Sunday, May 27, 2012

The hippos are just taunting us now


Well I’m not sure today was good, but it was at least interesting again. This morning we caught a tortoise in one of the guineafowl traps. It was thankfully uninjured, except that it had a really old injury that made the shell warped. But I guess it was getting around fairly well because it was gone by the time we checked the traps again 3 hours later.

Then Michele and I went down river to try to scout out possible locations where we could just dart the hippos since they seem to have all disappeared. I forgot my sunblock and we didn’t bring any water so Michele and I were pretty red and thirsty and exhausted by the time we got back. We found one decent location but the others are just so overgrown with weeds. And we have the added problem of them possibly jumping right back into the river when darted, and then how would we get them out??

Anyway so when we got back into camp, we found a note left by Annika. Apparently a visitor, who was on the island only for 1 day (less than a day actually), came across 2 pygmy hippos while walking through the forest. Seriously?? She watched them for 2-3 minutes before they ran into the forest. Seriously!! We went and checked out the area but we’re all pretty convinced that she just happened upon them while they were on the move. There was only the one fresh sign. The interesting thing is that it could be a mating couple since the visitor saw 2 big butts. However, it could also just be a female and yearling calf.

On another note, I dislike when I go to take a shower and a rat runs between my feet. I also dislike random visitors showing up at odd hours of the day and night, knocking at our window and wanting to use our phones.

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