Another full day. This morning we went to the lab to sort out what we needed to dart 7 waterbuck, then mass capture 20 more waterbuck and 10 zebra. We then went to the same reserve we captured the giraffe at. All the giraffe have to stat in quarantine for a month before they can be sold on. When we arrived today one of the giraffe had died. It had collapsed for some unknown reason, which caused all the other giraffes to panic, and in the panic they trampled the collapsed one. So before we could go and dart any waterbuck that giraffe had to be towed out of the boma.
We then set off to capture the waterbuck. The vet darted them from the helicopter then we had to get them onto the back of the Bucky (pickup truck), remove the dart, give it 5 injections then try and keep in sitting up straight whilst we drove to the lorry they were all being loaded onto. It was hard work! Especially as at one point we had 2 waterbuck in the back at one time. After we had captured and loaded them we went off to do the mass capture. This is where a big canopy is set up in a sort of funnel shape towards the lorry. The idea is for the helicopter to chase the animals into the the capture area then into the lorry. However the animals must have smelled us or something because as soon as they got near the enclosure they all split up and ran in different directions. So that didn't happen! We will probably try again next week. Fun day though!