seems that at long last Amber, our star leopard, has had her first litter of cubs. A very relaxed female was seen with two little cubs in tow right in the middle of Amber's core territory. She was seen again on an impala kill with a fleeting glimpse of a cub.

• On the subject of cubs, it looks like there may be more lion cubs in hiding. Two lactating lionesses of the Selinda pride seem to be confined to an area between Zibalianja Camp and the airstrip. We suspect they have their charges safely tucked away somewhere in the area.

• We are more than happy to announce that, after all the delays and hiccups, our "Phase 1" revamp of Selinda Camp is complete. A skeleton crew of builders will remain behind to iron out the last few gremlins. "Phase 2" will commence in January and the camp will close for this from 10-Jan to 28-Feb 2007.

• How's this for an hour's night drive? A fight between a Jackal and an African Wild Cat as she defended the lives of her three kittens; an Aardwolf sauntering along; an Aardvark diving for cover in its burrow and finally, a half hour with a male leopard as he called and marked territory.

• One of our maintenance crew had a problem fixing a puncture recently whilst on an airstrip errand. He was about to get out of the vehicle to attend to the flat when a lioness came charging out the sage bush in hot pursuit of a zebra! She caught and killed it right in front of the vehicle!

• Of all the rarer animal species on The Selinda, the most sought after by guides is the "giant artichoke" or pangolin. A fine specimen was seen twice recently - once as it casually walked through Zib camp!

One by one, species by species, initiated by the arrival of summer the migrant birds are returning. These arrivals include Whalbergs eagles, yellow-billed kites, Ruffs, who come as far a field as Siberia (18,000 kms), sandpipers and common redshanks to name a few. It seems that the volume of the morning chorus has been turned up three notches as birds compete for nesting sights, display for mates and compete for territories.

The acacia trees now bloom with scent and life, a magnet to both insects and birds. At first the smell of knob-thorns dominated the Okavango, but now their scent mixes with the remainder of the acacia species. Among the flowering trees is the sausage trees, Kegila Africana, who create a carpet of red beneath their canopies. These nectar rich flowers fall onto the ground due the nightly activities of the fruit bats, the trees pollinators. Every morning impala investigate each tree licking at the sweet nutrients the flowers provide, but they need be aware of the ever opportunistic leopards that wait within the trees' foliage.

Impala feed on the sausage flowers as the leopard waits above in a Marula tree

Leopard launches herself out of the Marula tree

Success

Rhino sightings are up; it’s always a special treat to see these prehistoric beasts amongst the palms of the Okavango delta.

A black rhino bull has been successfully relocated to the Khama Rhino sanctuary in central Botswana from Zimbabwe. We a wait with some urgency of the relocation of more black rhino from Zimbabwe, these rhinos are threatened by poaching and are under serious pressure. Once we have established a viable breeding population of black rhino within Botswana, the population will increase naturally. Did you know that there was an estimated population of 1 million black rhino in South Africa 80 years ago and that by 1992, the world-wide population of black rhino had crashed to 2,200…

August has seen some interesting changes within our leopard population. Our territorial male leopards reign seems to have come to an end due to both age and an injured paw. His injury has become infected making hunting and protecting his territory against nomadic males very difficult. We sighted a large nomadic male leopard a few weeks back and have not seen the Burnt Ebony Male leopard since.

Notice his front left paw.

Far-eastern Pan female and her cub.

Bad news about the Mombo wilddogs, the alpha female has given birth but none of the pups have survived. We had not seen the dogs for about a week; this is when she had obviously given birth. When having pups the alpha female will stay back at the den in order to protect the pups and not move around with the pack, her teats also seemed that they had not been suckled on. We are not sure what happened to the pups but can only guess that they may have succumbed to hyenas.

The Mattata pride are missing two of their cubs from the pride, its unknown what happened to the first that disappeared but the second I found wandering around on his own miles away from the pride. He may have lost the pride whilst finishing off a meal, not knowing that the pride had started moving again.

Two new males have established themselves, between the territory of the Mattata pride and the Moporota pride. These males have been present at Mombo previously and may again head back out west again as the water levels drop.

Other highlights and happenings at Mombo this month included this very light colored bull giraffe, who seemed to be a favorite with the cows.

An elephant died of natural causes a few miles west of Mombo camp, this feast provided us and our guests with some interesting predator interactions. Within a week only the bones remained thanks to the help of hundreds of vultures and hyenas.

We look forward to another great month at Mombo in September, and hope to see you all again soon in this perfect paradise.
Greetings from the Mombo Team