Saturday, November 10, 2012

Jag Update


On Thursday Sarah, Pepper, Sateesh, Paul and I completed our jag walk in record time and one of the Jag Cams later revealed that we had walked just meters away from a jag during it!  Within  24 hours that particular camera recorded four different Jags -  Luca, Eliana, Molly and Alex -  all visiting the same kill, with Eliana visiting it just 4 minutes before we walked by it! 
Following fresh jag tracks along the beach, and knowing that there had been a jag in the exact spot you are standing only hours before, is such an amazing experience, but finding out  that Eliana was  actually on the beach at the same time as us, within just 10 or so metres was just incredible! I still get goose bumps and a silly grin on my face every time I see the footage of her watching us approach, followed by the very next recording of Pepper checking out the kill.

That week were also told by the national park rangers that a cub had been seen down near mile 13, so Roberto and James set up a new camera to try to catch some footage of it. In the mean time the camera set up on the forest trail near mile 16 4/8 (just over a mile from base!) caught Molly on camera with a cub, only about three months old, following closely behind her! 

Two sets of eye-shine - Molly followed by her cub

On Friday James and I set out from base at 4 am to collect the footage from some of the Jag cams, with high hopes of getting some more pictures of the cub.  Although there was no footage of the cub, another exciting discovery was made. The video recording clearly showed two jags, which hadn’t previously been recorded by GVI – Ceci and Gerrado (known to researchers in one of our partner organizations), travelling together along the forest trail adjacent to the beach. 
We´re really excited about these latest discoveries and look forward to getting some clearer shots of the cub and giving him or her a name.

 - Katy, 6 month intern

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