I can’t believe that 2 months have flown past since I last updated the site! It’s been a busy period, with a lot of fieldwork and limited internet access, so apologies for the delay!

Since the last post in early June, we’ve been busy with survey work, doing call-up surveys, spoor counts and prey counts in various parts of northern Kafue. The buffalo distress call that we play for hours on end is still haunting my dreams… The surveys have been a success though, and we hope to analyse the data later on in the year.

We’ve also managed to locate 3 of our collared lions from last year, and download the data off 2 of the collars. The battery on the 3rd one is going flat, so we will have to remove it to access the movements of the Busanga female. However, the Treeline female and the Busanga male have shown some interesting home range use, and we’ve uploaded Google Earth maps in the gallery for your interest. Effectively, the period from mid-November until the end of February constitutes the height of the wet season, and where the cats concentrated around the Lufupa River in the dry season, the shift away from the main river course in the wet is noticeable. We will be analysing thess data in more detail using GIS in a few months time when we shift our home range for the wet season too!

Lastly, we’ve been spending time getting to know the lions of the Lufupa area better, and have had some great sightings. In the Lufupa Pride gallery are 3 new pics of the Lufupa male coalition. These 3 seem to hold the territory from about 10km north of Lufupa camp to about 15km south, and possibly further. They are 2 magnificent males, along with a younger counterpart, who has a badly injured left eye, but still seems to be doing alright. He, along with M043, were seen mating with 2 of the females from the Musekwa Pride a few days ago, so at least one of the ladies doesn’t mind his dodgy eye…

That’s it for now, but we will try and provide more regular updates in the future!