Excerpts from a volunteer’s diary – Rob Buchan - Pangolin Sighting!
Hi my name is Rob Buchan, I joined GVI
Karongwe on the 25th of August. Throughout my time here we have all
seen some incredible things, from lions to leopards to cheetah operations. (See the article on that here) But,
as is always the case, there are certain things you don’t expect to see...
On the 12th of October
2012 we all saw something very special! The GVI team were out on research as we
are every morning, when searching for lions, we came across a very rare sight.
A female Pangolin was carrying her young one on her back whilst crossing the
road, in broad daylight! Seeing a Pangolin is rare enough, but to witness her with
an offspring was incredible. Needless to say with the two of them together,
news soon spread of the sighting and everyone was eager to get a glimpse of the
pair!
 |
| The Pangoling mother with its offspring curled up by her head |
 |
| The curled up baby |
We all got our chance to view the animals
and get some amazing photographs. This was my first sighting of a Pangolin and
unless I’m very lucky, probably my last whilst at Karongwe. Karongwe seems to be relatively good for Pangolin sightings, but to highlight how rare a sighting this is, GVI has only seen 10 in the last 4 years! (Read about the last amazing sighting here) To cap the morning
off we tracked our pride of lions virtually the entire length of the reserve,
ending with myself collecting the fresh faeces of our dominant male lion, Zero
to contribute to a parasitological study. All in a day’s work at Karongwe!
 |
| The pair quickly relaxed and the youngster started clambering all over its mother's back before it snuck underneath her to presumably suckle. |
Hopefully I can report to you all soon on
some more amazing sightings.
Rob Buchan.
0 comments:
Post a Comment