Well it has been quite some time since we’ve given you an
update on what’s happening out in the Kalahari, so sit back and prepare
yourself for a tale of meerkats, technical complications, and heat! However, as
we have a lot to catch you up on, let’s break it down and start with the nitty
griity shall we?
Now, as you all know our Gosa gang have not been Live streaming
since mid-year, and many many many of you have deeply expressed your thoughts
and concerns regarding this. As time passed, your frustrations together with those
of the crew and our technical team have been mounting and we have not been able
to address this issue properly due mainly to the fact that we did not have any
time frame in which the problem could be fixed. But what is that problem you
ask? Well, it’s a complicated one that has two sides. The first is that the
meerkats disappeared for over a month. We’re unsure of the reasons but the
entire group moved out of the area and hence out of the Live coverage area of
the tower. After fruitless grid searches we never found where they went, but
luckily they decided to come back, albeit with a very skittish nature. The
second issue concerns the actual data link of the Live stream. Again, slightly
complicated but basically the signal that is sent out from our tower has been
progressively ‘choking’ which means that less and less data is able to be sent
due to some unknown issue on the signal link. However, as far as we can
determine, this ‘choking’ may be happening on the link outside of the reserve
which means that it is out of our hands and the issue needs to be dealt with by
the relevant service provider. These past few months have seen numerous tests
and countless hours spent trying to ascertain how we can streamline things more
on our side, however we have not made much progress and so still await the
verdict on the external data lines to try see what’s been going on. So, that’s
it in a nutshell, which is why crew updates have been few and far between
because we’ve had no internet at all. It’s not that we’ve forgotten about our
global meerkaters out there, it’s simply that we haven’t had the means to
communicate with you out here in the Kalahari.
As it stands now we are still desperately trying to rectify
the Live stream issue. If it comes to the point that we are just too isolated
out here to rectify it without throwing a few million dollars at the issue we
will obviously let you know, but we’re trying our best to get you back into the
action.
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| A cellphone capture of Kalahari Meerkats 3D at the film festival in Hollywood. You can see the seats in front. |
So what has been happening in the meantime? Well as most of
you know, the meerkat project is a 3D documentary production that was made Live
so that you, our intrepid global meerkat viewers, could watch and listen to us as we moved
through the Kalahari filming the meerkats, and true to form the crew and I have
still been filming religiously every day and we have filmed some incredible
events! Obviously all of this is for our Kalahari Meerkats 3D documentary and
so all that footage has made its way back to HQ and we are proud to say that we
are about to start editing Episode 6! It’s been 9 months since we landed here
and I am proud of my crew for the amazing production we have been working on.
Kalahari Meerkats Episode 1 even aired at a 3D film festival in Hollywood, with
yours truly on the big screen. Who would have imagined that this smelly meerkat
adventurer would have his mug showing up on the big time screen!?
But enough of technicalities and fancy film screenings! What
about the Gosa Gang?
Cleo and the Gosa gang have been doing fairly well over
these few weeks. The members are healthy and Cleo’s pregnancy went very well. I
expect the pups to come out the burrow any day now so stay tuned for that! Jacos
Dune group have had their pups and seem to be doing well, although they’re
still holding on to a section of the old Gosa gang territory but should start
venturing farther afield now that we’re into summer. Malaki is still together with Cleo and the two have become a formidable force. The Gosa gang are having to deal with an exceptionally hot start to the summer with temperatures already at 38 Cᴼ and no sign of rain yet. On the other hand though,
Delilah was bitten by a snake (possibly a puffadder) and is in a bad way. She
was sitting outside the burrow when we found her but disappeared below a few
moments later. Meerkats are known to be able to survive a snakebite so
hopefully she’ll be back on her feet in a few days’ time.
Again I sincerely apologise for the lack of communication,
but having a team out in the Kalahari with no internet communications for so
long can be very problematic when it comes to getting some up to date news.
I’ll post some recent pictures on the site soon
Warm regards
Rob
Rob’s song for the
day: Sting – Desert Rose
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