Zimbabwe Wild Dogs

Hi folks,

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about the wild dog pack that had run through a snare line: one dog had been killed, one suffered a deep, horrific injury round his neck from the snare wire, and one chewed his own leg off to get out of the snare…

I managed to dart the one with the snare around his neck and remove the wire and treat the wound, but could do nothing for the other one, except monitor his condition and be prepared to request for permission to euthanase him if necessary.

However, despite that terrible disability, we were amazed to see the dog remaining in good condition and keeping up with the pack.  The wound has continued to heal and there are no signs of infection.

The dog which I treated is also doing really well.  The wound will take a long time to close up completely, but at least with the wire off (and not cutting any deeper) it will have a chance to do so.  He is also looking in good condition and keeping up with the pack.  The wound is spotlessly clean, thanks to the administrations of his fellow pack members, and I am confident he will recover fully in time.

So so far so good, and fingers crossed they will continue to do well.

Hi folks,

I’m so excited to let you know that the wild dog denning season seems to be just around the corner.  I’ve been in town quite a bit recently and working hard on our education program but the scouts have been monitoring the wild dogs and it seems that the alpha females of all the packs are visibly pregnant now.  And not just that, but in some cases, extremely pregnant!!

I’m sure some of the packs will be denning down soon and then the alphas will give birth to their pups.  Then, three weeks after that, I should be able to post some photos of the teeny tiny pups when they first emerge into the world.

Interestingly, once again we have a couple of packs which have two visibly pregnant females in each.  We call these the alpha and beta females and they are usually sisters.  Whether or not the beta female will be allowed to raise her pups remains to be seen, but indications are that this will be a good denning season.

Also, for the first time the Pita Pack will be denning.  This pack formed early last year, but did not den.  Now however, they are clearly going to do so, with the GPS collared female having  become the alpha female of the pack:

So all very exciting, and I will keep you posted as they progress towards denning and giving birth.

Cheers,

Rosemary

Hi folks,

Mothers Day (13th May in the US) will be here before you know it and what better way to let your mum know how special she is, than with a piece of stunning and truly unique artwork?  Renowned wildlife artist Lin Barrie has kindly offered us 50% of the proceeds of some of her incredible artwork, so not only would you be getting a truly original and beautiful gift, you would also be supporting wildlife conservation in Zimbabwe.

Here is a sample of some of the beautiful art for sale.  For the full display of art available, and details of how to purchase something please click here

Whether you love wild dogs, elephants, rhinos, leopards or buffalo there is something there for you.  Even if you already have a mother’s day gift, these make lovely presents for any special occasion, and are extra thoughtful gifts because of the benefit to conservation from your purchase.

Thank you for your support

Dear all,

A brief, photo-less post i am afraid to say.  I am currently in Harare doing town chores and admin but I recently got a couple of emails about the two injured wild dogs that I wrote about in a recent post, and I wanted to give you an update.  My scout Rueben saw the pack a few days ago and confirmed that the dog that had the snare around his neck, which we removed a couple of weeks ago, is doing well.  The injury has yet to heal completely, but he is still alive and the wound looks clean, so everything is pointing towards him making it.  Thank goodness.

One of my colleagues saw the dog with three legs recently as well.  He reported that he was keeping up with the pack and appeared to be well fed, and in reasonable condition.  Given that we know the injury occurred at least 4 weeks ago and probably 5, the fact that he is still doing okay is encouraging.  If infection was going to set in, it would probably have happened by now, and if the injury was too bad to prevent reasonable movement, we would probably be seeing a serious decline in body condition by now as well.  So once again, the signs are good that he will make it.  We will keep fingers crossed.  They are remarkably resilient and caring animals, so he has a good chance.

Back soon,

Rosemary

Hi Folks,

A couple of days ago Rueben reported seeing a pack of wild dogs with two injured pack members.  One had a snare around his neck and one – sadly – had completely lost a leg.  I went out immediately to take a look and see if there was anything I could do.  Unfortunately the one who had lost a leg is beyond my help.  It seems he was caught in a snare and chewed his own leg off to get out…. Yes, you did read that correctly.  My immediate reaction of disbelief when I saw it was swiftly followed by anger at the immense cruelty of snaring.  This only increased when I managed to get a look at the dog with the snare around his neck…

I tried to dart him, but could not get a shot at him that day, and in any case it was getting late, so the following day, Rueben found the pack again early (thank goodness for the collar) and we spent the best part of the day trying to get close enough to get a dart in.  Unfortunately when dogs have been injured, they often become, understandably, very wary of humans, and they kept a long way out of range.  We tried motorbike, foot and vehicle and eventually I managed to get a dart in him when they stopped at a water point to drink.

The wound was even more terrible than it had seemed. The poor dog’s neck was almost half cut off….

I called for some help and by some miracle had sufficient phone signal to get a message through to a vet to ask for advice.  We removed the snare, cleaned up the wound and did what we could.

Luckily, the whole procedure went extremely well.  The dog slept soundly throughout and only started to come around once we had finished everything.  (The brown in the photo below is the betadine solution with which we cleaned the wound).

After an injection of the reversal drug, he made an extremely good recovery and soon joined his pack again.  I hope he will make it – he’s only a 10 month old pup, and deserves more of a chance than that!  Fortunately wild dogs are extremely resilient and I have seen dogs with similar wounds recover fine, so his chances are not too bad.  I will let you know how he does.

Back soon,

Rosemary

We work with the District Veterinary Authorities to help to try to keep the incidence of rabies in the domestic dog population down, in order to try to minimize the threat of the disease spreading in to the wild dog and other wildlife populations.  Fortunately, the Chiredzi District vet with whom we work closely is a very good man and his staff team are excellent and dedicated to their job.  But nonetheless, shortages of various things often result in the job being done less effectively than it could be, and this is where we step in to help.  We assist the district veterinary department with fuel, rations and vaccines as required, to make sure that as many dogs as possible are vaccinated during each campaign (which are combined with the foot and mouth vaccination days for cattle).

Such a campaign was carried out over the past couple of weeks with the last two days being focussed on the domestic dogs living within the Save Valley Conservancy (owned by the farmers who invaded the conservancy in 2000).  Obviously these dogs provide the greatest threat to wild dogs because of their close proximity to the wildlife, and indeed cases of rabies in this population were reported only last week.

Rueben helped with awareness raising prior to the vaccination days and we provided 1000 dog vaccines, 20 vaccines for humans (for the veterinary technicians), fuel (200 liters of petrol) and rations for the field staff.

The turn out (of people bringing their dogs to the dip tanks) was much better than usual and once I have the official figures from the vet department I will let you know how many dogs were vaccinated.

Here are some scenes from the day – taken by Rueben who went along to help…

Back soon,

Rosemary

I got sent these pictures the other day, by a fellow wild dog fan.  I just wanted to share them with you – they are fantastic photos that really capture the spirit of these awesome animals.

Thanks to Bud Jackson for these great photos!

Hi Folks,

As I mentioned in the last post, I recently went to Bulawayo to give a lecture, but in addition to that several talks had been arranged for me to give at different schools – both primary and secondary – around Bulawayo.  At the risk of being boring, the topic was, of course, wild dogs!

The secondary schools got a relatively informative presentation, and I was impressed by the interest and questions afterwards, which showed a good understanding of the topic and a keen interest.

The primary schools were a little more daunting – what on earth do you do with 600+ children from 4 years old upwards?!

Well, after talking to them briefly about what wild dogs were, we soon got them up and about, with 1 being an impala and then ‘packs’ of 1, 3 or 10 ‘wild dogs’ trying to catch the impala, to teach them about the benefits of cooperative hunting.  We also played other games with groups of boys and girls making packs, and then having to split up into single sex groups and run around until we shouted stop, at which point they had to quickly try to find a group of the other sex…. the mechanism (sort of!) by which wild dogs disperse and form new packs.  It was all a lot of fun and the kids were wildly enthusiastic.

Altogether we spoke to about 11 different schools, and I hope that those students will not forget what a special animal the wild dog is.  I must add my thanks to Netty Purchase and Phumizile Sibanda for organizing it all, and to Alliance Francaise for funding the program.

Rosemary

Hi folks,

I just got back from a few days in Bulawayo where I had a hectic schedule talking to schools and giving a lecture.  Netty Purchase, the range-wide coordinator for cheetah and wild dog in southern Africa, together with the Alliance Francaise have organized an amazing collection of events about carnivores, under the umbrella of ‘The Song of the Carnivores’.  Last week it was wild dog week, and I was invited to give the wild dog lecture as part of a series on “dispelling the myths” of large carnivores.

My topic was “Dispelling the myths that wild dogs are cruel hunters that decimate prey populations”.  It was an evening lecture with a great turnout and very positive feedback, and I hope it’s done a little bit to help people see through traditional prejudices and realize what incredible animals wild dogs are.  Even people who were known not to be too keen on wild dogs were heard muttering “it almost makes you love them”!!

Excitingly, this initiative has gained so much support and enthusiasm, it may be adopted in several other countries in southern Africa, which is just great.  The whole project includes music, poetry, art and these lecture series, involving hundreds of schools and individuals in Zimbabwe.

Here I am just after the lecture with Netty (far right) and Phumizile Sibanda (sec0nd from right) who will be giving the leopard talk next month.  Such a great initiative and it is a privilge to be part of it.

Back soon,

Rosemary

Hi Folks,

Rosemary is currently away at a wildlife conference in South Africa so I have taken over the reigns so to speak. You will have to forgive me because I am new to this whole blogging thing, so we’ll have to be patient and take baby steps.

I thought for my first blog I would give you a little insight into the life of a field conservationist….. As you know I live in the African bush and with it comes the many delights or ‘not such’ delights bush life can bring. Yesterday was one of those ‘not such’ delightful days whereby a few animals took it upon themselves to show their displeasure at me living in their territory.

I woke up yesterday morning and went outside with my cup of coffee to water the lawn. I was still half asleep and sauntered over to the tap and turned it on only to find water gushing out of the hose pipe about half way down. On closer inspection I found that our resident porcupine had decided my hose pipe was a tasty treat and helped himself to a few mouthfuls. He obviously decided the first mouthful was not so tasty so spat it out and decided to try a few more, all to his dislike. So after nonchalantly puncturing several large holes in my hose pipe he decided to head off to the compost heap (his usual hunting ground) for a dig around.

Luckily the rest of the day proved to be fairly uneventful, unfortunately no sign of wild dogs but great sightings of some other species, including a huge herd of buffalo…

an elephant bull…

and even some white rhino with a young calf.

BUT….. After a nice day out the field I returned home to find the local troop of baboons had paid a visit and managed to sink their teeth into my workshop products. They had bitten open both the wood glue and wood oil bottles, so they were now both firmly stuck to my work bench and as if to add insult to injury, they then jumped on my girlfriend’s car and buckled the windscreen wipers, rendering them useless.

Anyway, all things considered these are rather trivial events that do add a bit of extra excitement to life, so we take them with a pinch of salt and a bunch of humour and continue on with the real job at hand.

I hope you had a slight chuckle at my minor misfortunes and enjoyed a little insight into my daily life. I thought I would change the tone slightly with this blog but will follow up with a real update in the coming days. For those who haven’t yet, please go check out our Facebook page (I have just upgraded it to the fancy timeline page), please ‘like’ it and ‘share’ it. Thank you all for following and as always, we really appreciate your support.

Cheers for now,

Simon.