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Salama Research
In the past three months, Cosmas has completed two driving game counts in the Salama study area. Peter Barber returned to Kenya from Canada to visit different areas of Kenya and to assist ACK. Peter has assisted with driving and walking game counts for the last several years. In the May game count Cosmas and
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Scat analysis
Deanna has also been assisting in setting up the laboratory portion of the scat prey hair analysis. We hired Viola Rono as the laboratory technician. Viola had training in Biology and Micro-biology and had previously conducted an internship with the KWS laboratory through the veterinary department. Viola has perfected the mounting methodology for the hair
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Detection Dog
Chai and Cujo are not the first dogs trained by ACK staff and students. In 2008 – 2010 we trained my pet dog Ginger. A PhD candidate, Chifuyu Beckett (Hawksby) worked diligently to train Ginger. However, Ginger had a very strong bond to me, and the changes in ownership/training caused stress to both Ginger and to me. Ginger is
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March Welcome (belated)
It has been a very busy couple of months for Action for Cheetahs in Kenya. We welcomed the return of Deanna Russell to our field team. Deanna will volunteer with us for three months as a dog trainer, learning about methods of detection training. Deana is working with two young dogs. The first is Chai, a rescue dog
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March Game Counts in Salama
Our March counts finished just before the rains began. Each morning the clouds threatened to make the driving sloppy, but the real rains started after the counts were finished. We saw all the cheetah’s favorite prey scattered across the four farms — gazelle, dikdik, duiker, bushbuck,impala, hare, sprinhare… and we saw an aardvark as a special bonus. Zebra,
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Samburu Monitoring
In early December, we went to Meibae to meet with the ACK staff and to finalize all of the game count transects for 2013. Lentaam spent a significant amount of time working wtih Soulh and Moses to determine the best means for covering a maximum area in each block of the southern section of the conservancy. Cheetahs were
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Predator Decoy
Cheetah tracks were seen in the vicinity of the predator decoy camera site that was set up near the Ulu Conservancy. The tracks were within visual distance of the decoy, but no cheetahs were caught on the cameras. At previous sites the most common animal caught on the traps set with the decoy were bush
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Staff Updates
We have had the pleasure to work with Deanna Russell since early July. Deanna came to work with us with high recommendations from the Michigan State University Hyena Project leader. She has a great deal of experience in wildlife research and completed her undergraduate degree from Suny College in 2011. It has been a pleasure to work
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Robo Attracts Cheetahs
Some exciting news from the field today.… our robotic goat had a positive “capture” of two male cheetahs. The location is the same as the live goat positive “capture” two weeks ago. In between the live and robo goat we placed a scent for two weeks. OK at this point the study is preliminary and the statistical
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Cheetah Stress
More poop talk.… Cheetah health is related to their environment, including the level of stress they are under. Healthy cheetahs will eat, breed and play. But if stress is too high an animal will be threatened with disease and with lack of energy needed for them to survive. For a cheetah there can be a variety of
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