Zimbabwe Wild Dogs

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 24 2008 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi all,

As a response to some comments on my last post, I thought it worth a brief post on the very controversial issue of hunting.  I’m not a hunter, I cannot for the life of me see why people would want to kill wild animals for sport and I will never understand what pleasure there is in looking at a stuffed head of a wild animal on your wall.  Having said that, as a general rule, I am pro hunting.  This is for the very simple reason that it brings in a lot of money which is used to conserve wildlife.  It is a great shame that people do not pay the same amount of money to simply watch wildlife and take photos as they do to shoot it, but nonetheless, that’s a fact.  And while it remains a fact, hunting is often one of the only ways wildlife can pay for itself.  And sadly, in this world that is driven by economics, wildlife does have to pay for itself.

Zimbabwe is actually a good case in point.  Due the political and economic situation in the country, ‘normal’ tourists are simply no longer coming here.  This means that there is very little money coming in from tourism, and wildlife would no longer be a viable land use option for any private ranches or conservancies, unless they were able to make money from hunting.  In the Save Valley Conservancy, many of the ranches would rather not be hunting, but in the current climate, they simply cant survive any other way.

Another example would be in Kenya, where I used to work. Hunting was banned in Kenya in 1977 and since then, over 70% of Kenya’s wildlife has gone extinct. Now obviously there are various reasons for this, but one of the main reasons is that private land owners who used to conserve wildlife because they could earn money from hunting, had to convert to cattle faming because there was no longer any money to be made from wildlife.

Now, there have undoubtedly been entire theses written on the pros and cons of hunting, and it is by no means a simple issue. There are good, logical, fact-based arguments both for and against hunting and there are plenty of very emotional viewpoints too (also both for and against).

What I try to do is separate my personal (emotional) feeling about the actual act of hunting from the more objective view of hunting overall - which is that, like it or not - it’s usually important for conservation.

Rosemary

7 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 21 2008 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

After a brief interlude to discuss why we need collars, I thought I’d better fill you in on the new den site we found last week.  It’s on a ranch called Mapari Ranch, and we hadn’t been allowed on there since the beginning of the denning season because they were hunting.  They had a one week break from hunting when they said we could go onto the property…. On day 1 Misheck found the new den and we cleared a vehicle access route to it.  On day 2 we went in the car to see the wild dogs, on day 3 we were incredibly lucky and managed to fit a GPS collar onto one of the dogs and on day 4 when we went back to check on the newly collared dog, we even managed to see the puppies!!  Wonderful to have been able to do all that so quickly, as we now aren’t allowed back on that property until the end of October!  At least the collar will be collecting movement information for us.

Here are a couple of pictures of the dogs at the new den.  There are at least 4 adults, and at least 6 pups.  I think the very white dog (Luckybean) is especially beautiful.

The dog we collared (Sandy) is below.  She is also a very striking individual I think - with very few black or white markings.

And very nice teeth! 

All dogs were doing well when we last saw them and the pups were still very small (probably only about 6 weeks old) so they will still be at the den for a while. I’ll keep you posted with their news when we are allowed back on the property to check up on them again.

Back soon,

Rosemary 

8 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 18 2008 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi guys,

Paula raised a very good point in her comment to the last post.  Effectively - why do we need collars and how do they help conservation?  This is a very good question, because all too often people will put collars on because it seems like a good thing to do, or just because they want some data for a paper they are writing.  Now the latter isn’t necessarily a bad thing - sound conservation depends heavily on good background research which can often be written into papers.  The problem is if the work stops there - the researcher has got their paper out and then leaves the animal collared with no further follow up.  Unfortunately that happens all too often and it makes me mad too Paula!

I would like to reassure you however that the Zimbabwe wild dog project is 100% a conservation project (I have finished my PhD and so am not even looking to collect data for a thesis at the same time!).  All aspects of project work towards the conservation of this incredibly endangered species, in a very hands on way.

So why do we need collars?  Well - firstly because any realistic conservation measures need a certain amount of basic background information such as numbers of individuals, distribution of packs, litter sizes, pups survival and causes of adult mortality etc.  All such information requires observations of the dogs and quite simply, wild dogs are virtually impossible to find without collars!  They can have home ranges of up to 1500km2, which is a HUGE area of wilderness in which to look for the dogs, especially given the vast distances they can move on a daily basis.  Although the home ranges in the Save Valley Conservancy are quite a bit smaller (between 400-1000km2) the area is still far too big to be able to locate the dogs regularly without collars.

As well as collecting the data outlined above, frequent observations of all packs are important to pick up any early signs of disease (e.g. rabies/canine distemper) so that measures can be taken to prevent, control or cure the disease.  Collars also help to locate carcasses of dogs so we can look into causes of death.  The GPS collars provide extra information on habitat useage, daily movement patterns, hunting times and patterns etc, all of which helps us understand the dogs ecological requirements so that we can better conserve them.

All collared dogs in this project are followed up regularly.  We do not collar dogs unless we have the time, equipment and personnel to locate and observe them frequently.   And although it doesnt make it any better when you see collared animals, there have been studies done which show there is no long term adverse effect on the animal from being collared.  In fact in our study, one of the collared males became the alpha male of the pack after being collared, which at the very least shows that his fitness, strength and ‘attractiveness’ where not negatively affected by the collar in the slightest.

I hope that answers your concerns Paula.  It is an extremely important point you raised and one I feel very strongly about too.  I think at the end of the day, collars can be an extremely valuable conservation tool if used properly, but should by no means be deployed without very good reasons.

Rosemary

3 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 14 2008 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi guys,

A very rushed post today as I am flat out with field work.  Just wanted to let you know that we found a new den a few days ago (yipee!!) and managed to put 2 more GPS collars onto dogs.  One on a female in the new pack and one on a male dog in a pack we already have collared, but we are hoping the pack will split when they stop denning.  All very exciting and a great relief to have those collars so, since I am about to go away for a week or two…

Anyway, I have LOADS of exciting pictures to post and will tell you all about the new den when I am somewhere with a decent internet connection and time to write more.   The new den has at least 6 very small pups, so should still be denning for a while - good news!

Back soon, 

Rosemary xx

3 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 09 2008 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi guys,

HUGE APOLOGIES to everyone who has been commenting on this blog and receiving no response from me.  I just discovered that there were a zillion comments in the admin part of the blog “awaiting moderation” or somesuch nonsense, which I had to approve before they were posted.  So my apologies to Christine, Annie, Chris, Amy, Seamus, Jim, Emma, Darryl, Maina and Masumi.  Thank you so much for your comments and support and please keep them coming.  It makes a massive difference to know people are reading and enjoying the blog (I was getting a bit despondent with only 1 or 2 comments on each post!), and I promise to respond to any queries posted.

Emma - I’ll respond to you about wild dog sizes very soon, and Darryl - yes, I have been keeping some of these crazy Zim notes, so re-post your email address and I’ll get in touch. 

Rosemary

2 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 08 2008 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi guys, 

We discovered something very interesting yesterday, so I thought I’d share it with you. I’ve mentioned before a pack of 3 adult dogs who have 6 pups…. Every time we see them, we see three adults only - and have done ever since we discovered the den over a month ago.  However, when these dogs were seen in February, they were with a fourth dog (a very white one), who was heavily pregnant.  Since that dog had since been seen alone, and never once with the other three dogs, we presumed she had been separated from the pack, or killed.

However…. then…. we put a camera trap at the den for a week and who did we see on the picture but the very white female!  Amazing - she has clearly been there all the time (is most likely the mother of the 6 pups) and we have never seen her!  So - Sheryl, since I said I would name the Alpha female Mina - I guess that’s her new name!  I’ve posted a picture of her below.

Mina, the secret alpha female of the Nyarushanga pack

And - just because I think they are very cool - I’ve posted below a picture of an aardvark caught on the same camera trap…

Back soon,

Rosemary

3 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 07 2008 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

As requested here is a picture of the newly collared ‘Racoon’.  And Sheryl - I’ll post pics of Mina soon.  I’ve had a camera trap up at the den for a week or so, and have lots of pictures of her and her 6 pups.

Racoon - young adult female in the Bedford Pack   

I also wanted to post this picture of the pups we saw yesterday - all 14 in a big pile!

Interestingly we also saw 2 very small pups in a new den for this pack.  Seems like at least one if not two of the subordinate females are breeding as well…  So it’ll be a pretty big pack soon: 13 or 14  adults, 14  big pups and an unknown quantity of other pups!  A whole bundle of dogs…

Anyway, I’ve only got a very limited time on the internet today, so I’ll write more in a day or two - so much has been going on here!

Rosemary

PS - By the way - please feel free to request anything specific you want to see photos of, or get information about.  I’ve got thousands of photos of all sorts of things, so when you get bored of looking at wild dogs (!), feel free to suggest what you’d like me to write about or post pictures on….

4 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 02 2008 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

I’m in Harare at the moment: they just knocked 10 zeros off our currency, so things that used to cost 10 trillion dollars now cost 1,000 dollars.  All mightily confusing, especially now they have bought coins back in.  So we’ve gone from 100 billion dollar notes to 10 dollar coins…

Anyway, on the subject of naming the recently collared wild dog, Sherri S suggested Racoon for the stripey tail, and I must admit to liking that a lot.  Sheryl suggested Mina and I also like that very much (Sheryl - is it pronounced Meeena or M’eye’na??).  Since this dog’s tail is particularly characteristic, I’m going to name her racoon; but I’m going to use Mina for the Alpha female in our new den site.  So thanks guys - I’ll be sure to ask you again when I need more names!

Before I came up to Harare I was working on that new pack - we’ve decided to call it the Nyarushanga pack after the small river that runs close by.  That’s the one with only three adults: the alpha female (Mina) and two males, but with 6 pups.  I’ve been trying to get them to come to bait so we have a chance of darting them, but no luck so far.  Will get back to it on Monday when I’m back down in the Conservancy, and let you know if we have any luck darting them.

Cheers for now,

Rosemary 

4 responses so far