Home from home!

The elephant enclosures were cleaned up super fast today, by 9 oclock it was all done!

First main task today was with patrick! In the truck, with munta and andre and the three of us. Monza and i were in the fornt with patrick and the other thre outside in the back. We drove to a farm where there was a dead cow we needed to pick up....this was to take back to give to the lions. Em i wouldnt say it was the most pleasant of experiences, the cow died yesterday. It was attached with a rope and then attached to the truck, as the truck moved forward to get the cow away from the fence all the gastric juices sprayed out its nose and mouth! (i couldnt stay very close at that point)! Well we got it on rather fast, used the gradient of the field, there was a dip that the truck went into and so the cow was level with the back of the truck. All that was needed was to just pull it on the back with the rope. Cow loaded on, we covered it up and drove back to the reserve.

The cow was then dropd of in the lions area! I never new this; cheetah will not touch anything that is a bit smelly or has been left decaying for a while. They like fresh meet appose to lion who will eat anything, apparently if its a female cow there getting they go for the udder as they like the horrible milky stuff inside. (Sorry if i went to far with todays description)

I titled it home from home....why? Well it was rather wet windy and cold today....exactly like home! Not a nice day atol, we were inside for a while this afternoon watching planet earth. Back out to do some game counts, this allows the reserves carrying capacity to be checked, i.e what the land can sustain. Some of the figers such as springbok will become less in numbers from previous months as the cheetah make kills. (we nearly watched a cheetah chase down a springbok but it backd of. Tomorow we are going to check the cheetah reading(tracking system) as it's likely to make a kill by the morning. Along with game counts we were taking dung samples. When counting some of the animals we watched for them defecating, and you have less than 5 minutes to collect the dung and get it in ice. Today we got black wilderbeast and a zebra!. It will get sent of to be tested for various things, it's a very usefull tool as if certain results come back they can look at the meat there getting, or if the animal is individually ill etc.

I spoted a black backed jackol today and its only the 2nd one heins seen hear in 5 years! ( i never new what it was.......em whats that theing running along over there?)

Now i learnt about some plants today :), the reserve has several medicinal species. One a very succulent leaved plant called cotyledon orbiculata in which the leaves can be snapped and then put on your skin on any bites, or your lips for cold sores...also bushmen would eat some leaves before eating any meat they came accross as it would stop them getting sick from the meat. There's one plant with very sharp spikes with a black tip;azeematetracuthra known as the bee sting bush...if you fall on it its like getting hundreds of bee stings. Theres a common type of lamb you get hear called karroo lamb, it eats a capokbosh (wild rosemery) and it tastes of this plant...the animal seasons itself! This can also be used as a laxatve. The poison milk bush; when one of its leaves is snapped it has a very milky sap highly poisonas, and tehre is a grasshopper and butterfly which when eating it becomes poisonas itself and the butterflys behaviour is melinistic. Finaly the deikar antelope will eat the flowers of this plant to control paracytes in its stomach, also this is the only type of antelope which will eat birds if it sea's them nesting in this bush.

We also saw a cape eagle owl today.

Then to the aloe ferox factory for a quick explanation of how the aloe is extracted and all the products it can be used in. I got some tea bags that they put it in!. There are two types bitter that gets collected and the otther stuff, the bitter is very strong. The exracts are used in hand creams, shampoo's, a drink, medicinal purposes and lots more.

Today ended with the elephants once more, and talking with inis an harrison :)!.