No Collars @ 26 June

Dr. Mike Loomis has put 21 days (June 6-26) of Elephants of Cameroon field diary entries up on Field Trip Earth.

Arriving flights went well for passengers, luggage and equipment this time.

Some bureaucratic, traffic and health complications are experienced in the first week. Dr. Mike reports: "bitten by midges...significant local reactions..."

A "cola ceremony" [14 June 2012] sends the team off from Ndogmem Nord for a "two and one half hour hike" which "turned out to be a seven hour hike", including the fording of "a couple rivers that were waist deep."

15 June they get close enough to elephants to load a dart in the rifle, but immediately lose the tracks. The next day, they burn down a poacher's camp.

17 June was not a good day. Rain soaks Mike and his equipment. He takes a few falls and two team members are lost overnight. "No one slept that night." 18 June is mainly spent finding the "tired and hungry" duo. Mike's new air mattress and pillow are leaking and he is "now sleeping on the ground".

Two more days of hiking and not finding elephants are, at least, followed [20 June] by a "great" dinner of "fish spaghetti".

26 June is the latest entry to date. Back in Limbe, Mike and others prepare for the next field mission. They "will return to the Ebo Landscape, but will head towards the Makambe River, which is the direction we think the elephants were heading at the end of the last mission."