Tag Archive for Donald Schultz

What Forest Cobra project?

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.

 


Let the filming begin!

So, Donald Schultz rocks in here late last night, and after an early night wakes up with all the energy of a kid on Cream Soda.

He can’t wait to get filming for our Forest Cobra telemetry project.

Using telemetry units no bigger than my finger, we are going to track the movements of a few Forest Cobra as they go about their business. The units have a range of 10km, and each day we will travel to find one particular Cobra and record his location. The rest of the Forest Cobras will be left undisturbed and follow them using GPS to get a true representation of their movements without unnecessary human interruption.

All the Forest Cobras are over 2m in length and to give them the maximum chance of survival will be de-wormed, screened and health checked before release.


Donald Schultz at Umkhumbi Lodge for June!

We are excited to announce that Donald Schultz presenter of Discovery Channel’s Animal Planet “The Venom Hunter / Wild Recon” will be at Umkhumbi Lodge in June working on a brand new project with us!
Details soon to be revealed on our Special Project with Donald Schultz … and a very special promotion … so stay tuned!!