SAVING THE CHEETAHS / Behind the Scenes of Wildlife Conservation
what is going on everyone welcome to the channel we are here in ol Pejeta kenya and finally we are starting the cheetah project i'm so excited so something special that we're gonna do with this video is all proceeds that we make off of this video we're going to be donating to the organization so that means that you gotta watch this entire video from beginning to end watch the ads watch it multiple times watch it in the background while you're making your bed doing the dishes walking your dog tell your dog to watch it tell your mom and dad your grandpa your friends your father anyone tell anyone that you know to watch it share it send it on whatsapp instagram facebook help us help them and be part of the cheetah project so you'll see throughout the video all the things that we have done over the last four days of being here so come with us as we follow along the cheetah project team so instead of trying to explain to you guys basically what we're gonna do i'm going to let an expert talk to you about it my name is ravi perera and i am from the us from serendipity wildlife foundation and we are with the cheetah project and with me is kendall who's also a team leader our main purpose right here is to document the cheetahs here have a census we are actually going to be scouting around for the next few days and trying to locate cheetahs we're going to be doing camera traps we are going to do paw prints we are ideally trying to locate paw prints and matching them with a cheetah all at the same time so we can actually identify which cheetah the pawprint belongs to this is a huge area 90 000 acre acres so we're searching in a very very large area so it is a go for us with the cheetah project it's starting right now and our first stop is gonna be uh the camera trap that were actually installed yesterday so we're just gonna go do a quick checkup on those two cameras to make sure that they're still intact and that the elephant didn't you know take them off the tree because all elephants are elephants so as we are moving from point a to point b everyone stays on the lookout for cheetahs because after all that's why we're here so before anyone gets out the driver actually drives around the entire area just to make sure that we don't get a bad surprise when we're out so we are here going to check on one of the two camera traps that we put out yesterday we put one of these out at a watering hole which tends to be one of the more busy places um to find animals now when you look at a watering hole i'm sure you're thinking oh there should be a lot of water here but as you can tell this is more of a mud hole and that's because elephants actually came by and tore up some of the pipes that ol pejeta has to keep this stocked with water one of the most important reasons that we come and check our camera tops regularly is to make sure that the elephants don't come and take down our camera trap as well as the pipes while we can see that there has been some elephant activity in the area luckily our trap camera is still set up now let me open up a track camera now these are infrared lights one of the reasons why elephants are also attracted to them is because they can actually see the infrared lights so they could potentially come up here for some water and see this red light and it could aggravate them and then want to come and see what's going on with it since elephants love drinking a lot apart from what we have seen in the pipes this is one of the place where elephants come to drink but now it's dry we're gonna come through every couple days and pull out the sd card and put in a new one and we'll take the old one back and we'll load it into a computer and that way we'll see what photos this camera has actually captured so the first camera's safe go to the other one security round done we're good to get out so the second camera actually had to be moved to another tree because it was probably activated by some of that long grass that was near the camera so now it's all set and ready to go on the second tree and we're gonna do another checkup on that camera to see if it captures any cheetah tomorrow so on top of being part of the cheetah project ravi who's actually the guy in charge prepared a few extra surprises for us but also for you guys to create awareness around wildlife in general so we just saw the last two white rhinos in the world proving how conservancy is so so important and it's everyone's responsibility to do little things here and there okay see you guys okay so we just came back to our camp after a an amazing afternoon like i wasn't ready for that no i did not expect that at all my mind is still blown so now we are going to have a quick supper back at the camp and we're gonna go to bed because tomorrow is another another like bright and early morning i haven't done these early mornings since five six months ago so tracey is a little tired now i'm exhausted so quick supper lots of rest and tomorrow morning 6 a.m back out there with the cheetah project good morning guys so here it is our second day with the cheetah project i'm sure it's gonna be a great day right now we're waiting for driver kim and then we're gonna go to the research center to pick up kendall and ravi and we're gonna be on the go you ready i'm ready i actually had an amazing sleep last night so i feel so much better hopefully you guys had your coffee i did and that's why i'm happy as we were driving this morning we noticed some potential cheetah paw prints on the side of the road so we immediately pulled over as you can see here we have found some of the most identifiable paw prints we have put out a metric ruler so that we can upload them into a computer system using artificial intelligence this artificial intelligence will analyze the paw print and attempt to tell us whether this is a male or female whether it is young old and try to identify precise age from there as well as what species of animal we're looking at we're hoping this is a cheetah paw print we've collected the best image we could uploaded it to the cloud and since we're all about sharing information across organizations this is actually being sent to a partner organization for them to take a look at on our behalf this is actually the first time a cheetah study is being conducted here at ol pejeta so this is very important to putting together a robust finding for our report get a gps reading of this because we need that for the information of the exact spot that we are taking the paw print after trying to track cheetahs all morning it's time for a little break for breakfast it looks pretty good i'm hungry as usual it is so interesting to be with those guys and look at what they're doing they're literally using investigation and crime scene techniques to basically identify different types of wildlife so interesting back in the truck time to go again so we just stopped to do a scan around because we noticed some impala is looking in a certain direction so let's see so no predator this time so when searching for a specific animal in the wild in our case cheetah sadly we can't guarantee that we're gonna find them but there's other things that we are doing today like finding paw prints that we are actually documenting and sending to other scientists and they will be used from all around the world we're also making sure that our camera are still up and running changing batteries just like they're doing right now and after that we're gonna go back on the road and hopefully at some point find some cheetah the day is still young we still have tomorrow so high hopes so kendall just had a quick look at the camera that was installed by them and so far only zebras photos but their their cameras are actually going to stay there for another few days and hopefully they're going to be able to capture a few cheetah pictures so we were going to check out the second camera but there was a huge rhino in front of it so just had to wait it out a little bit so this camera actually took 348 pictures overnight uh from what we saw mainly wart hogs and giraffes but those pictures are going to be sent away and somebody's going to go through all of them and hopefully maybe there's going to be a cheetah or two now that our bellies are full of good food it's time to go back out there and just wish us luck guys we need to find some cheetah yeah i know we came here for the cheetah project but you cannot guarantee cheetahs no you can't guarantee and you know what the day before we arrived they had a fantastic day with cheetahs so they actually saw cheetah uh make a kill which is extremely rare so they were very lucky sadly we missed that but i have high hopes me too that we're gonna get at least one we got it let's go team so if off-road at enough road this would be it so we are going to certain places in old pejeta that nobody is really going and that's exactly why we have this sign in the front and in the back of the truck so ol pejeta is actually extremely dry almost all year long so because of that they actually installed ponds like this that are actually artificial sources of water for different animals so while driving we discovered this one that is actually full and there is the perfect tree right beside it about maybe 50 meters from it where we're gonna install another camera trap and hoping to get some animals and hopefully the cheetahs okay bye so guys we just came back to our camp which by the way is the sweet water by serena i'm gonna link this video down below if you're looking for an affordable safari option that could be the place for you but even though we didn't see cheetahs today sadly maybe tomorrow it was still a successful day we were able to find some possible cheetah print that were actually documented and will be sent to a database that scientists from all around the world will have access to so that's pretty good we also uh change some batteries and install some extra camera traps which hopefully will also get information about cheetahs over 400 photos were actually taken by those cameras overnight and will be sent to other volunteers that will analyze every single photo so hopefully there's going to be some good information on that but for tonight that's pretty much it um it's gonna be supper then probably another early sleepy sleepy time it's sprinkler alert so yeah uh supper back to bed pretty early because tomorrow another early morning because researchers never sleep and people that follow those researchers never sleep either so 6am we are ready to go back out there for another day with the cheetah project it's a little chilly this morning prepared yesterday but we're gonna make it because today is gonna be a good day because our driver guaranteed us cheetah today that's what he said yesterday we'll see he's smiling now i think he's stressed kim do you still uh stand by that yes i stand by my words okay perfect although this is nature but then we are trying our level best okay it's gonna be a good day yeah while we were looking for cheetahs we managed to find some lions so we just arrived to a top secret location where they prepared another surprise for us and i think this one is gonna be super cool so we just finished the dog tracking now we're gonna just have a quick look at the museum that's here at the ol pejeta this is the first cheetah project done at old pejeta we are trying to find cheetahs here in the area to determine how many they are we are taking photos of them we're trying to photograph every side and we're also trying to find paw prints so that we can potentially identify which paw prints belong to which cheetahs there's a lot of cool things and fun facts within that museum if you're here i would definitely check it out yeah very educational so now after this mind-blowing surprise with the dogs and a short visit at the museum we are back in the truck on the hunt for cheetahs yeah this time we're gonna find them guys well maybe tonight but we'll see it's awesome so we were supposed to be with the cheetah project for three days or two nights but we didn't see cheetahs yet and our mission is to create amazing content so we just booked an extra night and hopefully that's gonna give us two extra game drives we need to see some cheetahs yeah and at first i was getting so tired of getting up in the morning but now i'm like re-energized yeah like we're in the routine we're having fun yeah it's a good time you still promise me cheetahs yes i do okay i do okay i believe you so we just entered a different area of the park and it is beautiful here oh well there's giraffe there sorry so thanks to instagram we might have something yesterday somebody at the safari cottages here in old pejeta actually posted a video of a mother and a cub so two cheetahs so we are here at the safari cottages asking some for some more information i just talked to andy with the safari cottages and he confirmed that there have been a few cheetah sightings recently we're gonna go back up to the big plane that we were at earlier he says he's seen some cheetahs hunting there relaxing there so we're gonna go check it out guys it's not over until it's over we got one more drive high hopes staying positive kim's convinced he's like well we haven't seen one in two days so we're gonna see one tomorrow yeah have to yeah fingers crossed let's go to bed and try again tomorrow okay guys last morning with the cheetah project wish us luck good morning everybody good morning welcome on board we always say every day is a new day and every time is a new time and today is the first day of the rest of our life we need to make use of it let's see what's there for us okay let's go so that's something i've never seen before yeah those two giraffes were definitely mad at each other so guys even though we did not see cheetahs within the last few days it was very interesting to work with the people from the cheetah project i feel like we had the unique opportunity to learn more about the unique work that they're doing and important work as well yeah and it was fun to get to know each other too like i had a blast yeah it was it was a good time dave and tracey it was absolutely amazing to have you guys with us you are so enjoyable so friendly and such nice people thank you thank you for inviting us you know kendall and i on behalf of serendipity wildlife foundation would like to say a very very big thank you for coming here and we hope to see you in july and august you guys are perfect it was our pleasure we had a lot of fun tracey and i so and yes i'm sure we we're going to be back and uh and should i say when you come back the next time join us right from the start because you will see cheetahs yeah and not just cheetahs the cheetahs the the the tracking the chase the kill and the eating missed like the biggest event ever but we'll show you guys some good footage that they took from it thank you again very much it was our pleasure see you guys today so we've been here in ol pejeta with the cheetah project for four days now instead of three one extra days because you know but sadly now it's time for us to go yeah and we didn't see any cheetahs while we were here but it's not just seeing the cheetah set as part of this project like yes they're going to identify and they're going to keep tracking but we track some paw prints that are going to be sent off we installed cameras and we checked those cameras pretty much every day yeah and all that that data is sent to other volunteers who are actually going to go through it and analyze it and share it with other organizations as well and this project is not over this is not a week-long project like this is he was talking today could go into like the end of this year even beginning of next year because there's going to be more people come in a couple months as well to continue what we're doing but even though right now we think the the last estimate was at about a 30 cheetah we really think that there is less than that within the last four days there was only one sighting by the team and don't forget that those people were actually in communication with other tourist vehicles with the rangers and really like not much within the last few days making us think that the population is probably lower anyway so for now i really encourage you to check out their website that i'm going to link down below if you want to do a donation become a volunteer or just to get more information about what they're doing check it out it's worth it it's very interesting and otherwise well don't forget to like this video subscribe to the channel and see you guys in the next one
2021-02-23 01:36
