Jurg has been to Driehoek once more with the Cape Leopard Trust. Back in February he saw this klipspringer
family.
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| Male klipspringer |
‘On Saturday afternoon Elizabeth and I took a group of German exchange students out to
track and find a leopard kill. We used the GPS data from the recently collared male leopard, M17 -
"Patch", to find a GPS cluster where he had spent 56 hours,
suggesting he had killed and eaten something there. After searching around in
the thick bush for 15mins we found these remains of an adult common duiker
killed on the 17th March. This was great news as we had collared him on the
13th March, indicating he is clearly well and the collar is working’. (Email
from Quinton).
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| Duiker killed by Patch |
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| Map for Patch on 23rd March |
Natural history. Studying the behaviour of wild
animals in their natural environment. As a child, English newspaper letters on hearing the first cuckoo in spring after-8000-miles-Martin-the-cuckoo-is-almost-home – seemed odd. Now citizen
scientists are invited to share their findings.
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| Quinton setting up cage traps and Jurg 'handling' leopard scat |
Once upon a time Konrad Lorenz studied goslings who imprinted on
him as mama. Thoreau took time out to live with nature
on Walden Pond. Gilbert White studied Selborne. (Been there, done
that. As I stepped into his study, he stands with his back to you looking out
over his garden. I apologised for intruding, before realising it was a life
size model. Not a tall man …) As Megan Murgatroyd wrote, ‘when an eagle I am
watching disappears over a mountain ridge and I am left wondering just how far
it has gone’ before the GPS, end of story. Now, it is different!
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| Jurg near Welbedacht cave, using telemetry |
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| to tell him that Patch is just there on that ridge 200 metres away |
(Links to video clips in Swiss German follow) For Jurg, coming from Switzerland, the top
predators were the wolf and the lynx. He follows the Swiss news and the
unfolding story of the bear. First seen in Graubuenden im S-charltal. NOT welcomed by sheep farmers or bee keepers.
He is 2 years old like our
Cape leopard Patch, also wears a GPS collar but Swiss nature conservation kept
his exact whereabouts secret. The video at 1.45 minutes shows you that
bears, tourists and Swiss have English as their second language – as the
municipality explains how to live with bears. It seems bizarre to send your
children to school, walking thru the woods and beware of the bear. But for Swiss mountain farmers,
that is a part of their life. The two brothers
are roaming across the border to Austria. Finally how-to-live-greener for polar bears.
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| to Uilsgat |
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| looking back from Uilsgat to Driehoek farm |
5th May is Climate Impacts Day, find an event near you. Fynbos birds and climate change. Clanwilliam cedars for which the Cederberg
is named, are dying from global warming and too frequent fires.
Across in California sharing our mediterranean climate, there is still old growth chaparral.
Time to connect the dots from
flood to drought to extinction to starvation. To – will we wake up and smell
the coffee, make the lifestyle and economic changes that will enable a future
for your grandchildren?
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| The cold front rolling in thru Uitkyk Pass. He had hail on the way home! |
It is a year since a ship went aground far away
from anywhere. Nightingale Island in the South Atlantic Ocean.
I’ll close with a video clip. There is hope. Nature does return if we work with her.
Pictures by Jurg and the CLT,
words by Diana of Elephant's Eye
- wildlife gardening in Porterville,
near Cape Town in South Africa
near Cape Town in South Africa
(If you mouse over brown text, it turns shriek pink.
Those are my links.)
Those are my links.)
Great pictures Elephant Eye and love the reference to chaparral. I just wrote about my exoeriences as a kid growing up in chaparral country. I imagine with all the human population you have down there in S.A. that Bush Fires are an annual common occurance as they are in So.Cal.
ReplyDeleteKool leopard story as well. That tracking looks fun. For twenty five years I live in outback country just like that, in fact my house was just on the edge of wilderness. We even had my son born at home. Just had a mid-wife handle the necessaries. Folks would always say, 'Oh how could you have done that, weren't you nervous or scared ?' I'd say that humans have been having babies this was for 1000s upon 1000s of years. Hospitals have only been around for a little over 100 years in most areas.
Thanks again for the article above. Lack of wildlife is what I'm seeing going wrong with all plant communities right now and folks still aren't picking up on that.
Cheers, Kevin
GPS definitely changed everything. We used it here to track the migration routes of Bald Eagles. We obtained data we never could have on foot, and it sure beats sitting in an open field with a radio antenna too! With so much ground to cover, I can only imagine how much it's helped with the leopards.
ReplyDeleteI agree...nature does return if we work with her. Nature has such a great capacity to adapt and to survive. I am very glad. I enjoyed learning more about your adventures. It is very nice that you now have the GPS...helps all of us understand more about what is happening with the animals. Great post!
ReplyDeleteA fascinating post Diana, so much detail about these interesting animals. The lanscape is so beautiful, wide and open; thank you for sharing it with us. Christina
ReplyDeleteI don't know what just happened but I lost everything I wrote. This post is a lot of fun and I thank you for sharing the lecture information. The Desert Museum is 40 minutes away from my home and I would love to see this presentation. I have to check because I think I may have a conflict on this day BUT I think I can work something out. What a small world we live in:) Your final video entry is positive....and I've been needing a little hope after an extensive research project on extinction. I have to keep my thoughts positive and try to do my best to help out when I can. This was a lot of fun. Thanks for the GPS info and how the detective work all happens. Cool stuff!
ReplyDeleteInteresting as always, thanks so much, Diana!
ReplyDeleteElke
In Yellowstone National Park, in America, grizzly bears and wolves are collared and studied. http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/bears.htm and http://www.nps.gov/yell/naturescience/wolves.htm It seems like interested and fascinating work to try and manage nature. Not sure if we will ever be able to, but I appreciate being able to learn more by peoples' efforts.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy your updates on the leopards...a black bear has been spotted across the lake...this is closer than ever before to us although I doubt he will come to our side of the lake...this weekend I am planting more natives for wildlife in hope s that my ecosystem will help in some small way to turn things around...in this country we still hunt and kill the wolves and other "nuisance" wildlife...it should be a crime.
ReplyDeleteThe vastness of the sky is almost overwhelming....what great photos you got. It's an amazing part of the world that you live in..think I have said that before, but I am always astounded how beautiful it is there.
ReplyDeleteJen @ Muddy Boot Dreams
I'm using the second last Big Sky picture as my wallpaper.
DeleteIt is always very informative to read your posts, and i am thrilled with your life, you have an exciting one! Klipspringer is a new word for me, and i love how their horns seem to be parallel pointing forward unlike other animals. And I love your mention of Konrad Lorenz and Thoreau, I've read many of their works before. They are my favorites.
ReplyDeleteThat was an informative post. Jurg must really enjoy his time with the Cape Leopard Trust.
ReplyDeleteI am always interested in the peek you give me into your world! So different, yet we share the need to preserve wildlife and natural resources so that future generations can enjoy them.
ReplyDeleteI had to drop in again for this post. The Leopard lecture will be at the end of the month and yesterday, in a nearby town there was a lecture on the return of Jaguars to Arizona. I thought it was really interesting. Good things are happening but we don't always know about them because the media loves to focus on the negative. Both have their place, but it's nice to know that some populations of animals are returning from being placed on the endangered or extinct list to normal healthy populations. I thought I'd share. Cats are amazing animals. Now if we could help out our Jaguarundi population here.....all 5 of the original cats would be restored to our Sonoran Desert Habitat....the Bobcat(common), the Puma(common but elusive), the Ocelot(Rare but numbers seem to be increasing after near extinction in our area), the Jaguar(extremely elusive), and the Jaguarundi(extremely rare).
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear that Patch is out telling stories of his time in captivity to all the wildlife that will listen. Wolves are still in the news here--the battles for re-introduction are fought and re-fought weekly, it seems. I can take a stand based on my own ideals but have nothing to lose, unlike the angry ranchers whose livestock are killed. I'm still impressed at how the Cape Leopard Trust tries to help both ranchers and leopards succeed.
ReplyDeleteBeing invoved with the leopard project must be such a great experience fro Jurg. It kinda makes me wish I could get involved in something similiar.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about attitudes towards the big cats over there. The large predators seem to first meet hostility from farmers and ranchers--like the Austrian bear you mention--but the rest of the population has a more mixed reaction. I've never seen mountain lions around here, but I've seen their tracks. It leads to a special kind of thrill, a modern dose of the Romantic Sublime, and many feel the same way. But then you have a culture where people are afraid of mice and butterflies. It makes me worry a bit. Hopefully you have a big block of enlightened folks over there.
ReplyDeleteWe are grateful that the Cape Leopard Trust is successful in our Cederberg mountains. Life is more complicated in the Eastern Cape.
DeleteRohrerbot and Stacy - I have emailed your comments to Quinton Martins at the Cape Leopard Trust - he is on sabbatical, heading for the US.
ReplyDeleteI so appreciate the upbeat message of this post. In Australia too we have had a few recent successes in conserving endangered animals (and plants), even thought to be extinct. Some research has shown that animals most likely to be restored are those whose habitats were partly cleared, and those least likely to survive were those that had suffered from disease, introduced predators or hunting by humans.
ReplyDeleteWhat about the effect of wildfires, Catmint? I still remember that koala, reaching out for coolth and water.
Delete