South Africa: Way Too Tired

We packed a lot in today. This morning we went to look at our carnivore traps again with Liam. We found a our first Genet tracks today as well as some more Jackal. Liam explained that they do these surveys to make sure that they do not have too many carnivores on the reserve. Again, not all the traps had been touched, with some of the original wors bait still there from Monday which Liam pointed out was not a bad thing.

While we were checking the carnivore traps we also picked up our camera trap from last week. We had put one in the big donger to see if we could catch sight of Serval or Otter. To our disappointment was that Pied Crows had stolen the bait within a short space of time. However, we then had images if Porcupine, a family of Bush Pigs (funny looking things, reminded me of the Wobbles with their long noses), a family of Warthog, various Duiker, and then to our amazement a Serval. Fantastic!

Once we got back to the house we then had a lecture from Liam on the Reserves Carrying Capacity and how it was calculated. The Natal region was very much a cattle farming county. It wasn't until land owners realised that there was four times more money to be made in having a "game farm" that things started to change. A guy from Pretoria University devised a way of determining how many hectares were required per animal depending on the species and what vegetation it ate, that these land owners knew how many "game" to keep on their land without depleting the vegetation and destroying the ecosystem. Although the reserve is under capacity at present there is the issue of inbreeding. For example to only rhino bull on the reserve has mated successfully with both females, producing one female and one male calf. Liam explained the options they have. The first being to do game swaps with other reserves, or to auction them off at the local game auction. If the worst comes to the worst they would have to cull some of the animals and then sell the meat on to raise money for the reserve. Not a great thought, but I guess necessary.

After lunch we had the fun job of separating out the ants from the pitfall traps into different species. I can't say I was that interested. I know they are needed for the ecosystem but to me they are just ugly pests, especially in this house. We seem to have an army of sugar ants in the kitchen! Unfortunately Carolynn loves insects. She is currently conducting a survey to see how many indigenous species we have on the reserve verses alien species. I was a bit bored to be honest, and way too tired to care by this point. It's very tiring out here.

Tonight we went back to the Guinea fowl restaurant with Carolynn. Another milkshake and steak and chips. So much for loosing weight on this holiday. I popped into the supermarket next door for pens and came out with more, typical me! On the drive home we listened to East Coast Radio. I have to say this radio station is so random, tonight we had love songs. Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and I Will Always Love You, The Eagles and Hotel California, Stevie Wonder, Backstreet Boys, and Will Young and Evergreen were some of the stuff we were singing along to.