During my volunteer internship, I also carried out the "HPS tracking" mission. It was a mission related to research and to check the health of wild dogs and elephants. First of all we had to locate the animals by GPS signal (= global positioning system, satellite) emitted by their collar, and to approach them as much as possible by car. Then we tracked them by VHF (= very high frequency) with a large radio antenna that we moved around us to detect the place where the "beep" was strongest.
The radio antenna was connected with a special cable, to a device where there were different platforms depending on the animal we wanted to detect. We were in a car and we stopped regularly to listen to the signal emitted by the animal, to get as close as possible and to have the least walking to do. When we heard a "beep" with a second interval, it corresponded to the electricity emitted by the fence around the reserve. If the “beep” was with 2 seconds interval, this would be the desired animal.
Then all we had to do was to follow the signal with the antenna to find the animal. We had two cameras at our disposal to photograph the wild dogs, and look at their bellies to see if they were healthy and had eaten lately. We found them easily, but as they were hunting, they were quite active, and it was difficult to take pictures of them. There were five wild dogs, but still yesterday there were six. One of them was killed by a lion the day before, it is quite common to witness this kind of conflict between these two species. However, it is sometimes difficult to find wild dogs, for example if they are behind a mountain it is impossible to detect them.
We then returned to the car to track down the three elephants in the reserve. When the signal was close enough we walked down into the savannah. The woman in charge of the mission, Meg, explained that they should not see us, therefore we should always be behind vegetation, and that they should not hear us, so we should be careful when we were walking and keep quiet. They also should not smell us, so we had to walk against the wind.
We found them quite quickly, but we had to stay away from them because they could be dangerous, while the wild dogs don’t attack. However, sometimes you have to expect not to find them, especially if they are moving. Indeed, they were far too fast for us who were on foot. Two of these elephants were in this reserve because they tried to be sold in Hawaii, passing through Johannesburg. Fortunately, they were intercepted during their passage through customs between Namibia and South Africa, and were therefore transferred to the Naankuse reserve. The last elephant came later. It was close to a village and people were trying to touch it. So he was transferred to the reserve because if he had killed someone he would have been killed by men himself, being described as dangerous and aggressive.
We then retrieved all the SD cards from the various cameras located throughout the reserve, and we changed their batteries. These cameras were placed at strategic points, such as water points, to take pictures of as many animals as possible. If an unknown and suspicious person were observed on the reserve, we could immediately find out. We also saw a lot of giraffes on the way back!
We then went back to the office to make the "data entry". This was to analyze the photos taken of the wild dogs, observing their bellies and their ribs, to see if they had eaten and if they were healthy. We also had to sort the photos taken by the traps cameras. Animals had to be sorted by race on a computer, and this enabled the researchers of the reserve to learn more about the fauna of Naankuse: its habits, its territories, its zones of circulation, its health etc… We saw on the photos of the SD card a lot of giraffes, gazelles, zebras, antelopes and oryx. We also observed a few lions and a leopard.
This mission was very interesting, and allowed me to learn more about the profession of wildlife researcher. Unlike the Rhino Rangers mission, we did not come across random animals, but we quickly found them thanks to the signal emitted by their collar.