Nalika

This is Maria fiddling with a camera trap that she will soon reaffix to a tree in Nalika Wildlife Management Area. Her research includes a variety of methods. One is simple camera trapping, which captures images and sometimes videos of passing wildlife. A hyena had munched on this camera and cable and she had to reconstruct it with some sticks.

We went walking in the forest to see the site of another experiment. Two motion detectors linked to cameras have been set up facing each other across the forest floor. They are set at a height that tests whether anything other than elephants is detected as it passes. The idea is that if the sensors are triggered, a photo will be taken, and Maria will be able to see the triggering animal. As elephants cause lots of problems in farms in this region, if this technology works, communities in the worst hotspots could have a text message system linked to a sensor, that will alert them when elephants are entering their farms. Elephants can often be chased away with noise, so this could be great progress as long as they’re caught before they’ve damaged a family’s entire livelihood. The experiment is advancing, but some tall and large horned male antelopes are proving problematic, triggering the sensor but not a threat to crops. Maria will persevere.

The forest was full of hyena tracks, fresh buffalo dung and elephant signs but none of the above were seen. Only ubiquitous baboons and a big pod of hippos in a large lagoon, which Maria flew her drone over and got some great footage.

Tunduru town was abuzz with the news of quadruplets being born in the district. Social media lit up with images of four government bigwigs racing to the new mother’s home and each posing with one of the cherubs.

I’m also interested in the name Tunduru, as the Maputo gardens I used to loaf in regularly went by the same name. My research tells me that the gardens got their name from the ‘Tunduru Education Centre in southern Tanzania, which hosted the main Frelimo (Front for the Liberation of Mozambique) school, the ruling party that proclaimed the country’s independence’. Mystery solved. We can thank southern Tanzania for contributing to the fight for independence that culminated in the Portuguese getting the boot from Mozambique.