Ilgwezi Cattle Collaring:
Cattle tagging was an idea that was flown around by Iain sometimes back, to see how cattle or livestock in general can interact with wildlife particularly elephants who seem to be having wide and far ranges.
March 11, after the entire plan was finalized with main parties, STE Iain DH) Lewa (Iain Craig) and Henrik who makes collar’s. I met up with Henrik in Lewa so that we can go ahead and deploy this collars both in Ilgwezi and Tasia area.
When we arrived at Lewa offices, we found Mr. Lekinyagaa the community office waiting to go with us. He briefed the team where the boma’s are, before we took off.
After an-hour we arrived at the first Boma, and we started talking to the community showed them the collars. Everyone was interested to see what the collars looked liked! The first comment was from the owner of the cow. And he said!
The collar looked to be loose on the animal. We appreciated the observation and promised to return as soon as possible to fix that.
Other thing they suggested was that, if we could make a bell and attach at the bottom of the collar? Which sounded like good idea. Their argument was, if cattle raiders happens to raid their herds they can easily realize that the strange thing on the cow, which will result into shooting of the animal or cut the belt.
The same kind of questions and challenges were faced on the second operation, where the collar looked loose. What happens if my cow get stack in some branch since this collar is loose? We concluded by talking to the people how we will soon look into the issues raised and at end of it all they seemed to be ok with collars and we said Kwaheri to them.
This are the first ever cattle collars to be deployed, were all hoping we can get some interesting results once we deploy the collars across the intended study area