By Mary Wykstra

On 27 March during trapping in the Westgate Conservancy I stayed at the Ewaso Lions camp. I was just about to head out to check traps as Shivani and her crew returned from a morning game count with news of a wild dog sighting near camp. As we prepared to drive down to where she had left them, we saw an amazing sight… the 14 dogs pranced over a hill near the camp and walked less than 200 meters as we stood at the Lion camp mess area and took photos. This was my first ever wild dog sighting!

In Salama we first started trapping cheetahs in 2005. We used local welders in Salama town to build the trap and the goat bait pen. when Chifuyu started her PhD work in the Salama area we received funding for two addtional traps in 2008 and have been usingt them in the Salama area ever since.

Starting the project in Samburu means another set of equipment. Using the model trap – original design was from CCF – we asked the Lewa Downs workshop manager, Harry, if they could build us a trap. I took only two weeks and the new trap was ready for collection.

by Mary Wykstra
Although this blog entry is a bit late and is old news to the people of Samburu... I wrote it in April when life was pretty busy.. and it may be new news to some of you.

By Maxime Lapidaire

For some reason our collared cheetah Nataanywe shows herself to the Samburu tourist just a few days before ACK staff arrives in the reserve... but she hides when we are around. ACK had not seen her for several months. In June ACK staff did see two cheetahs in the Samburu National Reserve. These two, seeminly young, cheetahs were very shy. A few days later one of the drivers in the reserve saw them again on a kill.

By Maxime Lapidaire

For several months ACK has been trying to catch a cheetah outside of the Samburu National Reserve to put on a radio collar. Unfortunately we haven’t been able to catch a cheetah yet. The cheetahs outside of the reserve are more shy than the animals inside the reserve. It is important to collect data from these cheetahs because these are the animals who come in conflict with human in the area.

by Maxime Lapidaire

While out on field work and camping in the Meibae Conservancy in June 2010 for cheetah trapping, there were a huge variety of dudu’s (insects) found in the ACK camp site. From enormous walking sticks to cicadas which we had never seen before. Other than these unknown insect we also found many different kinds of lizards , dikdik’s and mongooses (mongeese??) in the camp.

Every evening we were treated a concert from the Vereaux's eagle owl, and as we went to sleep we heard hyenas from a distance.

by Mary Wykstra

In January I wrote about an accident that I had with our sturdy old truck. I have really enjoyed the Hylux - it has high clearance, it is powerful up hills and in mud and it is more or less a comfortable ride. A few times in the last years I have done fundraisers aimed at getting the funds to replace the old beast, but each time I fall short of the funds to replace it and end up investing into improving it. After the accident, we needed to pretty much rebuild the front end and I decided that we would keep this old truck for quite a while.

After a long day in the field there is nothing like a bit of fresh air and a cool drink.... ACK staff do not take the time to relax and enjoy eachothers company enough. Thus... we designed the perfect place in our Salama cheetah camp. A past volunteer made a donations with the strict instructions thatIi do something to relax. I thought about heading to the coast or up to visit friends in Nakuru, but that would only be a brief relaxation... I wanted to do something that would last.

Since our camp opening in May 2008, ACK staff and volunteers have used a basin in the shower area. While most of us were dealing well with this, we know how nice a good shower feels after a day in the field.

Repeat volunteers like Peter Barber understand this. Peter came from Canada in January with pully's in his suiitcase. Rope, bucket, tap and wood were purchased in Salama. Peter used our existing shower facilities to hoist the bucke high enough for every member of our team.

Twice in February we were able to track the collared female. In both cases voluteer Peter Barber was with us as a driver. The first download was thanks to the Sasaab Lodge manager (Tony) who saw her make a kill near Samburu Lodge. We followed tour vehicles to her location as our tracking equipment did not pick up her signal. After we realized that we had entered the wrong setting we again tracked Nataanywa in late February and we found her in the northwestern part of the reserve. The data shows that she has remained in the Samburu and Buffalo Reserves thus far...