Michael Gallagher, a student, writes for us in this post…

My name is Michael Gallagher, and I helped Nakedi put down camera traps around the Shangoni area recently. I had been in the bush before but always in very controlled areas…usually with no predators.  Here is what I learned:

I am a student from Ireland who hopes to continue into the conservation world, so I volunteered with Nakedi. On my first day there, we got up early and headed out into the bush hoping to put down a few good camera traps. On the way there, Nakedi told me that the first priority if we see anything big or dangerous is to stand perfectly still and not make any noise, even if they charge.  He said many animals mock charge and can stop just 1 metre before you. If this happens, he said the ranger would shoot it, but all I could think was if a lion started running at me, I don’t think I would have a choice of running or not. I would for sure be frozen to the ground. And then he continued to warn me of buffaloes and rhinos, who apparently don’t mock charge, and I should definitely run and climb a tree. Talk about baptism by fire! Anyway, we soon headed out into the bush, and at first, I was very cautious about walking with only one gun and many sorts of animals around, but I soon loosened up as Nakedi and Kaizer, the field guard, were very comfortable. We managed to put down a good few cameras that day but also saw a few stations that showed evidence of damage, mostly by elephants or hyenas. Luckily we didn’t see anything big that day, only a few duiker and steenbok. However, the next day while we were putting down a station in a dry riverbed, Kaizer suddenly stood up and whispered at me to do the same. When I looked downstream I saw a huge bull buffalo just looking at us. Thankfully we were too far away to be considered a threat to him and eventually he walked off into the bush, but all I could think was they are not called ‘black death’ for no reason!

When we drove down to Skukuza later that week, I met many of the scientists and vets that work there and learned a lot about the way conservation works and the many different paths one can take to get there. This was an amazing experience, and I am so glad that I got the opportunity to see what Nakedi’s work was like. It is incredible and an extremely noble cause. Save some of the interesting animals until I get on the scene!

What Mike forgot to mention about his time with us:

1. We had a heated debate about the best rugby team (country) in the world. He was for New Zealand’s All Blacks (where is Babu? We need your opinion here) and I was, of course, for South Africa’s Bokke….guess who had their facts right?  The debate still continues.

2.We had a little game of “spot an animal.” The one who spotted the most high profile animals won. The high rollers were: fat black mamba (2000 points, possibly game over); Leopard (1000 points); cheetah (500); lion (250); and the rest were lower (like little brown jobs of the birding world).

3. On the way to Skukuza, we stopped a group of tourists who stepped out of their vehicle and were walking towards the river (presumably) to pet a herd of hippos that were standing in the sun. When we stopped to warn them of the gravity of their situation, they looked at us, arrogantly shrugged their shoulders and said, “What?” I looked back and said, “Hippos will kill you, they are very dangerous animals,” and then drove off. We later saw them at the next camp and they were all there, and we were relieved.

My version:

It was great to have Mike with us, and I learned a lot from him. He is disciplined and from the look of things, very determined. Kaizer and I enjoyed having him around. I hope his visit brought us a lot of luck with the leopard captures. Many thanks Mike!

The leopards

Currently we are working in the Letaba section of the park. We have so far sampled in four study sites, and in the next two months, we will have done six sites. I am still going through the images, some of which we will place on youtube as soon as possible.

“Is there really such a thing as an ‘Elephant’s Graveyard?’

-Moses, Jackson, MS, U.S.A.

After doing research and consulting with AWF’s own ‘elephant gurus,’ I found that the ‘Elephant’s Graveyard’ is one of the best African ‘bush legends’ (the same as ‘urban legends’ but, set in the African bush) of all time. That being said, it’s a pretty good  ‘legend’ as far as legends go.

So, if the ‘elephant’s graveyard’ isn’t real, then how did this legend even get started? Well, like all legends, there’s a bit of fact mixed with fiction.

First, elephants require giant amounts of land to roam—foraging for food and water. Over the years, elephant researchers have found that the term ‘memory like an elephant’ is actually pretty accurate (*fun fact: ‘memory’ is another term for a group of elephants), as elephants do remember and rely on the same routes to food and watering holes over and over again, year after year.  As an elephant ages, it’s teeth will wear down (they go through six pairs in a lifetime) and although they remember where food and water are, inevitably they are unable to eat rigid grasses and leaves, forcing them to go to marshy areas where the grasses are softer. Eventually, an elephant’s teeth become so worn down that they are unable to eat any grasses, and they starve to death. Here, in these marshy lands, many older elephants die leading to higher concentrations of elephant skeletons than are found elsewhere.



Down by the ol’ waterin’ hole: a herd of elephants (Photo Credit: Gregg Mitchell)

Now, what does all of this have to do with the ‘elephant’s graveyard?’ Combine the precision of an elephant’s memory/instinct going to and fro to find food and water with the carcasses of some older elephants in marshy areas and bingo!— there’s your ‘elephant graveyard.’  So, in short, this ‘bush legend’ combines fact (an elephant’s memory regarding migratory routes, including more marshy areas with softer grasses) with fiction (an instinct of knowing a single place to die) and there’s your legend.

Wait! Before You Go…

Guess what? July is the official Wild About Wildlife Month! You can help AWF help the animals of Africa by making a donation to our programs here, giving an AWF gift membership to someone you love here, remembering someone you love here, or even giving an automatic monthly donation to AWF here.

After 45 days, Kaizer and I go back to the Pafuri section of Kruger Park. It is great to go back and see what awaits us. I was hopeful we would get lots of leopard pictures. However, I was dreading the drive. The thought of driving 80 kilometres per day to and from the study site (and driving between camera stations) didn’t sit well with me. Luckily, the people at Pafuri Camp, run by the Wilderness Safaris, offered us accommodation. This was very good news. It meant we would spend less time traversing and more time collecting cameras.

From the time we go out to collect the cameras to the time we find our leopard photos, we have many mixed emotions:

1. Driving to the camera station

Emotion: Feels like going bungee jumping

Questions: Will we find the cameras where we left them? Are there dangerous animals at the camera station? What are we going to walk into today? Hmm…

2. Parking the car and walking to the camera station

Emotion: Feels like going to buy a lottery ticket

Questions: Will we find the cameras? Will we walk into a dangerous animal?

3. Arriving at the camera station

Emotion: Unwrapping a present

Questions: Are the cameras there? Are they still working? Are the battery cables still connected?

Scenario 1: Cameras are there and intact. Maputla: “Hurray!”

Scenario 2: One camera has been removed, but the other one is still there. Maputla: “Aarghhh! We’ll search the area and hopefully, we will find it.” (Most of the time we find the cameras thrown on the side of the path by vandals)

Scenario 3: Both cameras have been taken. Luckily this hasn’t happened yet, but if it does, I am going to yell “Aaaaaarrrrrrgggghhhhhh” and other bad words.

We then take the cameras back to the camp site to see what we have captured.

4. Scanning through the pictures for images

Emotion: Feels like opening my first report card in my first year of high school. I am tempted to close my eyes and slowly open the one eye to see if the card is working. After the one eye says it works, then I open my other eye.

5. Finding the leopard picture

Emotion: Hurray! No more questions to answer. If Kaizer is around, we’ll give each other high fives. If I’m alone, then I’ll put on a crocodile or hyena grin.

It takes us about seven days to remove all the cameras in each 400 square-kilometre study site. Walking is mostly fun. Kaizer and I talk about a whole lot of interesting stuff. The most interesting moment comes when we walk past an old site (approx. 2000 years old) where boys used to look after livestock. The place is really beautiful and the sandstone still has depressions where the boys played, and a water well is dug into the rock.

Kaizer says: “Does this mean we will find the Bushmen (the San people) here in the Park?” My answer: “No.” Then he looks really disappointed in my answer and says, “Well, but we will soon find them as we move south right?”  Maputla: “Sorry to break your heart, but there are no San anywhere in Kruger. If you want to see the San, you must go to Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in the Northern Cape Province”.

We discuss the Bushmen daily, until one day we come across a pile of rocks. I mention to him that a long time ago someone had accumulated a lot of gold and hid it somewhere in South Africa, but nobody knew where exactly. Now, in the middle of placing our cameras and collecting them, a pile of rocks appear.  Of course we know that the story is not true, but it doesn’t hurt to take a peek.

In the next blog, Michael Gallagher, a student from Ireland who came to visit the leopard project will write for us.

Well, hello there!  Sorry for the long drought but I took a bit of a sabbatical. Did you miss me? I hope so ‘cuz I sure missed all of you! Let’s get back into the swing of things with a new question about one of Africa’s greatest wildlife treasures: mountain gorillas.

“A friend and I just saw the movie, Gorillas in the Mist, and I am now obsessed with mountain gorillas. I was reading up on them and briefly saw a mention of a gorilla naming ceremony. Is this true? Is there really a ceremony that names gorillas?”

-Tyler, Sandusky, OH, U.S.A.

Your eyes were not deceiving you. There is, indeed, a ceremony for naming mountain gorillas and it is called Kwita Izina.

The most recent Kwita Izina (which literally means ‘to give a name’ in Kinyarwanda, the mother tongue of Rwanda) was held in Kinigi, Musanze District, Northern Province, at the foot of the Virunga Mountains on June 5, 2010.  Interestingly, the ceremony is a centuries old tradition yet it was not made public until 2005 with the very conscious effort of bringing attention to the success of mountain gorilla conservation.  Inspired by the Rwandan tradition of naming babies, the ceremony’s main goal is to personalize mountain gorillas to the global public (names are selected via a lottery by the park wardens, as they know the characteristics of the ones being named best) and to better monitor and track the gorillas and their troops. The idea worked: since the ceremony has gone global, mountain gorilla poaching in Rwanda has decreased while the number of gorillas being born and surviving has increased.

A baby mountain gorilla (Photo Credit: Craig R. Sholley)

Over the past few years, the ceremony has become a major wildlife lover and tourist draw: thousands of people, both every day and famous (Academy Award © nominated actors Natalie Portman and Don Cheadle have attended), from all over the world come to Rwanda  to share in the excitement.  The ceremony is of great celebration in Rwanda, with the actual ceremony being proceeded by two weeks of national festivities (including a two day cycling event), that coincides with another great event: National Environment Week which leads up to World Environment Day (WED). This year, Rwanda was the proud first-time host of this internationally recognized day, coincidentally falling on the same day as the Kwita Izina ceremony. Double the fun!

For the past 16 years, the people of Rwanda have been dedicating a week leading up to WED – doing what they can to be active agents in protecting the environment. The week annually runs from May 31st through June 5th and is kicked off with the people of Rwanda doing community work, known as ‘Umuganda.’  People all over the country are encouraged to do environmental activities in conjunction with the year’s theme of WED. This year, the theme was ‘Many Species, One Planet, One Future.’

This year, 14 baby mountain gorillas were honored at Kwita Izina. Since the ceremony’s 2005 public debut, approximately 103 mountain gorillas have been named.

Did You Know…?

• Rwanda is known as ‘The Land of A Thousand Hills’
• Although Kinyarwanda is the ‘mother tongue,’ Rwanda also has two other official languages: French and English
• Although located close to the equator, much of Rwanda is relatively cool year long due to its high elevation.
• The Virunga Mountains and the nearby Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda are the only places in the world where mountain gorillas can be found.
• AWF’s own V.P. of Philanthropy (and official ‘gorilla guru’), Craig  Sholley, worked with Dian Fossey in Rwanda in the 1970’s and was a key figure directing the Mountain Gorilla Project in the late 1980s.  Thereafter, Craig worked as Scientific Advisor on the award-winning IMAX film, Mountain Gorilla.