This project has challenged me in many ways so far, not least because I took it on so late in the year. I feel under constant time pressure with so much to catch up on and get done. Thankfully, I have a team of wonderful student volunteers who are passionate about carnivore biology and conservation! They have helped so much with processing my samples in their breaks between lectures and practicals, fitting it all into their busy schedules. So thanks guys!

Sieving is hard work

Student volunteers are the best!

Samples ready to go into the oven

The people who have helped me out so far are: Alveena Aziz, Caton Schutte, Clara Steyn, Dayna Hegarty, Kaelin Stemmet, Katherine Chaplin, Kyra McKellar, Lindsay Powell, Megan Pockalny, Michelle Pretorius, Shakirah Rylan, Tara van Ryneveld and Vivienne Coetzee. Thanks also go to some of the UCP interns who have become involved.

Gabi Leighton

Here are a few of the more interesting prey items found in the scat analysis so far. Most of the samples contain mammalian prey items (i.e. composed mainly of hair), and of those, most seem to be rodent. I still need to go through all those with hair and look at cross-sections under the microscope to identify the species (or at least to genus level). Nevertheless, these are the more exciting ones: