Cheetahs, Camera Traps, & Communities Pt.3

The ecology team has completed the first full survey period of camera trapping for 4 weeks that has already provided some amazing photos of the different carnivore species that live in the Waterberg Conservancy. We have recorded a total of 295,779 photos across the 40 sites. This week we have started putting up the cameras in survey area “B” in the southern end of the Waterberg Conservancy with the permission of the 6 landowners that make up this area. The team has worked very hard in challenges conditions including major rain storms and getting stuck in a swamp for 3 hours before conceding defeat and climbing a large rock to call for help.

However, despite the frustrations and deep mud we remained in good spirits throughout. We have all become very good at changing tyres to get us on the road again.

The majority of the work we conduct is in remote areas that have no phone signal. However, due to the generous donations by Mary Wykstra at Action for Cheetahs in Kenya, Liz Larsen at Hogle Zoo and AST Systems, UK we now have a fully functioning satellite (SAT) phone so we can make emergency calls no matter how remote we get and we are very grateful.

Find out what we captured on our camera traps as we continue to process the photos from survey area “A” by coming back here for project updates and photos!