The Coolest Job in the World!

Well, after 4 weeks here in Mozambique, Kathleen finally said it was my turn to contribute to our weekly blog entries, so I’m afraid you all will be forced to endure some lower-quality writing this time around. Hopefully, though, what my post here lacks in quality of writing will be made up for by quality of pictures. After nearly two years of planning and preparation, the time finally came this month for me to begin the field work for my post-doctoral research in southern Africa. And, for the past 10 days or so, that’s meant capturing and working with a variety of animals here, which has been a really incredible experience. I didn’t keep a daily journal like Kathleen often does, so rather than provide a day-by-day summary I’m just going to share my overall experiences during the past week and half, which hopefully will be at least somewhat interesting!

First off, let me share just a little bit about the purpose of my work here. The overall objective of my research at Gorongosa is to better understand relationships among resource distribution and quality, behavior, body size, and nutritional condition of browsing antelope (i.e., species that primarily eat woody plants and forbs, rather than grasses) in the park.  Both body size and nutritional condition of an animal have some important implications for what constitutes an “optimal” behavioral strategy with respect to resource use, predator avoidance, etc.  So, my goal here is to better understand how browsing antelope of different sizes and nutritional states utilize resources at Gorongosa, and how those behavioral strategies might influence growth of the populations as they continue to recover from the civil war that ended in 1994.  To do that, I’m working with three different species of antelope: kudu, nyala, and bushbuck. These three species are all in the same genus (meaning they’re very closely related), they’re all browsers during the dry season (i.e., the austral winter), and they span a non-overlapping range of body sizes: nyala are about twice as big as bushbuck, and kudu are about twice as big as nyala. There’s actually nowhere else in the world besides Africa that this combination of factors even exists for three different species of large herbivores, so this really is an amazing opportunity to address these sorts of questions.

As is often the case with the type of research I do, the field work is one of the best parts, and this project has certainly been no exception. In fact, this has been some of the most exciting and enjoyable field work I’ve ever done! The first step, obviously, involved capturing the animals themselves: 10 bushbuck, 10 nyala, and 10 kudu, all females. The capture team consisted of myself, Rui Branco (the park veterinarian), Louis Van Wyk (a game capture specialist from South Africa), and Kevin Monteith (a close friend and colleague from the University of Wyoming). This was an amazing group, and it was a huge privilege to be able to work with them on a capture like this. As the park veterinarian, Rui’s main role was to oversee everything and ensure the well-being of the animals. Louis was here mainly to help out, and help out he did, in some pretty major ways (more on that later). Kevin was here for the specific purpose of quantifying nutritional condition of the animals using a portable ultrasound (one of his areas of expertise), and to train me to do the same in his absence. Finally, as the lead researcher, I did a bit of everything.

For this project we captured all of our study animals by darting them, which can be both exciting and extremely frustrating. Because of their larger size we were able to dart the kudu from a helicopter, whereas the bushbuck and nyala had to be darted from the ground. Rui and I split the helicopter darting between the two of us, and although it was definitely challenging (hitting an antelope that’s running evasively at full speed from a moving helicopter that’s also busy dodging trees and brush isn’t always easy), it went really well. We finished the kudu in two days, and only missed four shots between the two of us. All of the animals handled the anesthesia well, and are now running around quite happily with nice new GPS collars around their necks! The ground darting for bushbuck and nyala was much more challenging (and frustrating) for several reasons. First, although these animals are somewhat used to vehicles, they will not tolerate people approaching on foot, so darting them requires driving to within 30 yards and then accurately placing a dart in the hindquarter. I can’t tell you how many times we’d make it to within 35-40 yards only to have the animal bolt just before the opportunity we needed would present itself. This was especially true of the nyala, which are an extremely skittish species. The second major frustration was the equipment. Because these animals live in thickly forested habitat, and they have a tendency to take off and run a ways after you dart them (it takes about 5-6 minutes for the anesthesia to take effect), and because we can’t monitor them visually from a helicopter, we had to use transmitter darts. That essentially means that each dart is fitted with a tiny little radio-transmitter that emits a signal that we can track in order to find the animal. A barb on the needle of the dart is designed to keep it in the animal until it goes down. So, in theory, that should work great. Unfortunately, though, there are a lot of things that can go wrong with these darts. First off, the transmitters are relatively heavy, which throws off the ballistics of the dart and makes the flight a bit unpredictable; sometimes they do what they’re supposed to, and sometimes they don’t. Secondly, the transmitters require two tiny little watch batteries, which can (and sometimes do) die unexpectedly. Third, because the dart is so heavy, the barb sometimes isn’t enough to keep the dart in the animal when it runs off, and if it comes out, then that leaves you searching for a sleeping animal that could have run for hundreds of yards in any direction through the thick African bush; it’s kind of like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, and it’s not a good thing when it happens.

During the past couple of weeks, we experienced a little bit of everything while darting from the ground; success, missed shots, and failed equipment. The latter two of these is where Louis really made his mark. The first thing he did is come up with a way to combine two of the different types of darts we had into a totally novel design that was smaller and lighter than either of the originals, but still included the transmitter. Those darts flew a lot better, and saved our butts on several occasions. Next, about mid-way through the capture, the transmitter stopped working shortly after I darted a bushbuck. The four of us searched for over an hour with no luck. So, rather than keep looking, Louis backed off a bit and looked to the sky instead. Shortly thereafter he noticed an eagle circling overhead, and its behavior led him right to our sleeping bushbuck, quite a ways from where we'd been looking. It was amazing to watch, and we never would have found her without Louis’ skills. In any case, despite the ups and downs, as I write this we’ve managed to collar all 10 bushbuck and 4 of the 10 nyala. So hopefully we’ll be wrapping things up soon!

After all of the planets align and we do successfully dart and recover an animal, then the processing begins, which involves a number of things. First, I fit the animal with a GPS collar that will record its location every hour for the next 10 months or so. Then, Kevin and I do the ultrasonography together (so that he can train me), which involves measuring the depth of the fat layer (as a measure of nutritional condition) and also checking for pregnancy. Next I take a variety of physical measurements (chest girth, body length, things like that) and obtain a fecal sample for diet analysis. Finally, for the bushbuck and nyala, we put them in a big canvas bag and weigh them; the kudu are about the same size as an elk, to we can’t really weigh them in the field. When we have all of the data we need, then Rui reverses the anesthetic, and usually within a minute the animal is off and running again. It’s quite an experience, and something I wish I could share with more people. It’s one thing to see animals like this on television or in a zoo, but being able to work directly with them in this sort of a way really is amazing!

OK, so before I wrap this up I also have to mention a couple of really fun bonuses that we got during this capture. These things weren’t planned, but came up opportunistically for Rui, and so he let the rest of us tag along for the ride. First, while doing the helicopter darting for kudu, we found a bull elephant that was wearing a GPS collar that was many years old and no longer functional. So, Rui decided we should dart the elephant and remove the collar…and that’s exactly what we did! Rui darted him, and then the rest of us got to help with the collar removal and handling. Kevin even tried to do some ultrasonography, but it turned out that the elephant’s skin was too thick for the ultrasound to penetrate! Man was it cool to be able to work hands-on with an elephant. And is if that weren’t enough, the second bonus came a few days later. Yep, you guessed it…a lion! The lion researcher here in the park opportunistically located a lioness that she’d been wanting to put a GPS collar on, so she called Rui while we were doing the antelope work, and we all got to go out and help. This was also an incredible experience. We essentially drove right up to within about 20 yards of her while she napped lazily in the sun, and Rui darted her. Ten minutes later we were working with an anesthetized lioness! It was pretty neat, but I do have to say that lions definitely aren’t as cool as antelope…;)

Well, I think that’s about it for now. Enjoy the pics!

This is one of the first bushbuck I darted at Gorongosa. They're beautiful little antelope that weigh between 65 and 85 pounds.

This was actually the final bushbuck I darted and collared here. This is also the one that we lost track of until Louis noticed an eagle circling her as she lay anesthetized in the long grass!


This is the first kudu (and in fact, the first animal of any kind) that I darted from the helicopter. Note the perfect shot placement in the left hindquarter...;)

 

Here are two additional kudu that I darted from the air. Shot placement on the second one wasn't quite so good (note the blue spot on the front shoulder where Rui administered some penicilin after removing the dart), but it did the trick. Kudu are the largest of the species I'm working with here, weighing in at around 400 pounds. The funny looking guy in the second photo is Kevin. 

 

Measuring rump fat on a kudu using a portable ultrasound.

 

 

These two pictures are both of the first nyala that we managed to collar. Theses skittish antelope have proven to be the most elusive and difficult to approach of the three species. You may or may not be able to tell this from the picture, but it was raining when we captured this female, which actually helped with the approach by making the grass quieter.

 

Another nyala female. These mid-sized antelope weigh in at around 180 pounds, and are, in my opinion, the most stunning of the species I'm working with.

 

This is actually a mature kudu bull we came across one day while searching for nyala. I love the big spiraled horns of these guys!

 

One day while we were out looking for antelope we noticed the lion research team stopped and staring at something. We went to see what was up, and this is what we found! Both of these lions are wearing GPS collars that were put on last year as part of a lion monitoring project here in the park. Unbelievable animals, and the first lions I've seen in the wild!

We came across the same male again a few days later. Definitely not a sight you want to see while on foot in the bush! Classic Africa right there.

So, this was amazing bonus number one. Rui darted this bull elephant from the helicopter during our antelope capture in order to remove a GPS collar that was placed on him years ago, and had long since ceased to function. In this picture Louis is beginning the process of removing the collar.

Removing the collar.

Our antelope capture crew...with an anesthetized elephant! What an experience.

Kevin attempting to use an ultrasound to measure fat on an elephant...nope, not happening! Their skin is just too thick. Fun opportunity to try though!

Amazing bonus number two! Rui darted this lioness opportunistically one day while we were out looking for antelope in order to put a GPS collar on her for the lion research team. Kneeling down, from left to right, is Louis, me, Kevin, and Rui. Awesome group to work with!

Yep, that's my hand, and her paw!

The lioness slowly recovering from her anesthesia.

We came across these two old bull elephants one day while looking for nyala to dart. They stood here in this mud hole for quite awhile to stay cool. The one in back had much bigger tusks than the one in front, but Louis estimated that they were both over 40 years old!