NAMIBIA DIARY

Wednesday 30th March
On Sunday afternoon we had a session at camp where everybody had a chance to practise some of the techniques used in last week's cheetah capture, including darting our model cheetah. He still has a very broad grin despite being punctured by dart holes. Then Monday was a day off so we all drove into Windhoek and most continued on to the Düsternbrook guest farm to experience their cheetah and leopard enclosures before meeting up at Joe's Beer House in the evening. A very fun and entertaining day. Yesterday was action-packed for the box trap team: Though no cheetahs, they did have to release a baboon and her baby, a warthog and a porcupine who took some encouragement to vacate the trap. The telemetry team was also busy, getting signals from cheetah no. 6 somewhere close to the farm as well as 15 and 16 to the north of the farm, and the leopard with her two cubs. Much to the frustration of the afternoon follow-up team, they were unable to gain any further signals in the afternoon. Though the game count team found only a low density of game, they got close to the giraffes and found warthogs wallowing by the central borehole. Now I'm up at the farm preparing the roof-tents for tonight's planned sleep-out: The nights are clear at the moment, so we're going to leave camp tonight to find an open spot in the bush. I've just heard the spoors team coming in over the radio. They've found cheetah spoor 0.4 km into their route so the telemetry team is on their way to follow it up.