Zimbabwe Wild Dogs

Hi folks,

Sorry this blog has been quiet for a while. I had to return to the UK suddenly for personal reasons and haven’t had a chance to get online recently.  Anyway, when I did get online this morning, I found a comment from Mike Southall with some more great ideas for names for the rest of the wild dog pups from the Star Pack.  Thanks for that Mike.  Here are all the pups with their new names.

Star Pack Pups – 2010

Reports from Rueben and Misheck in the field suggest everything is going well with the dogs.  They managed to locate the rest of the Bedford pack – a group of 15 dogs which had been missing for a while, so thats great news.  And just before I left, we had found all the other packs and confirmed all individuals were still present.

Unfortunately Misheck found a dead wild dog killed by a snare a few days ago, which I will investigate further when I’m back.  It was an individual from the Mapari pack, one of the packs most at risk from snares due to the location of their home range right in the corner of the conservancy where there is very heavy poaching.  I’ll post more on this when I am back.

Hi folks,

We are still looking for names for some of the pups in the last post.  Cathy A (who has extremely generously donated the funds for us to buy a new tracking antenna – THANK YOU CATHY), has suggested ‘Asteroid’ for Pup E (female) and Comet for Pup G (male).  I LOVE these names, and they suit the pups very well, so the names have been officially adopted.

Sanni suggested Azadi, a name meaning Freedom in Persian, which I also like, and have decided to give to the female pup ‘F’.

Here’s some of the latest photos of the newly named pups:

Asteroid and Azadi (photo taken by Rueben)

Comet (photo taken by Rueben)

So it’s just the 4 pups below which still need names…. Pups A, B & D are all females and C is a male (and quite a cheeky one too!)

Four pups still needing names

Any suggestions welcome

Hi folks,

These are the seven pups of the Star Pack.  Having made it to over 6 months old, they are now needing to be named….

Star Pack Puppies needing names

I can’t do an official ‘adopt a wild dog pup’ campaign because it won’t be possible for me to provide the updates as regularly as necessary for such a thing.  But if anyone would like to make a small donation, and in return have the privilege of naming any of the pups, that would be great.   I will of course let you know the progress with ‘your’ pup whenever I can.

Just for a challenge… astrological-related terms are supposed to be the theme for this pack from now on, so if you can think of anything along those lines, that would be extra great.  Otherwise if a particular name strikes you, or you would like to name a wild dog pup after someone or something important to you, now is your chance.

If the donation button on this blog site still isnt working – please go to www.africanwildlifeconservationfund.org and use the paypal link on that site.

Thanks,

Rosemary

A short documentary has recently been released by colleagues from the Painted Dog Conservation Project in Hwange, Zimbabwe. The documentary, put together by Dr Greg Rasmussen, reveals for the first time the true extent of the trade in African wild dogs.

This highly endangered species is not listed on CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) because of a misc0nception that there is no commercial trade in wild dogs. This documentary demonstrates otherwise, and makes a compelling case for putting wild dogs on CITES. It also highlights the horrific conditions faced by many wild animals in China’s zoos.

The film shows how there are 200-300 wild dogs currently in China, most obtained illegally and living in appalling conditions.  It shows that many of these originate from the wild, where dogs are effectively stolen from the wild and put into captive breeding centers to pass off their offspring as captive bred. It’s truly shocking.

Please have a look at the film (it’s only about 20 minutes long), and pass the link on to friends and colleagues.  A lot of hard work by Greg and his team went into making this film in order to bring the problem to light.   http://www.youtube.com/user/journeymanpictures#p/c/2C32A4BDEAD6466A/3/x_oQRe-L0m0

It only goes to show how vital are all our conservation efforts on the ground with the wild dogs, and how much we need your support to continue to try and protect this incredible and highly threatened species.

Thanks,

Rosemary

Hi folks,

We were lucky enough to spend a lovely half an hour yesterday evening with the Star Pack, and I’m glad to report they are all doing extremely well.  The pack still consists of 12 individuals; three adults, two yearlings and seven pups.  Here they all are resting by the water pan.

All the dogs looked fit and healthy – no sign of any snare injuries, disease or even a limp.

Star pack pups

Cornflakes, one of the yearlings and one of the boldest dogs we know, was as usual at the front of the pack, approaching the vehicle with utter nonchalance and then waiting patiently for the others to finish drinking and follow her off on a hunt.

Cornflakes – a female yearling wild dog

Excitingly, there were definite signs of interest by the alpha male in the alpha female – behaviour that is a pre-cursor to mating, which should take place within the next couple of months…

Alpha male and female wild dog interacting

Not quite a traditional way to spend Valentines day evening, but it could certainly have been worse!

Back soon,

Rosemary

I wrote in the last post about our need for a new antenna to help us track the wild dogs. Here is picture of Rueben trying to track with the antenna we have at the moment!!

Rueben tracking with our falling-to-bits antenna

Thank you SO much to Cathy A for her very generous donation which has got us half way there towards getting a new antenna. We still need another $100 before we can order one.

Hi folks,

A couple of weeks ago I reported on a new pack of six dogs that formed when some of the Bedford males left the Bedford pack and joined up with two unrelated females… We saw this pack several times over the course of about two weeks, using Bingo’s collar to find them.

Bingo, one of the collared wild dogs in the Bedford Pack

So imagine our surprise when on Friday, Rueben was following up on a signal from Bingo’s collar and found not only six dogs, but 31! We spent a long time that afternoon and evening with the dogs, and I managed to get an ID on all of them. It seems that the four Bedford males have re-joined the majority of the Bedford pack again, and their new females were nowhere to be seen.

Members of the Bedford pack resting by water

The pups were very playful – chewing on old bones and ambushing then pouncing on one another…

Bedford pack pups chewing on some old bones

Stretching before leaving on a hunt…

The other collared dogs from the original Bedford pack were not in this group, and we are continuing to try and locate these collars so we can see what the group composition is, but we haven’t had any luck so far.  Unfortunately, our equipment is starting to let us down – our tracking antenna is broken in 3 different places now, and we really need a new one.  A replacement costs $199, plus shipping, and if anyone feels they could contribute towards the purchase of a new antenna, we would be extremely grateful.

Thanks,

Rosemary

Hi folks,

Things have been quite quiet on the fieldwork front recently, as Misheck is on time-off and the dogs are proving elusive to find. We have however been seeing the un-collared Teddy pack around recently, which is great as we hadn’t seen them for a while. They are now down to five in total; four adult males and one adult female, having lost one of their number in the past two months.

African wild dogs – the Teddy Pack, Feb 2010.

I’m pretty sure the oldest male and female are unrelated which means they should become the new alpha pair and we can expect breeding this year. The other three males are all from the 2008 litter of the previous alpha pair who were killed by lions last year, along with the entire 2009 litter.

Let’s hope for better luck for this pack this year!

Back soon, Rosemary

We’ve finally had some rain!  Not a lot, and we are still way below what we should be on for this time of year, but it has nonetheless been a relief.  If nothing else it has bought the temperatures down from 40C+ every day to something a little cooler!  We still have a long way to go for the vegetation to pick up again and to escape a big die-off of wildlife from starvation, but this recent rain has been a start.  Phew!