Dr. Hoof Stock

The intact male, M42Y “Douglas” respectfully followed and mounted F63Y persistently.

I did not see Toby the whole time, although I looked everywhere for him.

Behavior of M42Y was very much like the vasectomized male “Lucifer”.

A juvenile male interacted with M42Y, who arched his neck but was gentle, not escalating beyond a horn dip.

Although it rained from midnight through 3 pm, the waterbuck were visible much of the time.

The pasture is green 2-4 inches of grass.  Under the junipers on the top of the mesa by the cheetah cages, the annual grasses are green with good coverage.  The ephemeral ponds have inches of water, but the larger tanks are still down 4-6 ft.

Highlight was the sandhill crane chasing the turkey who started displaying too near the safari tank.

…more details to follow…

P.S. I met with Kelley, Adam, Roy, Hollie, Curt on Fri.

Jane

May 4, 2009- Adam E. released Y42 “Douglas” in  the main pasture at 9:00am.  Initially, Y42 wandered around and was alert and even easily displayed by vehicle sounds and the other species.  He grazed near the addax and gemsbok.  He went out of view just North of the Juniper for a hour. After supplement feeding, Y42 first interaction with the female waterbuck was at 11:17am.  He began courting the female with the calf born in Feb. 2009.  All the females were alert and ran from him and then circled back to him.  He would run mid-speed to the females he was courting.  The calf born in Feb. followed and sniffed Y42 for about 10 mins.  The juvnile buds did the same thing after the calf.

After lunch, “Toby” was spotted near cheetah exhibits with four females.  All were lying down.  That was the only time I was “Toby” the entire time. Y42was out of view for 2 hours then was grazing and thrashing ground near Safari Camp.  He wandered around Juniper Loop a few times before going out of view.

May 5, 2009, Y42 was near cheetah exhibits with the same females “Toby” was near the day before.  Y42 laid down most of the time.  Curt was burning juniper piles and it was raining ash.  He then courted an untagged female and Y58.  He stayed deep into the juniper cover grazing until he was completely out of view at 2pm.

Note: Red tag and blue tag female were not seen the entire time.  Adam tagged a female Y672.  She maybe the mother of the calf born in Feb.  She was attentive and “affectionate” but not nursing.  So we cannot say for sure just yet.

Renee Jones