Tag Archive for Black mamba telemetry

Picture: Vader the forest cobra

Lacey / March 26, 2012 / 2 comments

After a week of seeing Vader but being unable to capture him on photo we were successful yesterday! He looks in good condition and judging by the speed he shot off at, he is as happy as Larry with his new home.

All in all a good day, we located Lucas the little Black Mamba and even Chelsea the big Black Mamba had decided to disengage herself from her nice warm bed and venture outside for a spot of sunbathing.

After a week of eluding us she was so keen to show us she was still alive that we almost stepped on her! Only when we’d seen her did she decide that that was enough and she shot off into the bush again. Presumably tag-teaming with Lucas to keep us on our toes and searching further and further into the bush for the both of them.

 

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Chelsea the Black Mamba Joins the Property Ladder

Lacey / July 11, 2011 / No comments

It would appear that Chelsea has indeed found herself a little underground home.

Two days in a row now we have spotted her sunbathing and then – when she realises we want a photograph – gets camera shy and hightails it into a nearby termite mound.

Now, I realise the pictures aren’t very good, but she is much quicker than my lens (or me!). She is disappearing into a termite mound behind the branches dead centre of the shots. Practice makes perfect, so better shots coming soon.

Yesterdays sighting revealed a nice bump which was not there today, we can therefore safely assume that she is settling in well and making herself right at home by decimating the mouse population. Which I am sure the nearby Pineapple farmers will be most appreciative of!

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Gizmo returns – for a little while

Lacey / July 10, 2011 / One comment

It has been decided among the crew that Gizmo should be rereleased. However we have decided this time to release him without the transmitter. He is just a little too small and whilst he is doing fine in captivity with the transmitter in place we have our doubts about how well he will be able to cope after release. So, we have made the decision to pop him once more into the care of Susanne (our project veterinarian) and then monitor his convalescence before releasing him once more into the wild. Free to remain unbothered by humans pestering him when he is soaking up the midday sun.

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Welcome back Lucas the Black Mamba!

Lacey / July 5, 2011 / One comment

Well folks, it’s been a few days since we gave Lucas some breathing space to settle into his surroundings – and we’re pleased to say that he is still in the area. He is the one snake that we thought might move out of the area but there he was sunning himself, presumably happy for a small break in the cold weather that we have been having here in Hluhluwe.

 

Chelsea the Black Mamba is in her winter home (meaning that she is currently underground somewhere sheltering from the chill – presumably dressed in pyjamas and drinking hot chocolate with movies).

 

Vader the Forest Cobra has decided to explore beyond his termite mound, but is still staying in the vicinity – I can’t blame him from returning to the same spot, the sunset from his spot is beautiful!

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Day 2: Quick Catch Up

Lacey / June 30, 2011 / No comments

Hey everyone,

Well some good news and some bad news.

We have confirmed visual sightings of all four snakes! The transmitters are all working well (thank you Victor Hugo – they are awesome), and most of the snakes tried to avoid us – always a good sign!

Chelsea is still being a lady of leisure – except now she is approximately 7 metres up a tree.

"Try and catch me up here :p"

Chelsea luxuriates in her penthouse apartment


The bad news is that Gizmo being the smallest needs a little more convalescing time and is now sitting in the garage in the warm – we will keep you all posted on a re-release date.

As for the other two:

Vader is evading us by hiding in a termite mound. Infact all we saw of him was his tail as we rounded the corner and he shot down a hole, obviously we need to be a lot quicker.

Lucas is surprisingly fast at escaping, just as we find him he loops around a tree and heads in another direction – so we’re going to give him some space for a couple of days.

 

Lucas is in there, but there is no way through...

 

Big hello to Beccy and Lyndsay our two volunteers at the moment who are going to help us track the snakes. Despite being up for over 24 hours and barely getting off the plane they were traipsing through the undergrowth with us and experiencing their first taste of Sickle bushes.

 

The joy of bundu bashing

...time to make a way.. Ouch!

Sorry girls, but there are plenty more bushes to tromp through soon!

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Day 1: Snake release

Lacey / June 29, 2011 / No comments

Today is the day!

The sun is shining, the wind is still and our snakes have been charging themselves in the sunlight as though they had solar panels.

In addition to our release crew today we had three guests who wanted to come along and experience the buzz. That’s the joy about Umkhumbi Lodge, you never know quite what is going to happen and who you are going to meet!

 

 

As we very gingerly looked in the tubs in the morning we were delighted to discover all the snakes looking and acting like they should be. The Mambas acted like Mambas and the Forest Cobras acted like Forest Cobras.

 

Little but dangerous!

Running away

 

Fastest release goes to Lucas, who was out of the tub and into a tree in the blink of an eye. It was even quicker than me eating chocolate!

 

Skywalker

 

So quick in fact that we had to track him to make sure he didn’t sneak back up on us!

 

So he can't sneak up and bite us on the bum!

 

Chelsea our big girly, acted like a lady of leisure as she sunbathed, she was in no rush to go anywhere – probably because at her size she knew that we were far more intimidated by her than she was of us!

 

Soaking up the rays

 

Category: Donald Schultz, Forest Cobra Project / Tags: , , , , , ,

Day -1 : Surgery

Lacey / June 28, 2011 / 9 comments

Ok, here we are, we have snakes and we have transmitters. Now with months and weeks and days of planning all behind us it is surgery day. The penultimate day, the day when we find out which of our snakes are strong enough for the implantation of the transmitters.

 

So, the breakdown;

Forest Cobra number 1 – Vader
Weighed in at 1.6591 kg

Forest Cobra number 2 – Gizmo
Weighed in at 1.417 kg

Black Mamba number 1 – Chelsea
Weighed in at 2.355 kg

Black Mamba number 2 – Lucas
Weighed in at 1.690kg

 

All the snakes were sedated with Donald schultz tried and tested mixture. All injections were done between the scales to prevent adding scar tissue to the snakes and damaging their scales more than we needed to.

 

 

Transmitters were made by Victor Hugo and are of a similar size to those attached to bees! But ours are quite a bit bigger based upon the duration we need them to work – nearly all the size of the units is the battery.

 

The white bit is the battery, the little black blob near the end is the transmitter.

 

The trickiest part of inserting the units was manipulating the aerial into the right place.

 

 

The surgery went well and with deft stitches Suzanne managed to line the scales up almost exactly to where they had been.

 

 

If it wasn’t for the blue of the stitches you wouldn’t have realised there was an incision at all!

 

A little sleepy afterwards the snakes will spend the evening in luxury accommodation (heated garage) and after a quick health check all that was left to do was treat them for mites/lice/ticks.

We will check up on them in the morning!

Category: Donald Schultz, Forest Cobra Project / Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Project countdown – 5 days

Lacey / June 22, 2011 / No comments

OK, despite all the little problems we’ve experienced so far – such as no snakes! We now have four Forest Cobras who are ready to become famous pending health checks and transmitter installation.

So, project commences on Monday. We will keep you posted as we closely follow the daily movements of one of the Forest cobras helped by our small army of volunteers.

Everyday they will be traipsing through the bush armed with a radio transceiver, altimeter, barometer, a variety of thermometers and a trusty pencil to bring us cutting edge information.

Category: Donald Schultz, Forest Cobra Project / Tags: , , ,

What Forest Cobra project?

Lacey / June 20, 2011 / 2 comments

In the previous post I mentioned a Forest Cobra project, so here is a bit more information to explain what I meant.

There are always concerns about re-releasing snakes after capturing them. Many people believe that the snake will return and seek out human populated areas, whilst others believe that the snake will become disorientated and not survive due to the change in its surroundings.

But, the forest cobra is one of the biggest and most intelligent African snakes. With a team of conservationists and scientists, we will track the daily movements and interactions with people of some Forest Cobras.

This study is an attempt to determine whether translocated cobras (captured on agricultural/domestic land and released in protected areas) differ in their movement patterns compared with resident individuals.  Forest cobra movements will be recorded by means of radio-telemetry. Each snake will have a transmitter surgically implanted into the body cavity and is then tracked using a receiver and antenna.

In addition to movement, other data will be gathered daily such as; ambient temperature, actual temperature, altitude and vegetation type.

 


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