During my third week at CCF-Namibia, I assisted workers in the construction of a permanent game count watch station. The station is prefab and will be assembled after an appropriate water hole site is selected. Once completed the watch station will have recycled material complementing its steel frame work and will rest on a concrete slab. Some of our watch stations have been constructed with brick and mortar walls and heavy-duty corrugated aluminum roofs. However, this watch station will consist of used bottles and mortar walls and with lids from 5-gallon size cans laid in much the same manner in which a shingle roof is. The lids will be attached to a metal mesh. Thus, major components of this watch station will be considered "green" and in keeping with ecosystem practices.
The current game count watch stations are used very frequently in maintaining and tracking numbers of various species that roam freely throughout the Waterburg Conservancy. These counts, which are broken down by species, sex and age group assist CCF in realizing increases and decreases in the many different species. When numbers do appear out of 'whack,' then questions are raised over the various possibilities for eye-opening imbalances. In such cases game management techniques are sometimes applied in order to bring status quo numbers back into the biodiversity-ecosystem. In most cases, however, number changes are boundariless and reflect changes in weather patterns and diseases which affect all equally.
Out first eco-watch station will be installed over the next couple of weeks.
From Cheetah Land, that's it for now.
Ron Marks
CCF-Long term Volunteer
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