Archive for July, 2008
Hi guys, A very quick post today just to let you know we managed to collar another wild dog today. We put a VHF collar onto a female in the Jacana pack - to pair with the GPS data logger collar we put on last month. I think we were just in time: the pups are big enough now to follow the dogs when they move, so they are no longer sticking close to the den, where it is easy to find them. Rosemary & Misheck fitting a collar onto a female in the Jacana pack
The whole immobilisation procedure went very smoothly and the dog rejoined her pack after coming round after the administration of the antidote. She’s a healthy, fairly young adult female dog: I dont have a name for her yet though, so if any of you have any suggestions, let me know. Below is a photo of her before the collaring - names tend to be easier to remember if they relate to a particular charactersitic or marking on the dog. This dog has a particularly noticable tail (stripy), but so far a suitable name escapes me. All suggestions welcome!
Back soon, Rosemary
I mentioned in the last post about putting a camera trap up at one of the den sites. As it happened, we put it there at a very interesting time. Not only did we catch wild dogs on it, but also a spotted hyanea… The dogs were nowhere near the den when I went to collect the camera, and the next time I went down I found they had moved their den. I guess I have a pretty good idea why they did that, thanks to the camera trap! Spotted hyaenas do not often kill wild dogs or even puppies, but they have been known to do so and would certainly be considered a very real threat by the dogs. Wild dogs and spotted hyaena at the den site
Unfortunately I cant put out more camera traps at the dens because we don’t have any for the project – I had borrowed this one from another ecologist, but he usually uses them at leopard baits and cant spare them. I’d love to get some camera traps for the wild dog project, as I think they would provide very valuable information, so I’m going to do that terrible thing and put out a plea for funding… If any of you feel able to donate something towards the purchase of camera traps, we’d be very grateful. They cost around $150 each, and ideally we’d need 4 (eventually) so we can put two at each of two den sites and rotate them. I’ll start raising funds now for these, and every little bit will help. Inconveniently, the dogs’ new den site is much further off the road through very thick mopane woodland so won’t be easy to get a vehicle to. Going in on foot is not an option: they are extremely wary of people on foot and when I walked in before to find the new den, I got barked at all the way back to the car! They really were seeing me off well and truly, but as soon as I got in the car and started to drive off, they were all around me lying on the road and playing. Crazy dogs! Back soon, Rosemary
Hi guys, I just wanted to let you know more about this new den we found: It has six puppies and three adults. Whilst six is a fairly small litter size, it’s not bad for such a small pack of adults, and I only hope they manage to rear them successfully. It is fairly uncommon for wild dogs in a pack smaller than 5 or 6 to successfully rear a litter. However a colleague of mine doing a leopard study in the area keeps reporting the dogs eating from his leopard baits, so at least that is adding to whatever they manage to hunt!! We think the dogs are the Ingwe pack: I’ve managed to positively identify one of the individuals as belonging to that pack, but havent yet got decent pics of the others. Being such a small pack they are very wary of vehicles and are hard to get close to. The terrain around the den is also very rough - lots of boulders and trees and car-breaking stumps, so it’s not the easiest place to get close to. But with the help of the scouts we’ve cleared a rough track there so can get the vehicle in at least. It’s going to be a tricky pack to collar though, that’s for sure! I put a camera trap up at the Maera den site the other day, to see what goes on there at night, so I’ll report on the findings from that at the next post. Back soon, Rosemary
Hi folks, Good news! We found another den site yesterday… We suspect it may be for the Ingwe pack: a fairly small pack that has been seen in that area before, although it is not their usual range. I will be going there this afternoon to see if I can see the dogs and/or pups and get some photographs to try and identify the pack for certain. I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, here is a picture of the Jacana pups… There is no good reason I should stick this photo in here, but I wanted to anyway, because I feel so privileged to have had such amazing sightings of such wonderful animals that I had to share it with you. Three inquisitive pups! The photo was taken early this morning, when I was at their den site trying to get a collar onto one of the adults. We already have a GPS collar on that pack, but those collars have a very poor signal range so we try to pair them with a VHF collar which has much greater range. The adults weren’t co-operating however, and were staying just out of range of the dart gun and/or just behind bushes. Frustrating, but we have tried unsuccessfully twice now, so as per my generally optimistic personality, I’m expecting to be third time lucky! Anyway, the misbehaviour of the adults was more than compensated for by these curious and bold little pups who spent a long time checking out the car and playing all around us. There are still 14, so no pup mortality so far. Rosemary xx
Hi folks, Just a very quick post today to illustrate the crazy money situation we are now having to deal with here: Zimbabwe notes - the 10 million note (the red one 6 from the left) was first out in April. The highest note out at the moment, the $50 billion note, is worth about 1US$ on the black market and a lot less than that at the bank rate. A household mop (yes, a normal kitchen mop) now costs one point three trillion dollars - at the bank rate, that’s about US$75! But no point in worry about the prices of things anyway - since Germany have stopped supplying the paper to print the bank notes, there is no cash anyway… Even if there was something more exciting than a mop for sale - which there isnt. Just a little glimpse into life in Zimbabwe… Back soon with a wild dog update, Rosemary
Hi folks, I’m pleased to be able to report that yesterday and today I saw the pups of the Maera pack for the first time. Curiously, it seems that there are only 4 puppies which is a very small litter size, but all appeared fit and healthy. I’ve posted a picture of them below with one of our collared males who is the alpha male of the pack and was regurgitating to the pups when I took this photo. Having said there were only 4 pups - I saw something very interesting yesterday. All those readers that know about wild dogs - I’d be keen to hear your interpreation of this… I was sitting (in the car) near the adult dogs near the den. It was the middle of the day so the dogs were pretty lazy and not doing a lot. And no pups were out when I arrived. The Alpha female and male were resting somewhere near the den and then came to lie under a tree quite close to my car. Then suddenly, for no reason apparent to me, they both jumped up and ran towards the den. When I found the Alpha female in the binos, she was suckling the 4 pups. Then the pups disappeared back into the den and the alpha female went into another hole of the den site and came out with what looked like a TINY pup in her mouth. She then appeared to kill (and partly eat) that pup and then went back to the den and came out with another TINY one. (The four pups I’d seen her with earlier were much bigger – about 6 weeks old probably). The second tiny one was squeaking away and I couldn’t see what she did with it because the vegetation was too thick. Now how’s that for interesting behaviour? Now - I know there are two lactating females in that pack – the alpha female and one other female, and clearly these were two separate litters that I saw because of the size difference. So either the alpha female had decided to kill the other female’s pups (that has been known to happen apparently) – but why do it then in the middle of the day, and where was the other mum?? OR that first pup was dead and she was taking it out of the den (may as well eat it hey?!) and then moving the other one?? I’m not sure what was actually going on, and unfortunately the vegetation impeded my view quite a bit. But nonetheless, it was fascinating to watch, and I’d be keen to hear if any other wild dog people have seen something similar. I went back to the den early this morning, and saw just the 4 bigger pups and the alpha pair, until the rest came back from hunting… Back soon, Rosemary
Hi all, This isn’t going to be the most exciting post ever, as I’ve been doing admin for the past few days (urrrgh) but I just wanted to respond to a query in the comments from the last post… The fact that we haven’t found the dens doesn’t necessarily mean the dogs aren’t denning. These are incredibly elusive animals, with HUGE home ranges (recorded up to 1200km2), which makes them pretty tough to find. Although they tend to use much smaller home ranges when they are denning, this means they leave fewer tracks on the roads, making it hard to find spoor. Also, many packs seem to den in very dense, hard-to-access areas. Gratuitous picture of wild dog spoor to make this post more interesting
However, we do think that two packs are probably not denning this year, due to the fact that we have managed to locate them fairly frequently (one pack even has a VHF collar), usually during the middle of the day, and they are always in different places. When the dogs are denning, they usually rest up at the dens in the middle of the day, i.e. always in the same place… It’s also very obvious when the alpha females are pregnant or lactating and we are pretty sure that for these two packs, they are not either. Possible reasons for this were mentioned in a previous blog: for one pack the alpha male was killed and no males unrelated to the alpha female have joined the pack. For the other, it is possible that the alpha female was killed. Alternatively this latter pack may just be denning late – although May-August is peak denning season, nature has a habit of proving exceptions to every rule, and maybe this pack will start denning soon. As for the others – they probably are denning and I’m sure we’ll find the dens soon. (How’s that for optimism?). Back in a couple of days with more news/general waffle, Rosemary
Hello all, This is going to be a fairly short post I’m afraid (although you may be relieved to hear that after the last one!) as there is not much new to report. The dogs are still being very elusive, although we find their spoor regularly. Unfortuately we cant always follow up on sightings as it is the hunting season here at the moment, and if there are hunters in the area where the dogs are, we cant go in to look for them in case we disturb the hunt. Frustrating but understandable! Our two newly collared dogs are doing well:
The picture at the top is the male from the Maera pack and the bottom picture is the Jacana pack female… These pictures also give you a good idea of how we individually identify wild dogs - look at the markings on each dog (especially the white patches). They are different on every individual, so can be used to tell who is who. The problem is matching the left hand side views with the right hand side views to get an identification database going! We are hoping to collar another pack in the south in the next week or so; I’ll keep you posted. Rosemary |
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