Back to Botswana: College grad works with African safari company
Born in Africa, Sean Counihan returned there after earning his CALS zoology degree.
Photo by Storm Fuzzey
“Right now two hyenas tried to walk into our office/kitchen; horrible creatures, but I actually quite like them,” writes Sean Counihan. It’s just a typical April day on the job for Counihan, 2006 zoology graduate of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Counihan works in Maun, Botswana, at Elephant Back Safaris, in Africa’s Okavango Delta. “I am general manager of a 500,000-acre concession consisting of three camps: Abu camp, our flagship and the most expensive destination in Africa; Seba camp, which is our newest edition concentrating on elephant research; and our exclusive Villa Okavango,” he says. “My job takes me anywhere in our concession to anything that needs doing.
“Today started with checking on our new elephant, then on to the workshop to organize a crew to prepare our secondary airstrip in preparation for the biggest flood in 60 years, then on to the front of the house [to meet] guests that arrive on three-day intervals,” he says. Then, after ordering three months’ worth of “drinks and dry supplies to support us since we will be cut off from truck re-supply,” it’s “out to our primary airstrip to organize equipment to keep it from succumbing to the excessive floods.”
Other than all this, his day can range “from going out on safari with elephants to installing bath tub mixers, very chivalrous,” he says. “While in town on leave I also find myself out buying building materials and other things that we need that cannot be sourced in Maun.”
When not on the job, Counihan lives “in a very luxurious tent nestled in a forest of leadwood, mangosteen and ebony trees overlooking Abu lagoon.”
Elephant Back Safaris (EBS), begun in 1990, is a world-renowned tourist destination where guests can participate in safaris, riding on trained African elephants in their natural habitat with its shallow lagoons, open flood plains and ancient forests. The place is also popular with filmmakers, as the elephants have been featured in films, documentaries and commercials.
“My most favorite part of my job would be that I am working in and get to experience one of the last true wilderness areas in the world,” Counihan says.
And how did an N.C. State zoology major from Morganton end up working in the Botswana tourist industry? First of all, he was born in Africa.
His mother, Joyce Counihan, a 2001 alumna of NCSU with a master’s in adult and community college education, went to Botswana in the ’70s as a Youth Development Program delegate. There she met Counihan’s father, who had moved to South Africa from Ireland as a child and then came to Botswana in 1965.
Joyce’s work included preparing agricultural communications publications in English and Setswana. An active 4-H’er as a youth, she also worked in the country’s Ministry of Agriculture in its equivalent of 4-H clubs.
Because the Botswana hospitals did not have the facilities to deal with an Rh positive birth to a Rh negative mother, Counihan was born in South Africa. “I traveled to doctor appointments in South Africa, mostly on gravel roads,” Joyce Counihan recalls. “So, Sean went bush-bashing at the earliest stages of life.”
Counihan left Botswana when his parents divorced in 1989. “We went to Morganton, because that is where my mom was from, and we had lots of extended family there. I spent all my years in the states in Morganton and graduated from Freedom High School.”
While growing up, he would come back to Botswana to see his dad for summer holidays. “It was during this time that I realized that Botswana was the place I wanted to live; it was in my blood,” Counihan says. And because he knew he “wanted to study something to do with wildlife/animal care, N.C. State seemed like the best choice of in-state universities,” he says.
Upon graduation, “I knew that I would return to Africa,” he says, adding that “the tourism industry was one of the only places where I could find a permanent job.”
It’s a job where many of his N.C. State courses have paid off in practical ways, he says. “We produce all of our own power in camp, generator power in the day and battery and inverter systems at night, so physics comes more in handy than I would ever have anticipated while sitting in class. I also use a lot of the behavioural and ecology stuff. And I took scientific writing, which has come in handy with forming management plans for my farm and helping our researchers write funding proposals,” he says.
As one would imagine, exciting moments are part and parcel of his work, including, he says, being involved with the EBS research project “and helping out when we have to dart the elephants to change their GPS collars.”
Fighting fires is something he’s also called upon to do — “a really exciting time,” he says, when “everybody pitches in and works literally around the clock to keep our camps safe. We have a lot of film shoots and documentaries filmed in our camp, which are really exciting. Meeting the guests that come into our camps is also really fun.
“However I have to say that the most exciting thing that I have done actually happened in the last few days. We got a radio call that a hyena was trying to take a baby elephant. We rushed out to the sighting to see what was going on to find this 6-week-old baby fighting for her life against a fully grown female hyena. We followed the action but soon lost them in the tall grass. Upon returning to Seba to get another vehicle to pursue the drama, I was told that the elephant was actually in our generator room. I got there to find a very tired and traumatized elephant looking for any respite from the hyena.”
EBS has a very strong relationship with the wildlife department, Counihan says, “and with their support we decided that we could introduce this baby into our herd and give her a home, which consists of two lactating cows. Obviously this story could be a novel in itself but it ended with our females accepting her into our herd. She is now nursing from one of our cows named Shirini, who gave birth to a very spunky bull two years ago.”
A favorite part of his job is that “it is something different every day. I also enjoy the challenge of keeping everything together. … You are operating in the middle of nowhere, and things will always go wrong. Sometimes the smallest things that you take for granted in a ‘civilized’ world you really start to appreciate.”
However, he says, “I know that I want to stay connected to the bush in whatever form that takes. Right now I am still learning something new every day. I guess when that changes it is time to find something else to do.”
—Terri Leith
Counihan works in Maun, Botswana, at Elephant Back Safaris, in Africa’s Okavango Delta. “I am general manager of a 500,000-acre concession consisting of three camps: Abu camp, our flagship and the most expensive destination in Africa; Seba camp, which is our newest edition concentrating on elephant research; and our exclusive Villa Okavango,” he says. “My job takes me anywhere in our concession to anything that needs doing.
“Today started with checking on our new elephant, then on to the workshop to organize a crew to prepare our secondary airstrip in preparation for the biggest flood in 60 years, then on to the front of the house [to meet] guests that arrive on three-day intervals,” he says. Then, after ordering three months’ worth of “drinks and dry supplies to support us since we will be cut off from truck re-supply,” it’s “out to our primary airstrip to organize equipment to keep it from succumbing to the excessive floods.”
Other than all this, his day can range “from going out on safari with elephants to installing bath tub mixers, very chivalrous,” he says. “While in town on leave I also find myself out buying building materials and other things that we need that cannot be sourced in Maun.”
When not on the job, Counihan lives “in a very luxurious tent nestled in a forest of leadwood, mangosteen and ebony trees overlooking Abu lagoon.”
Elephant Back Safaris (EBS), begun in 1990, is a world-renowned tourist destination where guests can participate in safaris, riding on trained African elephants in their natural habitat with its shallow lagoons, open flood plains and ancient forests. The place is also popular with filmmakers, as the elephants have been featured in films, documentaries and commercials.
“My most favorite part of my job would be that I am working in and get to experience one of the last true wilderness areas in the world,” Counihan says.
And how did an N.C. State zoology major from Morganton end up working in the Botswana tourist industry? First of all, he was born in Africa.
His mother, Joyce Counihan, a 2001 alumna of NCSU with a master’s in adult and community college education, went to Botswana in the ’70s as a Youth Development Program delegate. There she met Counihan’s father, who had moved to South Africa from Ireland as a child and then came to Botswana in 1965.
Joyce’s work included preparing agricultural communications publications in English and Setswana. An active 4-H’er as a youth, she also worked in the country’s Ministry of Agriculture in its equivalent of 4-H clubs.
Because the Botswana hospitals did not have the facilities to deal with an Rh positive birth to a Rh negative mother, Counihan was born in South Africa. “I traveled to doctor appointments in South Africa, mostly on gravel roads,” Joyce Counihan recalls. “So, Sean went bush-bashing at the earliest stages of life.”
In the Okavango Delta, Counihan cools off with Cathy the elephant.
Photo by Storm Fuzzey
Photo by Storm Fuzzey
While growing up, he would come back to Botswana to see his dad for summer holidays. “It was during this time that I realized that Botswana was the place I wanted to live; it was in my blood,” Counihan says. And because he knew he “wanted to study something to do with wildlife/animal care, N.C. State seemed like the best choice of in-state universities,” he says.
Upon graduation, “I knew that I would return to Africa,” he says, adding that “the tourism industry was one of the only places where I could find a permanent job.”
It’s a job where many of his N.C. State courses have paid off in practical ways, he says. “We produce all of our own power in camp, generator power in the day and battery and inverter systems at night, so physics comes more in handy than I would ever have anticipated while sitting in class. I also use a lot of the behavioural and ecology stuff. And I took scientific writing, which has come in handy with forming management plans for my farm and helping our researchers write funding proposals,” he says.
As one would imagine, exciting moments are part and parcel of his work, including, he says, being involved with the EBS research project “and helping out when we have to dart the elephants to change their GPS collars.”
Fighting fires is something he’s also called upon to do — “a really exciting time,” he says, when “everybody pitches in and works literally around the clock to keep our camps safe. We have a lot of film shoots and documentaries filmed in our camp, which are really exciting. Meeting the guests that come into our camps is also really fun.
“However I have to say that the most exciting thing that I have done actually happened in the last few days. We got a radio call that a hyena was trying to take a baby elephant. We rushed out to the sighting to see what was going on to find this 6-week-old baby fighting for her life against a fully grown female hyena. We followed the action but soon lost them in the tall grass. Upon returning to Seba to get another vehicle to pursue the drama, I was told that the elephant was actually in our generator room. I got there to find a very tired and traumatized elephant looking for any respite from the hyena.”
EBS has a very strong relationship with the wildlife department, Counihan says, “and with their support we decided that we could introduce this baby into our herd and give her a home, which consists of two lactating cows. Obviously this story could be a novel in itself but it ended with our females accepting her into our herd. She is now nursing from one of our cows named Shirini, who gave birth to a very spunky bull two years ago.”
A favorite part of his job is that “it is something different every day. I also enjoy the challenge of keeping everything together. … You are operating in the middle of nowhere, and things will always go wrong. Sometimes the smallest things that you take for granted in a ‘civilized’ world you really start to appreciate.”
However, he says, “I know that I want to stay connected to the bush in whatever form that takes. Right now I am still learning something new every day. I guess when that changes it is time to find something else to do.”
—Terri Leith