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The Game Warden's Editorial

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Notes from the Game Warden


Game Warden

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I've finally uploaded a short series of images taken during my visit to the Bronx Zoo.

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This first shows the close proximity in which you are to the 2 groups: unlike many other zoos just thick glass separates you and whilst making photography somewhat difficult allows a close up experience to be had. Here my daughter looks at one of the silverbacks: I wonder what he is thinking?

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The gorillas had been inside for the whole winter but the day were there was their first day out so they were happy to be released and their behaviour evidenced this fact. There were a number of young gorillas in both the families.

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When we arrived in the Congo centre there was a large group of school children and lots of noise - the gorilla area is in a special walk through exhibits hall. I was talking with one of the volunteers and she told me just to sit down and wait - at this time they hadn't been let out.

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But soon after the school party had departed she brought me to view the doorway and together with her, my daughter and wife we saw the gorillas come out and literally it was just us and maybe a couple more people.

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So we really were privileged and for a few minutes we were able to observe them without obstruction. And whilst the adults seemed habituated to the fact of being stared at the juveniles liked to run up to the glass and bang on it, or sit face to face with you.

The Congo exhibit proved to be the highlight of the day as I knew it would be: it has such a reputation for being an amazing experience and it certainly lived up to it.

For those who can't get to the Bronx Zoo, an online tour of the exhibit is available here:

www.congogorillaforest.com/congohome

and the work of the Wildlife Conservation Society can be seen here:

www.wcs.org/international

Some recent site development has taken place on Safaritalk bringing the forum more in line with original projections and thus more focus is being placed on conservation and community initiatives. There are a plethora of travel websites on the net which can better deal with such specific questions relating to travel in Africa though as can be seen The Trip Reports section remains with the hope that more members will post their recollections of Africa here.

The index page of the site has undergone slight revision with a new navigation box, "Latest Newsletters". Every time an updated newsletter or appeal is added to the site, be it conservation or community related a link to it will be provided here.

I'd like to thank all of those who have contributed to the Honey thread, Honey the cheetah, a tribute in photographs. There are almost forty images uploaded now and the number of page views is well over a thousand and whilst some of those can be attributed to me editing the thread the majority reflect the large amount of interest in her: we can only hope that fresh news of the incident which led to her death is forthcoming and lessons, if any, are to be learnt.

Leading on from Honey, there is a new section Photography and multimedia: here one can find the Honey thread, the You Tube safari video thread and it is my hope to include more content including videos and images in the future. Of course in the meantime should you wish to start your own topic here which relates to the forum please feel free to do so. This area also includes a subforum called Photography talk - equipment and techniques: now I know there are many photography forums out there but perhaps this area will lead to some interesting safari and wildlife photography discussions in the future.

And just to round off this edition of "Notes from the Game Warden" I'd like to thank Keith Frank, lead designer of Metalaxe, www.metalaxe.com for providing graphic assistance in the form of the new icons you will see in the forum. As someone who values conservation efforts he volunteered his time for nothing abd thus has vastly improved the look and functionality of Safaritalk. And so with these icons now uploaded the forum is complete, (hopefully) in terms of its appearance and should anyone wish to provide feedback I'd like to see what you think.

So, until next time,

Safari Njema,

The Game Warden

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