Selinda pack pups focus intently on their mother waiting to be ‘released’ from the den area to play.
© Bill Given

Virtually all of our clients that have the good fortune to view painted dogs mention it as a top highlight because of their fascinating social behaviors and high activity levels. All of this lends to great photo opportunities but because of their quick action and multi-colored coats getting spot on photographs is challenging.

Award winning photographer, Russell Johnson, who conducts an annual photo workshop with The Wild Source has just produced an outstanding free eBook full of excellent advice on photographing African wild dogs. You can download a copy of this great photographic guide here. We are also currently offering space in Russell’s Botswana Photographic Workshop so please contact us to get more details.

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This past week the May/June edition of my monthly safari newsletter, The Roar! was released.

Featured this month was more about Conditioned Taste Aversion research - the attempt to keep lions (and other predators) from preying on livestock. In addition to research in the field here in the United States with cougars, I actually had the wonderful opportunity to meet with the head of the Kenya Wildlife Service to present him and his staff with my findings.

While in Kenya, I also had time to visit the Msai Mara region and had some wonderful experiences which I share in the newsletter.

I also discuss a new destination - Naboisho Conservancy - which is just now open for guests. You can get the details on Naboisho in the newsletter.

Also in this month's edition of The Roar! is the latest featured trip - Big Cats & The Migration 2012. I'll be leading this safari. Be sure to sign up for the newsletter to get the full itinerary.

Sign up for the newsletter now to get all of this month's news as well as safari deals and news from safari camps around Africa.

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This week, I released the April, 2011 edition of my monthly safari newsletter, The Roar!

As usual, this month's newsletter is full of very interesting content - both from Africa, as well as a bit closer to home.

I recently returned from my Big Cat Safari in Africa. The sightings far exceeded expectations - it was by far the best cat viewing I've ever witnessed. The seasoned safari goers that I travelled echoed my thoughts on the amazing viewing.

Within this month's newsletter, I also discuss - in great depth - how vital it is to break away from the crowds in East Africa in order to achieve an optimal game viewing experience. I've already received quite a few comments about the East Africa game viewing, so I plan on including some of my thoughts in an upcoming blog post.

In addition to my travels to Africa, I've also been conducting my Conditioned Taste Aversion (CTA) research with wolves in conjunction with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Details are in the newsletter, and more information about the research will be coming in future blog posts.

If you aren't signed up yet, you should really sign up now. Subscribe to get the April Newsletter which contains details on the above items along with the following items:

As an extension of National Geographic’s Big Cat Initiative, the Nat Geo Wild Channel is having Big Cat Week, a full week of shows featuring Africa’s big cats and including a number of new programs along with some old classic films. The Big Cat Initiative is an aggressive conservation program focused on securing the future of the fast dwindling populations of big cats.

The episodes will be a mix of educating on some of the latest conservation efforts such as the Lion Guardian program and it will also include some films that simply document the wild lives of big cats including Eye of the Leopard filmed by Mombo Camp and Relentless Enemies featuring the dynamic between lions and buffalo at Duba Plains in Botswana. The series kicks off Monday, December 6th with Big Cat Odyssey featuring the lives of famed filmmakers Dereck and Beverly Joubert intertwined with big cats. The Jouberts are the driving force behind the Big Cat Initiative. Below is some more info on the series:

Big Cat Odyssey

Premieres Monday, December 6, at 9PM ET/PT

Award-winning filmmakers and National Geographic Explorers-in-Residence Dereck and Beverly Joubert set out 30 years ago on a quest to get close to big cats. Big Cat Odyssey chronicles their meticulous work over three decades of filming, photographing and documenting the behavior of big cat species in Botswana. They follow lions and leopards through Africa’s harshest climatic extremes, gaining unprecedented access and catching some of the most extreme cat sequences ever filmed. An entire lion pride battles a large buffalo to down the beast. A blood feud erupts when scavenging hyenas move in on the kill. Leopards creep from the bushes to hunt and retreat into the trees before falling prey to larger killers. Beyond the blood and gore lies a stark reality: Big cats kill to live and live to kill.

Leopard Queen

Premieres Tuesday, December 7, at 9PM ET/PT

Filmmaker John Varty, who filmed a wild female leopard for 17 years, opens an extraordinary window into the lives of Africa’s most secretive big cat. Leopard Queen follows the life of “Manana,” a wild leopard whose territory spans the heart of the Londolozi Game Reserve in South Africa. Manana is plagued by other predators that steal her kills, threaten her cubs and hold her hostage in the treetops. Yet despite the hardship of life as a female leopard, she survives for an incredible 17 years, an age few wild leopards live to see, and in the process, provides a greater understanding of this extraordinary species.

Lion Warriors

Premieres Wednesday, December 8, at 9PM ET/PT

On the Great Plains below Mt. Kilimanjaro in Kenya, lions are attacking Maasai cattle, as they have for hundreds of years. And the proud Maasai warriors have hunted them ruthlessly in return so that now only about 2,000 remain in the country. If their numbers drop any lower, their populations will not be sustainable. Now the Maasai elders and chiefs are recognizing that the threat to the lions is also a threat to their way of life, and have forbidden the warriors to hunt them. Wildlife filmmaker Kire Godal, with the support of executive producers Dereck and Beverly Joubert, captures firsthand the struggle of these modern-day warriors, who are reinventing their traditions to help save the lions they once prided themselves on killing.

Lions on the Edge

Premieres Thursday, December 9, at 9PM ET/PT

Ruaha National Park in Tanzania used to be a true paradise for wildlife gathered around the rich Ruaha riverbanks. Now, the worst drought in decades is pushing all the animals on a march to find water. The animals follow the dry riverbed upstream for water, while circling prides of lions position themselves close by, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. It’s predator vs. prey in dangerously close quarters.

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Born to Move on National Geographic

A large crossing of the Mara River by the Great Migration as wildebeestleap into the river for a dangerous swim to reach a different grazing area. This crossing of thousands of wildebeest and zebra was witnessed by clients of The Wild Source in the Northern Serengeti in September.
©Photo courtesy and copyright Don Dubin.

National Geographic is airing a new seven part series on great migrations around the globe and examining the driving principles that create migrations. No migration is more iconic than the movements of over 1 million wildebeest along with a couple hundred thousand zebra and gazelles throughout the Serengeti ecosystem including Serengeti National Parka and surrounding areas in Tanzania and Kenya’s Masai Mara Reserve.

As this spectacle has long been called the Great Migration it of course features in this series as part of the very first segment called Born to Move airing on November 7th on the National Geographic Channel. The wildebeest migration will also feature on November 9th on the Science of Great Migrations Episode.Guide to episodes, photos and video previews can be accessed here

National Geographic's Race to Survive - November 14th

While the wildebeest migration is without a doubt the best known migration in the world there are a number of fascinating other migrations in Africa and beyond that will be featured in this series.

In Africa, famed filmmakers Dereck and Beverly Joubert have filmed Botswana’s zebra migration. It is still a large migration but has been decimated from its original size due to veterinary fences. I therefore anticipate this part of the series will show just how delicate migrations are, very topical as a planned road bi-secting the wildebeest migration in the Serengeti continues to loom on the horizon. Botswana’s zebra migration airs November 14th in an episode titled Race to Survive.

Need to Breed airing on November 7th is an episode I’m particularly looking forward to see as it features the extraordinary migration of over 1 million white-eared kob, a stunning antelope in Southern Sudan. Due to war and strife in Sudan this was a forgotten migration, assumed devastated but a few years back scientists finally returned to survey the area and were astounded with what they found – a major migration with numbers rivaling the wildebeest migration. As the region continues to be extremely difficult for tourists to reach this will be a great look at a hidden secret and a place that could become a safari gem of the future.

Desert adapted elephant carefully browses in Damaraland, Namibia. Photo © Bill Given

Feast or Famine, Science of Migrations

Elephants are also well known for migrations and the series will feature the challenging journey of elephants in Mali during the Science of Migrations segment on November 9th. Desert adapted elephants also feature on November 14th on the Feast or Famine episode.

This looks to be an epic series, which should be a refreshing change for nature lovers from the barrage of 30 minute sensationalized nature television that is dominant right now, often using canned footage and forced situations to make filming cheap and quick. This is a 3 year, round the planet effort that I hope will be more along the lines of the classic Trials of Life with fascinating education mixed with stellar film work.

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