Collaring a Leopard Before the Heat
A darting operation in the Kruger has a two-hour window before the sun makes it dangerous for the animal. Sipho follows the vet, the tracker and the data from the first alarm call to the release.
Three Nights Waiting for a Pangolin
0:00 / 0:51
This episode is for members. Sign up free or log in to hear the whole episode.
Show notes
The pangolin that would not come
Pangolins are quiet, nocturnal and almost impossible to find on purpose. Sipho spends three nights with a Kalahari research team, walking transects by starlight with a tracker named Oupa who has found more pangolins than anyone alive. The episode explains why the species is so heavily trafficked, what a tracking tag reveals about its burrow use, and what finally happened on night three.
- Why pangolins are so hard to study
- The trafficking numbers and what they mean
- How a tag is fitted to a scale without harming the animal
- Oupa's method for reading tracks in sand
- The result from night three
Next time, a leopard collar in the Kruger and a very long morning.
Transcript
Welcome to Notes From the Hide. I am Sipho Mthembu, I am a wildlife ecologist, and most of my job is waiting. This show is about the waiting and what comes after it. For this first episode I went to the Kalahari with a small team trying to fit a tracking tag to a pangolin, an animal covered in scales that walks on its hind legs and is trafficked more than any other mammal on Earth. We did not find one on night one. Or night two. You will hear the cold, the stars, and a tracker named Oupa who can read a line in the sand that I cannot even see. I will explain what the tag tells us and why it matters. Then I will tell you about night three. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts. Boots on.
Open as text