Saw a puff adder yesterday, crawling across the road out of the woods next to our camp. Makes me feel nervous to realize that there really IS venomous snakes in the area around camp. Makes me think twice about stumbling into the woods to pee every morning. I’m usually not all that alert when walking around camp at night. I think out here its very easy to feel very complacent and safe even in camp and then when you see an elephant right outside your tent one night its kind of a reality check. Dave and Wes were discussing the likelihood of surviving a walk in daylight from Egyptian goose watering hole back to camp which is about 10km and I think they decided on 30% with the main factor being if they encountered buffalo or not. In the car buffalo are not very dangerous at all, as far as I can tell they never charge just stand and stare or run away. We drove straight through the middle of a herd of 300 buffalo yesterday in the Maruti when I went with Dave on a loop of his territory. On foot though is probably an entirely different story. 

However I still have a hard time believing it would be that low…there’s not usually any animals right on the road and even predators are very shy and would likely run away. Elephants and buffalo are pretty easy to see and could be avoided if careful. Maasai herders walk through the park regularly though they create quite a bit of noise and disturbance with their cows but even rangers will walk from the gate to their camp several kilometers away on regular basis, granted they carry rifles with them, but how often do they use them? I think by default I err on the side of things being fine (my occasionally destructive optimism) but being charged by elephants multiple times has made me more cautious about them, and seeing the number of car problems we have out here has definitely made me a better and more cautious driver.

Wes is leaving in a few days to vacation with his family in Italy and Dave, Julie, and the IRES students only have about a week left here before they trade with Julia, Emily, and another IRES student. Dave and I have been experimenting with calorie-restriction and fasting for the health benefits such as longevity, resistance to cancer, and lower-stress. But I have to be careful to not start losing weight! So we'll see if I can keep it up without Dave in camp to motivate me anymore. 

We found Marten today, Wes, Julie, and Moira found her yesterday for the first time this month which is a huge relief because it means that we haven’t lost a collar and Korben won’t be orphaned, though he is just barely old enough that he could make it even though he is still nursing. She led both cars on a goose chase around south until Dave decided to call it quits around 9:30. Hopefully we’ll find her again tomorrow so we can replace her collar! She is the lowest ranking animal in south so she’s ideal to have a collar on and the other lower ranking females don’t have cubs so they would not be good collar candidates.