FINALLY IN KRUGER!!!

Yesterday we left the Barberton Mountains and drove to Kruger National Park! On our way into the park, we saw so many animals, including: kudu, impala, zebra, elephants, white rhinos, cape buffalo (3 out of the 'Big 5', more giraffes, lots of beautiful birds, etc. We are staying in a tourist camp called Skukuza in large dorms (each room has around 20 beds in it) and we are able to walk around in the enclosed area at all times, but during the day we are able to run out of the gates (in groups) to the research village (which is really cool- lots of incredibly intelligent researchers all living in one little suburb within Kruger). Last night we settled in and took a tour of the camp while planning our first bigger projects.  We did a mini field project at Pullen Farm, but the one we are working on now is part of a long term research initiative for the park. My group is studying the ecology of big trees. In the basaltic region of Kruger, they are worried about the loss of many of the bigger tree species and a lot of work has been done to monitor 2 of the bigger species, so we are focusing on the third big species in the area- commonly referred to as "Apple leaf trees."  We will be collecting data for three days- we started today.

This morning we woke up early to drive the 1.5 hours to our site and then began tagging trees, collecting demographic data, and then we collected data about the bark stripping from elephants (where their tusks rub up against the trees and strip the bark). So it's a really interesting project and such an incredible opportunity to be able to get out in the field (researchers are able to leave their cars in the park because we have game guards with us, but tourists have to stay in their vehicles- so we got a lot of strange looks). We were able to tag fifty trees today (which is a lot!!) and stayed out in the field for 5 hours or so. Other groups are looking into water fowl biodiversity, termite mound ecology, song bird biodiversity, and there is another big tree ecology group.

On our way back to camp, we had a brief leopard sighting and saw a pride of lions!!! As well as many other animals - I'm going to try to post pictures, but we don't have much internet here and I'm only allowed to stay at the office for an hour. Tomorrow we will have another long day of data collection and in a few days we head to Blyde River for a short break and then return to Skukuza!

bark stripping from elephants