Hmmm, maybe my first post was a little too pat. Alf certainly has a good point that a study group will have a lot more time to learn the habits of a particular animal or group of animals.

Come to that, Kim Wolhuter, for example knows his Leopards so well he can find them pretty much anytime he wants..... but he's been studying the individual animals for years and they know him and his vehicle and ignore them.......

I suppose there's also a geographical factor involved as well when I think about it. Lions in an area such as KNP or Serengeti will be a lot more habituated to vehicles etc than Lions in a hunting area in the Selous for example. Habituated Lions will be a lot more casual about a vehicle in their area than non-habituated Lions who will hear a vehicle and be more inclined to either bug out or hide.

Then I suppose there's also the human factor. In the same way one tracker will lose an animal after a mile another one will stay on the spoor forever and the same could be said of game rangers, scientists or study groups etc....... And we haven't even considered radio collars!

On reflection, I guess a lot of it is that it's yet another example of where Africa is concerned, one should never say never and never say always........