Purcell's 2nd Churchill Fellowship stop: United Kingdom!

Well,


It has almost been one month since departing Sydney ... and yes I agree; time obviously goes faster on the opposite side of earth! Currently I am in Bialowieza, Poland, in the heart of old growth forest that has been dated back to the retreat of the Baltic Glaciation. The treestands I will see tomorrow, on my way to track a European Lynx wearing a GPS collar, haven't changed much since 2000 BC - and human traces date back to neolithic times around 100-300 AD when inhabited by the Goths, just before the Eastern and Western Slavic Tribes moved in around 600 AD. If I'm lucky, I may also see some European bison. 


The current blog, however, is about my time in the UK at the University of Oxford Wildlife Conservation Research Unit http://www.wildcru.org/ and my day trip to visit Shaun Ellis, the man who lived with wolves, at The Wolf Centre http://www.thewolfcentre.co.uk/! 


Once again, pictures say a thousand words so I have written captions to a select few below, and I have made another video, that can be viewed here: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=015eUZ2Zzwo


Enjoy!


bp

Bayswater, London

The Thames River doing its best impersonation of Cedar Ford in the Blue Mountains  

Murphy. Inigo's and Chloe's dog. 

Professor David Macdonald. The brain behind the braun of WildCRU, Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Just in case you missed it in the news because of the Murdoch media trial, the British Government have decided to cull 150,000 badgers to stop the spread of tuberculosis to cattle, despite David explaining and showing scientific evidence that a cull of this nature would exacerbate the problem.

Professor Claudio Sillero. Ethiopian wolf man. Bill Travers Fellow for Wildlife Conservation. Chair of the IUCN Canid Specialist Group. The man who coined the term 'border patrol' and inspired me to delve deep into my GPS data from dingoes.

A tree in a paddock on my way to The Blue Boar, traditional English Pub dating from 1606. Blows Australia off the map. 

Inigo and Chloe, on their way to organise their wedding in Spain, provided me with an old thatched roof, a dog to walk and a bed. Many thanks. 

The coast at Combe Martin (pron. coom)

Combe Martin. Incredibly quaint.

It wasn't free.

Shaun Ellis explaining the behaviour of feeding wolves.

Much of it is in the way the ears were spread.

Wolf-dog hybrid.

Some random bunch of rocks that Laura wanted to visit.

Laura came for a drive to Combe Martin with me after her Contiki Tour of Europe.

On the way to stay at Stephen Dunleavy's place in Bristol. He gave me a copy of the DVD Komodo: Secrets of the dragon that he produced for the BBC. I helped him find and film lace monitors when he visited Australia, and if anybody watches the documentary, I saw the lace monitor and possum fight LIVE! And for those that have been there, it was filmed just behind the Yerranderie Police Station.

Entering Bristol at 21:20. 

Last view in London.

Stay tuned for the Bialowieza!

Africa in pictures

Here are some photos with captions for your perusal.

This was the view from my tent ... some of the researchers had a tent with a balcony to reduce elephant disturbance that were overlooking the nearby floodplain. 

Lots and lots of broad open landscapes to photo. The water in this picture was slowly infiltrating the floodplain from the mountains in Angola. It was sketchy driving on the grass because the water was invisible in parts and the soil became incredibly boggy. Had a couple of near misses, and the researchers were amazed at how much water had come through. Possibly the highest flood in 60 years, but i'm happy to be corrected.

The dust and smoke in the atmosphere helped the lighting - but the buffalo gave the afternoon its wildness.

Femke Broekhuis tracking Priya the cheetah. She is nearing the end of her PhD study looking at interactions between lions, hyenas and cheetah and inevitably had some interesting stories ... like this one time where they were calling up lions to estimate abundance and two males, aptly named Ghost and Darkness as a result, appeared out of nowhere. Or another time when she was measuring a sedated hyena, that are largely nocturnal creatures, and inquisitive lions came to see what the cars were doing. They quickly put the hyena into the back of the vehicle.

Priya and her cub Arragon. 

I didn't think the log looked that big and neither did Fem, but when the right wheel leered over the top and dropped off on the next side we knew there'd be damage. Then when we dropped down the embankment to get back on the road we thought it may have been made worse. A vertical steering wheel alignment, a left wheel pointing left and a right wheel pointing right meant we had to 'make a plan' - Botswana way of saying fix the problem. So we pulled off the rod and bent it back into shape by using the tow bar and bull bar for leverage.

This deck was constructed for a visit from the royal Prince William and Prince Harry. Mat, Anna and Laura, the volunteering research assistants from America wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving so we had a bry (BBQ) over a fire in a metal pan that was sitting on 1.5 inch thick concrete slabs. Laura woke up cause she felt hot and noticed the fire, but she had been told to not leave her tent at night because there may be lions in the area. But she faced her fears and woke the crew, and we saved the camp from destruction!

 Lycaon pictus African wild dog. The reason for my trip to Botswana. I watched two packs with pups on various occasions. On one of those occasions, the dominant female Sarah moved all 9 of her progeny to another den over an hour and a half. Quite a rare event and we were lucky to be there at that time.

The happy couple, Kris and Neil Jordan took us to see a couple of male lions court a lioness and to record some lion roars.

They don't think the lions killed this bull elephant because it was soo big - they think maybe disease, age or hunters had lost their trophy. It's tusks were easily as thick as my thighs and probably even bigger!

Diks (above) and Olefile (below) help keep the camp vibing! Finding lions, leopards, dogs, hyenas and working with nearby livestock producers for sustainable farm management.

Fem had to retrieve the GPS collars from her animals and new researchers were deploying solar powered collars that can accurately determine the angle that the cheetah turn when in a high speed chase. I was in the right place at the right time. 

Whilst Priya was sedated, Arragon her cub kept calling for mum. Franky, sedated here, arrived with his mate Frederick to catch up with Priya, but we didn't know that when the cub started running and these two males were suddenly sprinting after him. Pretty terrifying couple of minutes!

About to crack a Bin 28 Kalimna Shiraz to have with our brie and biscuits for dinner, so we can wake up early and locate the lion Barosse, who was a couple of hours away from dog camp.

The Land Rover Canvas Hilton! Apparently my snoring kept Fem awake in her tent cause she thought I'd attract the lion that was calling in the distance before we went to bed.

Barosse

Peter Apps showing me the intricacy of identifying the compounds that may be used to alter the movements of African Wild Dogs and reduce conflict between AWD and livestock producers. The equipment is not accurate enough to identify every compound that a dog can detect with their superior olfactory ability, and our understanding of the behaviours exhibited by dogs when exposed to such compounds is generally unknown, especially in the wild. Neither Pete nor Tico have met someone with similar zoological and chemical experience to Pete so lets wish them the best of luck!

Peter Apps, myself and founder of the African wild dog Botswana Predator Conservation Trust camp, John 'Tico' McNutt. He's been in the Okavango for 20 years and hasn't yet seen a rhino, so those two rhino's in the video are the first two to colonise since their reintroduction to another part of Botswana, and like the time the dogs changed the den site, i was incredibly lucky to see them.

Purcell's 1st Churchill Fellowship stop: Africa!

Hi everybody!

Last fortnight was an incredible mix of fear and fascination whilst working with carnivore ecologists at the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust Okavango Delta African Wild Dog Camp. More information on the BPCT is available here http://www.bpctrust.org/.

I went to Africa to learn about the use of African Wild Dog olfactory communication to manage conflict with local livestock producers. Although the chemical tests are still being developed, the idea is to find the right combination of scent in AWD urine that causes them to turn around and stay inside the designated protected areas.

Anyway, I made a short video to share some of the amazing moments with you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mubeyqdpS0w.

Stay posted for some photos with light commentary later.

Peace.

bp

stay posted for some photos that will show other highlights with light commentary