Vegans Love Carnivores

We’ve had really bad internet here for the last few weeks, hence the lack of update.   It’s still not 100% back to normal, but at least I can occasionally check emails! I’ve spent the last week or so doing the monthly game counts.   We were so lucky recently as we managed to see three leopards within about 5 days!   The first of these three happened only a few minutes after I was telling the other people in the car that leopards are so hard to spot as they stay in the bushes a lot and we probably drive past loads without realising!   Odd coincidence!   That first leopard was a beautiful subadult male, sat only a few metres from the road and was staring intently at us.   At one point he shuffled his footing around, as a cat would do before pouncing.   I was a little concerned for a brief moment that he’d come flying through the window at us! The second sighting was in the late afternoon: we came round a bend, and there he was, sat beautifully under a t...

Wow a lot has changed since my last blog update!  It’s funny what difference a week makes to the life of someone. As I mentioned on my blog in the beginning, I came to Africa via Namibia to talk to Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) about my future PhD that I will hopefully be starting in September 2012.  I also wanted to know if there would be a possibility of me working there after I finish here at ALERT in March.  They said they hadn’t got any positions open at that point but that they would let me know if anything did come up.  I thought that was probably just them being nice to me and didn’t expect anything to come of it.  However, a few weeks ago they contacted me to say their ecologist is leaving next year to continue her postgraduate studies and CCF asked if I would like to take her position.  Of course, I jumped at the chance, as CCF is somewhere I have been longing to work ever since I first heard about it.  It would tie in nicely with me finis...

I have finally arrived at ALERT in Zimbabwe after a 14 hour journey from CCF to Harare and then a 4 hour bus ride from Harare to Gweru.  It may have been quicker to drive than fly as I ended up having to fly into Joburg and then out again, and was very worried about losing my luggage along the way as I know how bad Joburg is for that type of thing!  Fortunately my bag was there at the luggage area when I came through.  However, I did have to get through Customs first, which involved standing and waiting in a queue, only to be told I had to go to another one, and another one, then back to the second one and the first one again!  Eventually got given my visa (after a monsterous $70 charge – the most expensive visa you can get in Zim because I’m British!) and was met at the exit by a volunteer from ALERT who took me to the town house to stay for the night before my early departure on the bus the next day.  The house was very nice and I slept better than I have the ...

Good day everyone! On 31 August I leave my native lands of the UK to embark upon an African adventure in the wilds of Namibia and Zimbabwe.  I will spend the first few days meeting the staff at Cheetah Conservation Fund , and then head to Zimbabwe to start a 6-month placement near Gweru working as a lion researcher. I will be updating this blog during my placement at the African Lion & Environmental Research Trust ( ALERT ) in Antelope Park .  Whilst here, I will be studying the behavioural ecology of a pride of captive-born lions, called the Ngamo Pride .  These are a very special group of lions that are part of an on-going rehabilitation and release programme run by ALERT to enable replenishment of wild lion populations throughout Africa. African lions have exhibited shocking rates of habitat and population decline within the last 100 years, predominantly caused by habitat loss and overkill of lions and their prey.  ALERT aims to increase the viability...