Project Blog

With four collars still to go and conscious the team departs on Friday evening there’s still much to do.  And the morning drive doesn’t make any inroads into our target.  Our dart strikes in the shoulder and after standing still for about 6 minutes this beautiful strong looking female begins to run, and run!  We begin our familiar pattern of driving alongside her, waiting for the tell tale stagger indicating the drug is taking effect, then accelerating past her allowing the team to effect the capture. 

But this young lady is having none of it and after one missed encounter and a return to the vehicles Julian is given a birthday present or ‘Souvenir d’Niger’ as he takes a naughty tumble while still desperately trying to hold on to the rope, unassisted – but bad timing though as is dragged behind a bush just at the wrong moment (see below), so regrettably the full drama was not captured for posterity!    

But he’ll live (and I’m even more sure he’ll never let us forget it!) and the priority remained the health of the giraffe, the drug has been in for a long time now and we need to ring her down or antidote her.  We then have a major tyre blow out in the capture vehicle.  No choice but to antidote, ASAP.  No mean feat from a moving vehicle and testimony to HO’s skill as a marksman as the additional vehicle bums and bounces through the bush.  But he hits the target, perfectly, and after some 13km the chase is over and the giraffe calmly stops to feed, while the team licks its wounds, dusts itself down and mends its puncture etc.  What a morning.

It is only then that our local guys tells us this giraffe was always the wrong one to have darted.  They believe she is immune to drugs or poison having been shot last year by a poacher’s poison dart and survived.  So she was never going to come down in their opinion – now they tell us!    But regardless we’re all very pleased this happened today and not yesterday with the minister here!

Back in camp, even more bruised, battered and sore (even I felt some sympathy for Julian now – heat and sweat are not what one needs with a ‘scratch’ like this!), our latest observer arrives, Florence from the Niger African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) office, as well as another visit from Omer of ASGN.  The AWF vehicle was most useful after the morning’s puncture. 

Moral is high for the team, despite the morning’s marathon.  kaloo in particular was buoyant as they’d  received news via their ‘bush-telegraph’ that their wives had seen them on TV the night before with footage shown from the Minister’s visit.  They’re famous!

Still four to go and time running out, but thankfully, very late in the day and as light is fading, Florence witnesses a relatively easy capture requiring no roping. 

Only three to go, and with what is technically three ‘sessions’ left we’re hopeful we can still manage it.  Not only do we really want a shower by this stage, but a meal that isn’t rice or cuscus with lumps of goat gristle would also be extremely welcome!  But we console ourselves with a couple of beers to celebrate Julian’s birthday and all autograph his ripped shirt as a memento. 

We witnessed another arrest today.  It is illegal to cut down the trees, but this doesn’t prevent the nutritious Acacia trees being stripped of their branches to provide food for the goats.  We catch a guy red handed who tries in vain to protest his innocence until it is pointed out his woolly hat is covered in buds from the branches he’s just been hacking down – a careless mistake on two fronts if you ask me, not least why was he wearing a woolly hat in the first place, it is boiling here!  But this is a serious problem for the environment and habitat, for both man and the minimal animal life we see (with the exception of a couple of mongoose there was nothing else, even the birdlife was scarce), and while we remain unclear of the penalties for such misdemeanours or how effective such arrests are for preventing them, it was at least a step in the right direction.  We hope.  Though a cynic might suggest this was as much for our benefit as anything, with Philippe having harangued the Forestry Kommandant relentlessly for the entire week on this subject!