Zimbabwe Wild Dogs

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Feb 07 2008 | By: admin

We work across the south east of Zimbabwe, but our focal study area is Savé Valley Conservancy (SVC). SVC is an incredible place, and so I thought I would take the time to give you some background information about the area. SVC is one of (if not the) largest privately owned wildlife areas in the world at 3,450 km2, or approximately 900,000 acres. To put that in context, SVC is just a shade smaller than Yellowstone National Park in the USA (I almost said Jellystone there…too many Yogi Bear cartoons during my childhood!). SVC was formed in 1991 from 18 different cattle ranches. Leading up to 1991, the profitability of cattle ranching had started to wane due to a recurring droughts and falling productivity of the land after years of over grazing with livestock. Then, in 1991, southern Zimbabwe suffered one of the worst droughts on record, which drove many cattle ranchers virtually to the point of bankruptcy. Most of the ranchers in the area made the decision then to switch to wildlife ranching. However, another key factor came into play which helped to mould the formation of a large collaborative wildlife area, rather than a set of individual ranches separated from one another with high fencing (as is common in game ranching areas of South Africa). At the time, Zimbabwe (as with several countries) was suffering an epidemic of rhino poaching. The Parks and Wildlife Management Authority made the decision to move rhinos that survived the poaching onslaught from the vast Zambezi Valley to private ranches in the south of the country where they could be protected from poachers more effectively. Several of these ranches were located in the Savé River Valley, in the south east of Zimbabwe. It made sense for neighbouring ranches to manage reintroduced rhinos collectively, and so the decision was taken to form a collaborative wildlife area, or conservancy. And so Savé Valley Conservancy was born.

With financial assistance from the Beit Trust, twin 9 foot electrified game fences were constructed around the 350 km perimeter of SVC and a security system with a network of anti poaching game scouts established in the conservancy. Then, the process of re-stocking the area with wildlife began. There was a reasonable amount of wildlife in the area before the formation of the conservancy, but several species had been extirpated due to competition with livestock, persecution by cattle ranches protecting their stock, or due to bush-meat poaching. The re-stocking process was done on a massive scale, and was an incredibly exciting process to experience. Perhaps most amazing was the reintroduction of elephants into the area. An experienced capture unit, led by the late Clem Coetzee set about catching elephants from the neighbouring Gonarezhou National Park and moving them to SVC. Initially, progress was extremely slow until the team developed a method to capture and move entire family groups of elephants. Thereafter, the pace of the translocation programme increased significantly. By mid 1993, 553 elephants had been reintroduced into SVC in what was the largest translocation event involving that species ever undertaken (before or since). Another 3,150 individuals of twelve other species were introduced into SVC during the 1990s, and populations of several other species, including African wild dogs, brown hyaenas, cheetahs, lions and spotted hyaenas re-colonized the area naturally. Gradually, over the years, SVC transformed from a piece of over grazed, fairly empty ranch land into a place literally teeming with wildlife. From a conservation perspective, the greatest achievements of SVC have been the recovery of two endangered species, the black rhino and the African wild dog, both of which now occur in significant numbers in SVC.
I have been lucky enough to have been present, or to have visited the area regularly from the early days of the conservancy, and to witness the recovery of the wildlife populations has been one of the most wonderful experiences that a conservationist could hope to have. And, as you can see from the photos, SVC is beautiful.

But then I could be biased…