As I mentioned
before, Erica, another Master’s student from the States (Antioch University),
is doing a study with camera traps. She’s testing different baits to lure
cheetahs in. Usually, live goats are used as bait to lure cheetahs to trap
stations (to be radio collared). The problem with live goats is that they
attract other various animals more often than they attract cheetahs. Everything
from baboons, jackals, hyenas, and even a village child have been trapped by
ACK in their live traps when using goats as bait. Though I can’t really say
with confidence that the village child was lured because of the goat, I think
this was more a case of curiosity and humiliation (upon waiting to be released
with his family surrounding the locked cage…).
In order to
prevent these sorts of captures Erica is looking to find a bait that is more
specifically catered to cheetahs. She has 6 different bait types (1 includes
the live goat). The others are a predator decoy, robogoat (yes this is EXACTLY
what you think it is… well, mostly), two different specially formulated scents
that in zoo studies with cheetahs was shown to be a great attractant (they
spent a lot of time rolling in the perfume, and let me say they have very
expensive taste in perfume), and finally used cheetah bedding provided by a
wild animal orphanage in Nairobi.
Setting up these
cameras, if you do recall, is when I stabbed myself in the hand with a thorn
and later sawed into my finger. That’s right Erica, I GAVE MY SWEAT AND BLOOD
FOR YOUR PROJECT! : ) Anyways, here is Deanna being a bit more successful at
keeping her hand intact while panga-ing some branches off these stupid, stupid
trees.
The area of her
bait station needs to be cleared so that nothing interferes with the camera’s
angles when something walks into view. Thus, us girls took to removing a bush
in the middle of a bait site.
After areas were
cleared, 4 cameras were installed at each bait station.
Then it was time
to transport the baits! One truck, three cages, one live goat, and one
robo-goat gave us a bit of a load to trek across the bush but we managed to
make a pretty sweet Jenga puzzle of it.
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| Making it secure as possible... |
Erica is
counting any animal that wonders into her bait station within 6 feet of the bait
as “trapped” by a traditional live trap that would normally be placed adjacent
to the bait.
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| Measuring out 6 feet from the bait station. |
It was a long
day of putting out all these bait stations, but it was good fun!
Bait one... predator decoy.
Meet DUMA GOAT!
He’s our first live goat (we have three on weekly rotations because it tends to
stress them out and give them PTSD if they are out there alone too long). This
guy is a bit of a bad ass. He didn’t even care that he was being left out there
all alone. As long as he had food and some of his favorite branches he was SET.
We surround the cage with VERY thorny acacia branches to keep leopards and
hyenas from getting to the goat. He’s in a cage but they have been known to rip
legs and various body parts off the goat through the cage. As Duma Goat learned
all too well his first night alone in the bush… he had a chunk of his ear bit
off by a hyena. Two hyenas spent a great deal of time removing the thorny
branches at an attempt to get to Duma. Luckily, he survived and we increased
the amount of branches around Duma and from then on the hyenas could only gaze
longingly. Duma was unphased.
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| Duma before he lost part of his ear... :) |
Another bait is
ROBO-Goat. He is a robotic goat, made from those weird animatronic Christmas
reindeer that your crazy neighbor puts out in his yard with about a thousand of
those creepy blow up decorations that decrepitly deflate during the daylight
hours… seriously, what the shit. ANYWAYS, so take the reindeer, cover it in
goat skin/fur, hook it up to an ipod with speakers that play a shuffle of
different goat sounds and BOOM you’ve got a robotic goat. Even Duma seemed
fooled for a moment…
 | |
| Duma checking out Robo... |
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| Behold... Robo-Goat!!! |
After setting up
all the caged bait stations the rest were a breeze. Two of them Erica just
sprayed some fancy perfumes… mmm (not really…).
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| Spraying the exclusive scent de duma. |
The last
station, cheetah bedding, was set up in the dark (it gets dark here around
6:30-7). Since we didn’t plan on
being out after dark no one had a flashlight and we had to depend on
strategically placed truck headlights to aid us in the preparation.
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| Attempting to set up the last station in the DARK! |
Then the traps
were set! So far she’s seen lots of hyenas (especially around Duma goat), a
giraffe meandering through, ostrich, jackals, eland and gerenuk close ups of
them sniffing the camera (hilarious) and an equally hilarious photo montage of
a herder walking through with his cows all mystified by the predator decoy. She
has a nice close up of his face as he stares, confused into the camera.
Hopefully I can share some of those photos with you!
For more
accurate information on her project visit her fund raising website and feel
free to donate! But also save some for me as I will be launching one as soon as
I collect enough poop to transport to the Smithsonian! ;)
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