We have been reaping the rewards of the hard work put in over the past weeks with several successful hotspot camera trap placements. One camera trap was retrieved from a location that had been suggested by local rangers, where we captured genet, hippo, giraffe (lower half), baboon, hyaena, dik dik and civet.
In Mbokishi we discovered the carcass of a hyaena by the transect line. This hyaena was purported to have been killed by a lion – along with two cattle in the local area, although there was no evidence on the hyaena to suggest this to be the case. A camera trap was placed at this site and over the first night there were visits from white-tailed mongoose and jackal. We visited the site again the next day: the carcass was still there, in a worse state, in a cloud of flies and stench. We took the opportunity to add a second camera trap – set to record video – and we will see what interest the carcass attracts over the coming days and nights.
A camera trap set up at an elephant carcass saw a group of hyaena spend over three and a half hours working their way through the skeleton and remains. Hyaena are such vital part of the ecosystem and help to prevent the spread of disease and bacteria. Strangely, there were no other visitors for the next ten days.
We have also been hard at work servicing the permanent camera trap grids in Ol Chorro and Enonkishu and have so far serviced nine of these permanent cameras with over 3,000 images to sift through.
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