Mole National Park March 31 - April 3

Last weekend I had the opportunity to travel up to Mole national park with my Wildlife Management class. Mole park is in the northern region of Ghana, up near the boarder with Burkina Faso. It was a brutal 16 hour bus ride up to the park, complete with SUPER DUPER bumpy roads. The trip was 685 km As much as the transportation sucked, the trip was awesome. Thanks to a profound lack of picture quality, I am using very few of my own photos from the flip video. Instead ive borrowed some cool pictures from some of my great friends who are also in the Wildlife Management class.

A group of Baboons who live around the small camp that makes up the Mole park tourist area. 

The park is extremely isolated, with only very small villages in the area. In talking to the park rangers, I found out that they are in desperate need of increased infrastructure to keep up with the increasing demand from tourists. 

On the first day we were in the park, a group of us, under the supervision of Dr. Hallbeck, a Danish professor who has lived in Ghana for a very long time, went out to set up "misc nets." Misc nets are very fine nylon nets which are almost invisible to the unwary eye. Each one was 18 meters long and 3 meters high, and we would set them in the prime flight areas for the savannah birds. When the birds fly into the nets, they get hopelessly tangled until we come along to get them out. Our class was just learning about live capture techniques for the birds, but some zoology grad students who came up with us were taking blood samples to test for avian malaria and avian flu. 

 We captured some amazingly beautiful birds in the misc nets. The only sad part was a crow found one of the nets before we came back to check it, and it killed 3 of the birds in the net. Other than that it was a very successful bird capture technique.

I had to climb this tree to clear a branch that was in the way of the misc net. 

This a mosque in the town of Darabanga (sp?)  that is over 600 years old. Its a pretty amazing building. The only problem was that the local people in the area were very aggressive about taking our money. They would come up and tell you a few facts about the mosque then try and charge you money for the "tour" they just gave you. Haha, yeah right. 

We did not get to see any Elephants while we were in Mole. Apparently because of the rains that came last month there are still plenty of watering holes in the deep bush for the elephants to drink at, so they dont have to come to the big lake near the visitor center. Fortunately my friend Eryn took this picture the week before, when she and 2 other friends traveled to Mole on their own. 

According to the rangers there are over 450 Elephants living in the park. Poaching used to be a HUGE problem, and the rangers would spend the majority of their time doing anti-poaching patrols. More recently, with increased penalties for poaching and public education to raise awareness about the damage, poaching has become less of a problem. Still, 4 elephants were killed last year alone by poachers in the park. 

The park sends weekly anti-poaching patrols out, with each patrol lasting around 10 days. The rangers carry no back packs, no food, and only one water bottle along with their .305 rifle and 5 live rounds. In talking to James, a ranger who has been in the park for over 30 years, he says that everything you could possibly need is located in the park. They forage for fruits, nuts, and roots, drink from streams, and have medicinal plants to use as antibiotics. These guys are serious, serious survivahs. 

Above, my friend Eliza is sitting with some Elephant bones. Im pretty sure this one died of natural causes. 

The most amazing part about the skull was that the lower jaw alone weighed significantly more than the entire skull and upper jaw. hmmmmmmmmmm

When you have a beard and you find a feather on the ground, you HAVE to put it in your hat. 

                                 Just flying

 View looking out over Mole national park.

Some Crocodiles in the water hole

Sunset over the park. 

BIG ole MOON. ----people here are saying its upside down from the way it looks back home. My eyes were never good enough to make that distinction, but I figured Ghana is still in the northern hemisphere so I would think the moon would be the same. Tell me what you think!

Aloha,
Chase