Sorry for the Silence!/First Night at Camp Salama

Hey everyone!

I apologize for all the radio silence! We got to camp on Thursday, and on Friday as I prepared to load all sorts of amazing photos of camp the internet bundle we purchased expired. To top it off a stomach flu has appeared to sneak up on many of us and I was out of commission for about 3 days. I am beginning to feel better now but a few other camp fellows are still under the weather. Hopefully I can find a decent connection and upload some photos soon!

Here's a little something I scribbled about our first night here, I haven't edited it so I'm sure it's full of lovely ramblings :)

 

We arrived at Salama camp just before dark. It’s great to be out of the city. There are rolling hills and open sky. It’s beautiful. On the drive out we saw 20+ giraffe, a few herds of gazelle, plenty of zebra, and even one ostrich. A

Salama and the surrounding area is made up of ranches. This means stretches of undeveloped land for livestock to roam. Wildlife also takes advantage of these open areas, competing with the livestock for resources. This is also where I will be looking for cheetah scat. But more on the details of this later J

After unpacking, we decided to get Florus (found out we had been spelling it wrong the whole time once we finally received his passport. Yeah that’s right, this dog has a passport - a Dutch one no less!) acclimated to his new surroundings. It began when three neighbor dogs, with the fearless intact male, Beast, leading the way, came to check us out. The dogs usually hang out around camp. We were worried what Beast would do with Florus around. We were concerned there might be some battle for male lead. Beast came rounding the corner, the defining moment was about to occur… we all held our breaths, I tightened my hold on Florus’ leash, prepared to break up some terrible dog fight… And THEN: Beast took one look at big Florus and high tailed it home with his tail between his legs... hilarious. The three returned a few times and barked fiercely from behind the safety of the fence but no serious altercations occurred. 

After the excitement we went for a walk with Ginger and Florus. It was nice, down a path through some tall grass, appreciating the scenery. When we returned I noticed a few small black dots on one of the intern’s pants. I looked down at my own leg and saw one on myself. Ticks. So. Many. Ticks. It was chaotic paranoia. Four people all dancing around asking… “OMG is this a tick?” while pointing to an obscure area of their bodies. 

There is a partition in the tents so that they can be divided into two separate rooms, but for now I am alone in my tent. After dinner talk of snakes, spiders, beetles, roaches, and various parasites I found myself checking every nook and cranny of my tent at least 5 times. After convincing myself all was clear (except for that weird bug on the ceiling that I couldn’t reach enough to smush but didn’t want to knock down because I didn’t know if it could fly or where it would land and I might only have so much flashlight battery while I’m here so I just stared into it’s eyes, possibly many, and said I won’t kill you if you don’t lay eggs in my eyes, ears, nose, mouth, etc. and then sealed the deal with an un affirmed nod) I jumped into my sleeping bag. Well that wasn’t so bad (with a shine and a glance still now and then at the bug on the ceiling to make sure he kept up his end of the treaty). Ginger (who also sleeps in my tent) got up and started manically sniffing about the tent. It led her to under my bed then behind my sleeping bag… WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU LOOKING FOR!?!?!?!? She stops, stares into the corner, tilts her head then moves to a new spot and starts all over again. Not to mention she’s probably still littered with ticks. Awesome. Eventually she calms down and with one last concerning glimpse at ceiling bug I turn out the light for good and try to sleep. I was warned of hyena cries and hyrax screams but I don’t remember hearing any of those. What I woke up to was a chorus of 4 dogs barking their brains out at 5 am in the pitch black. Florus NEVER barks. Rarely have I heard him bark. He was barking a lot. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?!? I hear clanking of metal. He’s flipping over his dishes. I starting imagining the horrors occurring outside my tent. It’s probably a baboon, no… it’s DEFINITELY a baboon. OMG. I’m not going to look out the window. I’m not. That way there is only the POSSIBLITY, if I look out and it IS then I’m screwed and won’t sleep for the duration of my time in the bush. After about half an hour everybody calmed down (I am told there was no baboon, but I'm not sure I'm convinced). Then at 7 it started all up again only this time the trio were lined up against our fence barking at Florus and he wasn’t responding. Needless to say I slept very little last night. Hopefully tonight I will be so tired from the adventures and chores of today that I will just pass right out. To a good night’s sleep…!

Meet Floris!

Hey guys, IT IS TIME. (Rafiki quote from the Lion King... anybody? too much? probably?... thought so, le sigh).

ANYWAYS... meet Floris! He's an adorable German Shepherd mix. I asked one of the trainers how old Floris was and he thinks about 5 or 6. He's usually used to search for explosives in places and cars, but now he's joined the exciting world of conservation and is looking for cheetah poop!

Floris with his ball after a searching session :)

Floris is trained using a ball as his reward. Every time he finds a scat he gets the red ball. He absolutely LOVES that ball. It's hard to get it away from him. But he's learning to be better at that too :)

Right now Floris lives at KK Security.

KK Security - area to the right is to the dog kennels

We are being trained to be handlers by their handlers! They hide the scat for us and help us in directing and trusting the dog to lead us to it.

KK Security trainer giving us some tips.

Today we planted lion scats as well as cheetah scats. The dogs indicate a find by sitting where they smell the cheetah poop. Neither of the dogs indicated at the lion scat, which is great news! By not indicating at the lion poop we know they can differentiate between cheetah poop and other predator poop. We found all the scat samples that we hid, even after we forgot where one was hidden. The dogs eventually led us to it!

Searching for cheetah scat!

It's really fun to work out in the field with the dogs, even when they weave through the thorny thickets unaware that you lack the fur coat of protection. They get so excited once we put their "working" harnesses on. Some days it can be hard to stay positive when you're feeling frustrated, but the trainers from KK do an excellent job reminding us to stay positive and keep us motivated. We always end on a positive note with a cheetah poop find and lots and lots of praise. :)

Jambo!

Stereotypical greeting from country being blogged from... yay!

I've had a busy first couple days. I will be in Nairobi for a few more days as we prepare the dog for the field. Right now Floris is learning to find cheetah poop we have hidden in the woods. Soon we will see if he can find poop that has been sitting out for a few days and then test if he can find the cheetah poop when there is also hyena and lion poop present. Since sometimes it is hard to tell the difference and there will be hyena and lion poop present at the study site, we need to make sure he leads us to the correct piles of poo! :)

Today we hid 4 different cheetah samples and he eventually found all of them. We're feeling confident that he will be ready to take out in the field soon! Today while walking out in the woods for dog training we found a black and white horned chameleon. Unfortunately, I did not have my camera with me. One of the other interns got a photo so hopefully I can steal the picture for you to see. We also had to take an alternate route to get back to the kennels from the woods because the creeks were all swelling from the recent rain. The new route was much longer and Floris was a bit flustered by the heat. How did he solve this problem? Not by drinking water... but by plopping down in a huge mud pile. Yay. Even the elephants will tell you there's nothing like a good old fashioned mud bath to stay cool. I let him stay in there longer than I think the handler who is training us wanted me to, but he just looked so happy. Needless to say, I had my first experience giving Floris a bath today... :)

For now this will be the focus, to get Floris ready for the field. It's very interesting to witness and be a part of the training, to see all the work and skills that go into developing Floris as a scat dog. Hopefully he enjoys it too and we can find many poops together! Detection dogs are amazing and can be used in many aspects of conservation. I was really surprised to learn all the different things they do. Some are even trained to locate species of invasive plants! There is an awesome organization in the States called Working Dogs for Conservation Please check out their site, it's pretty interesting!

That's all for now, it's late and I should sleep!

Sidebar: I promise there will be more pictures to come. I've been slacking on that a wee bit. I know, I know that's the only reason you clicked my link. THEY WILL BE HERE, HOLD YOUR HORSES.

:)

Traveling...

I am currently at London Heathrow Airport... I arrived here at 7 AM London time which is around 1 AM Wisconsin time (I think?). I've been on three flights now and my longest one still lies ahead. I smell bad, I haven't slept, and I really really want to shower. I made the mistake of not packing a change of clothes... and won't arrive in Nairobi until 9 PM. I have a long day ahead of me! I just won't plan on making too many friends... ha.

I am also a bit stressed about my arrival in Nairobi. Hopefully everything goes smoothly and I am freaking out for nothing!

The flight from D.C. to London was a superb joy. Lol. But even tho I had a middle seat it was in an exit row so that was exciting. The guy to my left never said a word, just watched shows on his iPad and shamelessly picked his nose the ENTIRE FLIGHT with the gusto of a 3 year old who just discovered his fingers fit perfectly in his nostrils. Bah. I mean, flights are dry. My nose was filled with itchy dry blood, I get it, but this was more than that. THIS WAS A CRAZY MAN.

The guy to my right asked me if a was afraid of flying, "you don't dig flying do you?" I'm not sure where he got the idea that I was stressing out about the flight. Maybe because I wasn't quite as relaxed as he was (he did have at least 5 vodka tonics).

There was a very young girl across the aisle from us and she threw a crying fit midway through the flight which in all honesty wasn't all that terrible. I had my iPod on and could only hear her in between songs. It was more when she began to vomit all over the floor that it became somewhat of an unpleasant experience. Her parents quickly grabbed the puke bags but not quite soon enough. It smelled. Terrible. I thought there was going to be a chain reaction of vomit frenzy across the plane, but alas people restrained. I was only mildly disappointed.

Then the fine moment when we all realized (being seated near the bathroom) that whoever was currently in there had been in there for quite some time. After about 30 minutes a crew member knocked and out stumbled a chick about my age (give or take) wearing sunglasses insisting she was fine. Yeah...

Well I've got another hour or so to kill before my flight to Nairobi starts boarding and I disappoint all the people who are forced to sit next to me. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Here's to hoping for smooth sailing from here on out... and also a high five to cheery helpful British people.

- Morgan