KGALAGADI CHEETAH TRACKING

The Bateleurs has again undertaken to support the work of Gus Mills and the Kgalagadi Cheetah Project by providing regular flights to track and record, via GPS, the movements of a number of collared cheetah in the Kgalagadi Reserve. The first of these flights in 2009 took place on 31st January, and we are very pleased and proud to report that it was flown by a brand new Bateleurs volunteer member, Andre van Niekerk, based in Upington. This is the report we received from Gus Mills:

Report from Gus Mills of the Kgalagadi Cheetah Project

“Because of the large ranges of Kgalagadi cheetahs it is extremely helpful to be able to track our radio-collared animals from the air. On Saturday 31st January, Andre van Niekerk a new Bateleurs pilot from Upington, kindly gave up his time to do a tracking flight in his Robinson 44 helicopter. It was a very hot day and even with the helicopter door off, and at 2,000 feet above ground, the air was hot! However, between 09h30 and 11h00 we covered most of the southern area of the park and managed to locate six of our collared cats - something that would have taken us at least two days to do from the ground, and with no guarantee that we would have found all of them. The only disappointment was that we did not find one of our females with a large cub up near Mata Mata. I have subsequently heard that she is in the area so it seems that there may be a problem with her collar. Hopefully, as it is a new collar, it has simply drifted slightly off frequency.

The most interesting observation was to find two males deep inside the territory of two other males. This is most unusual. We also located the resident males about 12 km from them. We have spent the last two days following these males and although they have started to move back to their own territory, they are still inside that of the original two. Fortunately these territories are large, several hundred square kilometres, so the two rival groups have not met up. If they did there would be trouble! The question is why? At the moment we are at a loss to understand this, but we will try to monitor the situation. Unfortunately we have had to leave them today because we need to go out tomorrow to check up on one of the females we located, to see if she has cubs.

Normally we expect to find all the animals, but not having found the female near Mata Mata, whose collar may be malfunctioning, led to our failing to find our most wide-ranging female. We spent more time than usual searching for the Mata Mata cheetah, and so did not have enough time to locate the other wide-ranging female. Nevertheless the mission was a great success and is hugely appreciated.”

Bataleurs: Comparative Count of Dugongs

The Bateleurs supported a count of Mozambique's Dugongs in February this year, when the exercise yielded alarming reports of decreasing numbers of these gentle sea creatures. In September a comparative count was conducted, and this is the short report prepared by Paul Dutton, a Bateleurs pilot and ecologist. The flying for this mission was performed by volunteer pilots Chris Rattray and Etienne Oosthuizen.

Surveying Bazaruto National Park's Elusive Mermaids : 3-7 September 2008, by Paul Dutton

Full Story here Comparative Count of Dugongs

Nora Kreher (Red Baroness) - Bateleurs

09 Nov 2008
Mission accomplished for Bateleurs' Red Baroness
James Clarke (Sunday Independent)

The conservation movement in South Africa has lost one of its most successful and energetic activists with the death of Nora Kreher of Westcliff, Johannesburg.

Kreher - known to many as the "Red Baroness" - was the founder of the Bateleurs, a voluntary "environmental air force" that has achieved a great deal throughout Southern Africa since it was formed 10 years ago.

Kreher got the idea of forming a voluntary air wing for conservation purposes during the campaign to stop the mining of Lake St Lucia's Eastern Shore dunes in the early 1990s. St Lucia is now a World Heritage Site.

Kreher was at the forefront of that battle which resulted in the biggest petition in South Africa's history.

Dr Ian Player of KwaZulu-Natal had organised volunteer private pilots to fly politicians and officials over the St Lucia dunes and over the nearby Richards Bay mining concession. They were able to see the impact of mining along the Richards Bay dunes and consequently refused the mining licence.

Realising the value of aerial surveys and realising, too, that conservation groups and even government agencies were often unable to afford vital air reconnaissance and surveillance, Kreher devised a non-profit, non-political corps of volunteer flyers that would undertake aerial missions throughout Southern Africa without payment.

The Bateleurs now has 120 pilots and, since 1998, it has flown hundreds of missions using fixed-wing aircraft and microlights. They have performed aerial surveys of a wide range of land abuse cases and helped in illegal land-use investigations as well as wetland rehabilitation schemes. They have undertaken wildlife population counts and relocated various mammals and birds. They have even counted vulture eggs from the air.

Player, a close friend, described Kreher as a "very brave and noble lady [who was] critically helpful to the Wilderness Leadership School", which gives young people the chance to appreciate the importance of the African wilderness.

Kreher's life as an environmental activist began after she experienced a Zululand wilderness trail with Player.

Kreher was recently quoted as saying: "We may have some of the most sophisticated environmental laws in the world, but people and corporations are still getting away with murder because of both enforcement apathy and simple ignorance.

"By taking the issue to the sky, we are able to help organisations monitor urgent situations and gather photographic evidence needed for public education and legal action."

Paul Dutton, another friend of Kreher and one of the volunteer Bateleurs, said: "It has been a great honour to fly in her squadron. I felt very humbled by a call from her [just before she died] - the warmth and good cheer so typical of her friendship still evident even when she knew the end was so near.

"The Red Baroness had flown her final mission. How we will all miss her!"

When, in 1977, Ian Player organised the world's first World Wilderness Congress in Johannesburg - now held every four years in different cities around the world - Kreher helped fund it by organising a concurrent international wildlife art exhibition. It remains the biggest ever seen in South Africa.

Kreher was a founder of the National Parks Support Group and a trustee of the Wilderness Leadership School.

She was born in Johannesburg and went to Parktown Girls High. In 1957 she married Roland Kreher (a founder of Cargo Motors). The couple celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary not long before Roland died in October last year.

The couple were intrepid travellers and together explored both polar regions and Alaska as well as some remote parts of Russia (from which Kreher's parents came), the Middle East, India, China and the Americas.

As a result they had a worldwide circle of friends - many of them renowned conservationists - who were frequent guests at the Krehers' home on Westcliff Ridge.

Kreher leaves a son, Sven, and a daughter, Corinna, both of Johannesburg.

Earth From Above

Photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand will bring his work back to the United States - to New York City for the first time in 2009. Aiming to inspire people to think globally about sustainable living, Arthus-Bertrand has been photographing unique views of our planet, seen from the sky, since 1994

Earth from above

link via boston.com

Climate change photographic competition

We are looking for creative, attention-grabbing or poignant images that express the impact of climate change on people and the environment in Africa. Send us your photographs and you could be the winner of the fabulous Nikon D90 with 18-105 VR lens, valued at R15 999. In addition to an overall winner, a Nikon D60 with a 18-55mm lens valued at R6 999 will be awarded for the best aerial photograph (taken from above, but not necessarily from an aircraft).

Kgalagadi Cheetah Project Tracking Flight

Friday the thirteenth of June might have been unlucky for the superstitious, but not for the pilots of The Bateleurs and the researchers of The Tony and Lisette Lewis Foundation's Kgalagadi Cheetah Project. The day before Jay van Deventer had kindly flown from Gauteng to Twee Rivieren in his nifty little motorized glider. Up until then the week had been characterized by strong winds, but by Thursday they had died down and Friday was an ideal day for flying. We currently have 8 cheetahs radio collared and it is a tall order keeping track of all of them. After fitting the antennae to the wheel struts Jay and I took off at 10 am. By 1400 we had located all 8 individuals and managed to get visuals on half of them. Because they range so widely it is virtually impossible to locate all of them from the ground in a week. Once again we are indebted to the Bateleurs for their much valued support for our project and look forward to future flights. Each flight is invaluable for this important cheetah conservation project.

Gus Mills

Nkululeko

The Dolphin Coast North Coast KwaZuluNatal whose beaches were once recipient of Blue Flag status and holiday Mecca for visitors became South Africa's first victim of our planet's irreversible climate change. Tourism entrepreneurs offering holiday venues "on the beach front" found their installations either teetering over the edge of the beach or in some cases sharing the tide with Dolphins. Broken sewerage systems spewed raw effluent onto the swimming beaches, black flags replaced blue and visitors stayed away. That was March 2007 when the autumn equinox, a cyclone in the Mozambique channel and strong on-shore wind came together to wreck havoc in a matter of hours. Mdloti to Ballito and was wiped off the tourist map. I was also a victim that day when a Tsunami sized wave swept me and my friend Meg Jordan over a wall and left bleeding and somewhat broken on the beach requiring the help of a local Titan Wayne Labuschagne who helped us out seconds before the arrival of another wave.

One year later a lone hippopotamus, seemingly a messenger of hope, suddenly appeared in the shore break off Ballito. Once empty car parks filled to capacity it seemed like a holiday mood had returned to the depressed Dolphin Coast. Another hippo called Huberta that walked and swam from St Lucia to the Eastern Cape over a two and a half years in 1934 captured the imagination of the nation getting more media coverage than the spectre of an approaching world war. Sadly her journey was cut short when two ignorant farmers shot her and she now stands mute as an exhibit in a museum. The latest wanderer became another flagship icon a relief from the xenophobia, crime, and economic woes that dominated the media. At last we could send some good news from our troubled country. Bateleurs flying for the environment in Africa once again responded to my call for help supporting daily flights in ZS-DLI Spirit of the Wilderness tracking the peregrinations of our hippo as it wandered beaches at night seeking pasture and sanctuary in various estuaries of the North Coast. Naming the hippo (Freedom) won Ms Maryann Grafetsberger a prize of an hours flight in Spirit of the Wilderness helping track the hippo by its distinctive spoor above the high water left from the previous evenings wandering. Finally Nkululeko found the Mdhloti River with its fresh water and abundant pasture but this was short lived when the custodians of KZN's wildlife without attempting to capture and translocate the animal had it shot at night as it grazed the banks of the river. A local man had been found dead with head wounds for which Nkululeko was accused as perpetrator. Nkululeko was unceremiosly dumped in a landfill without even determining its sex and we still do not have the details of the autopsy that was supposedly done on the dead man. I do not for one moment believe that Nkululeko was responsible for the man's death. Once having been a game ranger in KZN the killing of this icon by the wild life authority iZemvelo bespeaks so much as to how little thought is given to caring for our country's natural wild treasures.