Fauna count

I was thinking that counting and recording of animals while we are out hiking and then having them put into a table that is live on the site with the animal, area and date when we get back from our trip. Not sure how scientific it would be, but might interesting data. Any thoughts on this?

Excellent idea.
Citizen science is recognised as a key way of gaining data that is otherwise impossible or prohibitively expensive to collect. There have been some major successes in collecting bird data in the UK through the sort of scheme you have proposed for the Berg.

Here are a few articles and websites along these lines:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/10206710
www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/
bugguide.net/node/view/15740

The new KZN Wildlife hiking register format has a more prominent section for recording Fauna sightings.

How many people will fill that info in when all they want to do is sign out, hit the shower and a couple of cold ones and a 500g steak.

Once they have luxuriated in their 'lemon scented bath' and later gone on to ve they might fill this kind of data in. Just my 2c worth.

@serious tribe - yip exactly

thats one of the issues with the "citizen" generated data collection method

also potential errors - I have even posted on this forum a sighting of a "klipspringer" only to be corrected it was a grey rhebuck.

so ya lots of potential for faulty data collection

Lets see if my memory is as good as I like to think it is:
2010:
- I encountered 4 Eland at Sleeping Beauty Cave at Garden Castle in early June
- I encountered 4 Eland near the car park at Giants Castle in mid July
- I encountered 1 Eland just south of the Sunken Valley at Garden Castle in early December. I also spotted a huge number of baboons in the Hidden Valley

2011:
- I encountered around 70 Eland on the countour path just south of Bannerman Hut in January
- I encountered 9 Eland and 1 baboon on the approach to Langalibalele Pass in early February
- I encountered 12 Eland near Pillar Cave in late June
- I encountered 5 Eland on the north ridge above Sleeping Beauty Cave in early July (9 July if I remember correctly - lots of snow around on that day)

2012:
- I encountered 20 blesbok and some reidbok at Highmoor on 2 January
- I encountered many vultures, 4 reidbok, 2 rabbits and about 25 baboons between Mnweni and RNNP (all on the escarpment) in late April/early May

And that is the answer to the question as to why I take photos of everything I see in the Berg...