Report information
In the past week there has been an obvious change in Mac's movement pattern. He is no longer moving primarily southward but has started to criss-cross the full extent of his musth range. He is still moving relatively rapidly, compared with his typical foraging type movements, but his route now represents a more extensive search pattern, seeking out the breeding herds and other bulls.
He is probably developing a mental map of the social landscape - who is where and what is their reproductive status. He can then use this information to optimise his movements over the next couple of months, ensuring he is around to guard a cow when she comes into oestrus and knowing when and where to move on to the next most likely mate.
Much of our effort this week was focused on the recollaring of some of our study animals. A number of the collars currently deployed are reaching the end of their lifespan and as we are studying long-lived individuals within a dynamic environment, we want to continue gathering data. To replace these collar we have to immobilise the elephant before we can safely work with it. When it is down we can remove and replace the collar, collect blood and other tissue samples and take morphometric (body dimension) measurements to look at how it has grown since we last measured it.
We had planned to recollar four elephants on Saturday, two bulls and two cows. Unfortunately, despite an extensive search we were unable to locate the one cow and the other was in an area in which we were not able to immobilise her. However, The redeployment of collars on the two bulls went well and barring any accidents these collars should continue providing us with an insight into their lives for another four years.
Best wishes,
Steve
Further Reading:
Next report: Mac on the Move Week Four
Last report: Mac on the Move Week Two