NAMIBIA DIARY

Tuesday 22nd March.

A lot has happened since the new team's arrival at base camp yesterday. By mid-afternoon we were out in the field and I was accompanying one of the offroad training groups as we headed out towards the riverbed training ground. Harald came over the radio with news of a cheetah sighting by his box trap team as they drove down the eastern fence line. They had first come across a springbok kill by the roadside before a cheetah popped out frombehind a small tree about 30 metres in front of them, gave the team a filthy look (according to Sara), and beat a hasty retreat in to the bush. Upon returning from the box trap round they discovered the cheetah had since returned to its kill, moved it a few metres and eaten a bit more. At the end of the afternoon we all gathered at the site and assisted in the repositioning of one of the box traps with the kill inside. It was unsure if this technique would succeed in trapping the cheetah, but they are generally keen to return to their kills, as long as they made the kill themselves recently (you can't bait cheetahs with just any kind of meat).This morning we began by checking the northern box traps (with appearances from the two giraffes, a few zebra, lots of leopard-faced vultures) before heading down to the trap containing the fresh kill, which was by now closed with the cheetah inside! By this time she had polished of three quarters of her springbok and wasn't too happy about being cooped up in the trap! Harald and Birgit were keen to undertake the veterinary investigation, but did not want to retain her for long in case she had cubs waiting for her return. Yet given that she had recently eaten, it was impossible to sedate her immediately. As a compromise we left the procedure until late afternoon and darted and immobilised her around 5 o'clock today. Everything went well- a 40kg female without cubs, she recovered well from the intervention and was seen darting off in to the bush about an hour ago (too young to becollared, she was fitted with a microchip to assist with future identification). A very surprising and overwhelming first day for the new team members (and a unique birthday present for Ursula). We'll catch up with the planned activities tomorrow and see what other surprises are in store!