04/01/2012 – Day 11
10:00
Hot, low humidity.
FC01 was sunning in dappled light. On sighting us it moved to the safety of a nearby low tree and bushes. When it felt secure in the bushes it stopped and turned to look at us.
It looks to be in the same condition as when it was released 11 days ago.
Approx 82m from last known position.
With a final look...
FC01 slithers into the bushes
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03/01/2012 – Day 10
12:00
Very hot, high humidity.
FC01 was located in a large termite mound under a shady tree.
Approx 109m from last known position.
No visual of the snake.
The termite mound provides relief for the visiting snake
A grand entrance to the 'air conditioned' termite mound
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01/01/2012 – Day 8
14:00
38c, high humidity.
FC01 appears to be skirting the fenceline – perhaps reluctant to venture into the adjoining pineapple fields.
Approx 450m from last known position.
30/12/2011 – Day 6
11:00
High humidity.
No physical sighting but we are glad to report that FC01 is still on the property despite having moved further towards the edge of the property.
Approx 20m from last known position.
27/12/2011 – Day 3
11:00
No wonder we couldn’t find it yesterday! The forest Cobra has moved to the other side of the property (and in a different direction to the one it was heading on release day).
Using our telelmetry equipment we located Forest Cobra 01 – FC01 to a region of bush to the south of our property. Trekking into the bush we located FC01 to an area where we felled a non-indigenous cactus tree, walking around the tree to see if we could get a glimpse of FC01 we were ecstatic to see a little Forest Cobra face peeking out at us from the trees above us. FC01 had managed to find an area of lower humidity with a little breeze 400m from his release site.
We were looking for FC01, but it was already watching us!
Even a large Forest Cobra, is well camoflagued and at home in trees.
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26/12/2011 – Day 2
Location unknown – we searched for it at various times throughout the day. But no, it appears to have gone AWOL.
25/12/2011 – Day 1
18:00
Weather: Hot with short, light rain showers.
On release forest cobra climbed into the trees to soak up the remaining sun rays from on top of the canopy.
We thought the fallen tree was an excellent site to release FC01
Straight into the tree, before climbing up, up and up !
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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 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!
