On Safari
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Dr. V | Friday | January 20, 2012 |
I often wonder what wild animals who spend a lot of time around humans must think of us. Those in zoos, for example, or those in big national parks. I thought about this a lot when I was in Africa- specifically in the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania, which is filled to the brim with Land Cruisers full of camera toting primates every day.
To most of those people, seeing these animals is just this incredible, awe-inspiring once in a lifetime experience. But to them, well, it’s just another boatload of humanoids. It’s certainly a different experience in some of the wilder parts of the continent, but in the tourist-heavy areas, the animals showed a complete and utter ambivalence to human presence. Ho hum.
It struck me particularly strongly when we stopped for lunch in the Ngorongoro Crater at the watering hole. Humans swarmed the grassy area like a hooting herd of baboons, herded into the safe areas under the watchful eye of bemused rangers who were keeping an eye out for the errant fool who wanted to take a dip in the water.
Because no, you dopey human, those are NOT rocks and we do not under any circumstances recommend you try swimming over to them.
They will bite your leg off.
While most tourists attempt the traditional “Safari Bob” look, complete with neat khakis and hats from REI, some go the other direction and attempt to emulate some of the more colorful African birds. Camouflage of a different sort, I suppose. Good for attracting some of those massive African wasps.
Though only the most hardcore go Out Of Africa enough to bring their very own pipe and tobacco all the way to Africa, down into the crater, and then pull it out and smoke it.
These guys read the planning book, and apparently all went shopping together too. Drab colors, long pants, shiny binoculars. I will state now for the record that not a single Tanzanian resident dresses this way, but this is the Official Tourist Uniform described in all the safari books so this is what we all show up with, for the most part. I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the easiest way to differentiate the tourists from the ex-pats.
A trio of tourists.
A trio of birds.
In nature, like attracts like. This trio of Tourist Sapiens looked to a trio of birds, gravitating towards one another with the inexorable pull of mutual interest. The birds know by now what they are expected to do. Or maybe they just wanted to investigate the people as much as the people wanted to investigate them.
Note the symmetry of posture as they engage in that most homo sapien of activities, staring. The guy on the right has a little hip action flair going on too, just to be fancy. That is Advanced Tourist Posture. Bam.
“All those humans look alike, Hal. I can’t tell them apart even after all these years.” “I know, Bob.”
I tried for an entire week to get my ranger to tell me some of the strange stories you know he has to tell about the tourists he has met over 20 years of guiding, but alas for me, he wouldn’t spill the dirt. You KNOW he has some.
“And then that one in the buff kept pulling out her iphone and saying-”
“Oh! Hello Jessica! Ah ha ha, just talking about rhino preservation and all. Ready to go?”
He was SUCH an amazing guide though that I had to forgive him his utter professionalism. If only the animals could talk.
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Dr. V | Tuesday | January 3, 2012 |
Do you have a favorite place you dream of? A memory that, when you close your eyes at the end of of a long week, you dig up from the recesses of your white matter and relive in a brief but joyous fantasy of wishing yourself back into the past? I do.
I know I have a bunch of things I was going to write about this week. This is what happens when I don’t write things down. I’m sure there is something I should be writing or that I thought to myself I would write this week, but when I actually sit down to do it I draw a blank and all I can do is think about chocolate, or Africa, or other such things.
I’m sure some of this has to do with the chaos of the holidays now being behind me, and the looming horror of all the work I need to do on the house looming ahead. Plus the fact that our cash strapped school district dealt with their budget issues by adding on an extra week of vacation- surprise!- and the fact that despite several goes with the saddle soap my favorite shoes still smell like a dog pooped on them, which of course he did. All of these things combined kind of make me look wistfully at my old photos and think to myself, surely someone in Tanzania could use the services of a veterinarian for six months or so, right? Just for a wee bit?
And I still haven’t told you my favorite story from Africa, about Graeme the Disenchanted Disillusioned Disgruntled Imprisoned Scottish Balloon Pilot, but that is a whole-day sort of post so I guess I will add that to my New Year’s Resolutions.
In the meantime, just enjoy some pictures my husband finally got around to editing this week. They are from Tarangire National Park, our last stop on safari. (more…)
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Dr. V | Wednesday | October 19, 2011 |
I know you all want to hear about the chimpanzees. I want to tell you about the chimpanzees. I am just overwrought with shuffling through 8,000 raw digital images, that are sitting on the bloated home computer and stressing it like a girdle about to pop. Between that and trying to coordinate the images with the videos I took but whose audio is highly suspect, attempting to put the two together into something cohesive is a huge time suck.
In addition, I’m going to Minneapolis for a day to give a talk on social media in veterinary medicine, which is going to be fantastic but also involves no small amount of planning and is yet another thing that takes me away from chimp movie-making. I actually worked chimp pictures into the presentation, which impressed me, if no one else. It will be a good talk. We have a lot to learn from them, but I always knew that.
In the meantime, let us turn to the afternoon after we were given the “How to Not Get Eaten” talk at Greystoke for a special real life edition of On Safari: In search of the vetpanzee. (more…)
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Dr. V | Thursday | September 15, 2011 |
Many, many years ago, in college, a group of classmates went on a group trip to Africa to see wildlife and go on safari. As a biology major, this was pretty much the penultimate experience of a lifetime. As they all took off excitedly for the airport, I sat in my dorm room and sulked because I was a typical college student, and as such, had no extra funds for gallivanting across the globe.
I grew up idolizing Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, dreaming those typical romanticized dreams of the Out of Africa experience, and have been nursing a desire to go on a safari pretty much non-stop ever since. Other people’s bucket lists may have things like going to Lake Como or standing on top of the Eiffel Tower, but for me, this is and has always been top on my list of Things I Want To Do Before It’s All Over.
After thirty-somethingcoughcough- years of wishing, hinting, and gazing enthralled at the Nat Geo Channel, I finally get to go. It’s not a working trip (though with my luck I will probably end up treating something for something, and that’s fine by me). It is a vacation, and one I’ve been saving for and planning out in excruciating detail for about a year. I’ve been planning it my entire life, of course, but from an executable standpoint, one year. We are going to Tanzania, because that’s where the chimps live.
I’m going to Lake Tanganyika, to the Mahale Mountains just south of Gombe where Jane Goodall lived for so many years. You get to track chimps there. Despite my best attempts to convince my husband to also go fly camping in the middle of the Katavi Wilderness with an armed guard to watch for lions, he kind of didn’t really care for that portion of my suggested itinerary so we are finishing the trip with a more traditional safari in Tarangire Park where you view the large carnivores from the safety of a moving vehicle. (The Serengeti is also in Tanzania and would have been my first choice, but the timing is wrong for the big migration.)
I tell you all of this because, well, I’ll be blogging about it of course though I have a suspicion the wifi situation might be iffy out in the middle of Africa, and two, because we are leaving on September 23. Two days before the rescheduled Surf Dog a Thon. So I will tell you what I told Mike Arms when he asked me what could possibly be more important than surf dog, and the answer is, “NUMBER ONE ON MY BUCKET LIST AIEEEE I AM SO EXCITED I CAN’T EVEN TYPE PROPERLY!!!!” Which, by the way, he totally understood.
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Dr. V | Friday | January 21, 2011 |
My front yard is currently in a tremendous state of disrepair, due to a nasty trio of invasive ficus trees, an endangered water main and a threatening note from the homeowners association about the one brick that was out of place. It looked a bit like an archaeologic dig once the landscaper went after it with a mini excavator. Hey, that almost reminds me of something…..
da da da da, da da dum…. (more…)
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Dr. V | Friday | October 8, 2010 |
It takes all kinds of creatures to maintain homeostasis in a stable ecosystem. On the savannah, the laboceros and the goldenbeast have achieved an uneasy tolerance.
Despite limited resources, the denizens of the plains have managed to carve out their own niche, and peace is maintained.
Usually.
(more…)
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Dr. V | Monday | May 17, 2010 |
It’s springtime on the savannah, and our Goldenbeast is growing up.
With his first birthday rapidly approaching, the Goldenbeast is reveling in his newfound authority, standing on the precipice of adulthood just as springtime waits to ascend into summer.
He has, for example, taken ownership of prime savannah real estate.
(more…)
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Dr. V | Monday | March 15, 2010 |
No single person has a more challenging job at the reserve than the game warden.
His role is to maintain healthy populations that remain diverse. Every so often, this includes the introduction of a new species into daily life on the savannah.
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Dr. V | Monday | January 25, 2010 |
Behold the desert savannah. Usually a placid Garden of Eden for goldenbeasts and jungle ocelots alike, this tranquil landscape has been torn apart by a rare and brutal lashing from Mother Nature.
How does the mighty Goldenbeast adapt to disruption? Can he survive the transformed landscape?
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Dr. V | Friday | October 9, 2009 |
Our cameraman has spent months, nay, years, stalking the elusive Domestic Jungle Ocelot. His patience has finally been rewarded.
He is usually a nocturnal creature. At night, when the denizens of the day have retired, he emerges from the depths of the garage and stalks his prey. Namely, veterinarians.
Oblivious to her imminent doom, the veterinarian slumbers. She wakes up to the silent kneading on her chest as the ocelot sucks out her her life’s breath and bites her on the forehead. And all she sees in the last seconds of her life are two shiny yellow eyes.
What could lure this retiring creature from his dark daytime sarcophagus?
Birthday balloons needing popping.
A short distance away on the savannah, the archenemy of the domestic ocelot- the Goldenbeast- slumbers.
The ocelot is safe, for now.
Or is he?
The Goldenbeast’s sense of smell is keen.
The ocelot senses the presence of a predator. Does he stand his ground, or flee?
With the sixth sense that has ensured his survival for so many years, the ocelot has divined what we have not.
The Goldenbeast is tethered, unable to leave the confines of the lowlands.
What has brought the Goldenbeast to this lowly fate?
STEALING THE KILL OF THE HEAD BEAST WHILE THE OTHER BEASTIES WERE OPENING BIRTHDAY PRESENTS! THIS IS A BAD, BAD GOLDENBEAST!!!!
(This was a seriously tragic way to learn he could reach the plateau of the tabletop.)
The ocelot cannot help but laugh at the folly of the naive young beast.
He remains, as always, king of the jungle.
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Dr. V | Friday | September 18, 2009 |
In this episode of On Safari, we follow a curious young Goldenbeast cub as he explores the world around him.
Behold the mighty Goldenbeast. Part Golden, part beast, all hunter.
We first spot the notoriously elusive beast at the water hole.
We sneak in for a better look, trying our best to be quiet.
But our paltry skills are no match for the mighty beast’s superior hearing! He licks his chops in anticipation!
And he springs into attack mode!
Oh no! Tell the cameraman to RUN!
Fortunately he is easily distracted.
Exhausted from this 10 second burst of energy, our predator returns to his nest for an afternoon siesta.
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Dr. V | Saturday | March 14, 2009 |
Today we venture to the savannah in search of the elusive Goldenbeast.
His vibrant coat is in stark contrast to the lush greenery. He is better suited for camouflage in his native environment, the leather couch.
He settles down at the edge of the plains with the remains of his latest kill.
But the savannah is a popular destination for wildlife viewing, and it doesn’t take long for the tourists to swoop in to try and steal a hug.
Uh oh. There is a whole busload of them.
The Goldenbeast doesn’t stand a chance.
Truth be told he doesn’t seem to mind all that much, though. It is the nature of the Goldenbeast.
Look! A Poodleot is sneaking in from the side to try and steal the Goldenbeast’s well earned vittles.
He’s small, but canny. First: lure the hominids away from his target. A distracting dance usually does the trick.
Victory is his! The Goldenbeast slinks away to take solace on his couch.
