Tracking Made Easy - Okolunu Revisited

We sat at the house now, a lot of hard work and time behind us, finishing paper work, conclusions, emails and figuring out the next steps. A little melancholy. Paul was obviously a little unhappy with the amount of stress Okolunu was put under, and also disappointed that we never really got a chance to observe Okolunu naturally in our rush to release it. I suggested we test the GPS box and go find it at the same time so we could just watch it for a while.

Late evening we drove down to the dirt road and took the Radio signal which was strong and in the direction it was released. We hopped the fence to the friendly diplomat's farm and walked the 2km of straight road to an intersection. Here we called the GPS box and fantastically got an sms right back with the Pangolin's coordinates. Paul was so happy that it had worked. After a quick calculation to convert the latitude and longitude into something useful, we walked to a point in the bush only 50m from the the farm road where Okolunu must have been mere minutes before. 10 minutes later we had found her/him walking on the grass using the radio signals and following the scratching sounds it made. All those weeks of walking through the bush, trying to follow erratic signals and figuring out what environmental conditions were affecting us has led to this simple thing that allows us to find it so easily.

For the next two hours we watched it. Occasionally it walked a short while and stopped again. We couldnt quite deduce whether it was stopping because of our presence or to feed. Sometimes it stuck out its tongue and we heard scratching sounds, but it never looked like it was actually eating. We were both in awe and I managed to get many good photos and some good videos. When we left it, it was lying beside a tree; I managed to get within a meter and it stayed lying there with its underpart just slightly exposed - enough for me to get some shots of what I think is the genitalia. Maybe we will be able to sex it after all.

As Paul put it; the urge to research these creatures and help protect them comes from somewhere, and moments like this are needed to generate that.

Paul leaves tomorrow, he will spend the night at the bush camp in order to speak with Bruno, who is currently guiding two people who dont speak english at all, about the next steps. Tonight I will train Graham and Tim in the use of the GPS functions so they can track it. Tomorrow night I think Ill go find Okolunu one last time. After that Ill spend the last days in the thick of the bush at the bush camp.

Okolunu found

Paul checking the GPS lights are flashing properly

Penis or Anus?

Hind leg

Pervert on the prowl, checking for genitals

3rd turtle found on the road so far

Team after finding it

All the Yagi searching we did before

Working on Okolunu in the garage