Zimbabwe Wild Dogs

Conservation of endangered wild dogs

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Mapari pack back on the radar!

Category: Wild Dogs, zimbabwe | Date: Dec 05 2008 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Dear friends,

Third time lucky! After 3 days’ worth of attempts, we were finally successful, yesterday, in installing a collar on a member of the Mapari Pack, a male Wild Dog called Darkie. Since Sandy’s sad death by snaring just over a month ago, we have had very little information about the Mapari Pack, as there has been no radio-collared individual in the pack to help us locate and study them.

Around 1st December, a pack of Wild Dogs was spotted quite close to our research base. They were resting in the shade by a water-hole in the heat of the day, and stayed there long enough for us to receive the message and reach that location. It turned out to be the Mapari Pack, travelling unusually far south, and that and subsequent sightings have been the best views we have had of the pack since the denning season, so we have in the last couple of days been able to build up a database of individual ID photographs for all the pups as well as the adults. It turns out that currently the Mapari Pack comprises a fascinating mixture of adults originating from the Star Pack, ‘Leon’s’ Pack, and the Sango Six-Pack within the last 6 months. This provides us with fascinating information about the mobility of Wild Dogs.

We were blessed to receive the assistance of the Tikki Hywood Trust who were generous enough to volunteer their time to help us with the darting when one of their licensed team members (Ellen Connelly) was down in the conservancy.  Without their generous donation of time and expertise, this darting would have been a lot harder to organise and we may have missed this valuable opportunity.  Trying to find un-collared packs in not easy!!

The Mapari Pack have been quite relaxed around our vehicle as we’ve approached them for darting attempts the last couple of days. We were able to get within the 25 metre darting range and shoot a dart at Darkie, who was in an appropriate position. He moved as soon as he heard the dart gun’s ‘pop!’ and so the dart hit him in the tail rather than the muscle of the back leg. However, somewhat to our surprise, he was staggering a few moments later and the immobilisation drugs soon took full effect, allowing us to install his collar, take hair and tissue and blood samples, and weigh and measure his body and teeth, all the while keeping his eyes covered with a blindfold and spraying him with cool water to prevent overheating.The rest of the pack moved off slowly as we approached the immobilized Darkie:

Immobilisation of an African Wild Dog, Zimbabwe

It was a busy scene with everyone helping as we did what was needed:

Collaring of an African wild dog

When he shook his head to shake off the water-droplets, we knew he was coming round from the ketamine—and in moments he had leapt up and run away, a very fast recovery. For a couple of minutes he was disoriented and looked dizzy, but he was soon able to move in a straight line and he moved around the water-hole looking for the rest of his pack. We left him lying in the shade near where the pack were when we found them.  He was reunited with the rest of his pack in a short time, as we returned to check on the pack a couple of hours later and found them all lying together, with Darkie, in the shade of a big baobab.

This morning Darkie was behaving normally, and with the aid of his new radio-collar, we were able to locate the Mapari Pack and watch him and the others playing and resting in the Msaize River.

Back soon,

Roy & Rosemary

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5 Responses to “Mapari pack back on the radar!”

sheryl, washington, dc, on 05 Dec 2008

What information will you get from Darkie’s collar and all the samples you took? I’m remembering Paula’s comment from a while back about seeing so many wild dogs with collars on them so I’m curious to know what you’ll learn.

Also, about what does the average wild dog weigh? Darkie looks bigger than my Mina, who’s about 52 pounds.

s.

zimbabwewilddogs, on 06 Dec 2008

Hi Sheryl,

As I explained in a previous blog (Why do we need collars - 18-08-08), we actually need collars for almost everything we do. Without collars, we would hardly ever even see wild dogs, let alone be able to monitor them for snare wounds, diseases, pup survival, movement between packs etc etc etc. The collars also give us information on home range which is interesting from a scientific point of view but also essential for managemnet of the populations.

Wild dogs weigh on average 25-30kg here in southern Africa. Darkie was 28kg (about 62 pounds or so).

The samples we take at the moment are for genetic analysis and disease screening.

Rosemary

sheryl, washington, dc, on 06 Dec 2008

Thanks, Rosemary. The wild dogs must be mostly muscle because Darkie looks a little bigger than 62 pounds. Do the wild dogs get many flea- or tick-borne diseases? What about the current anthrax problem in parts of Zimbabwe? Any affect in your area?

Thanks, again.
s.

Alex, Bournemouth, UK, on 06 Dec 2008

Hi, I’ve been wondering what extent of qualifications are needed to train in animal darting? I’m doing a degree in Ecology and Wildlife Conservation, but I’m pretty sure that’s not near chemically or biologically advanced enough for such responsible and skilled work.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, it’d be my dream job!

Thanks,
Alex

zimbabwewilddogs, on 10 Dec 2008

Hi Alex,

In most countries in Africa you actually need to be a qualified vet to dart wild animals. Often a specific wildlife vet with government approval to work with wildlife. In Zimbabwe (which is the only country that has this system), it is a little bit different. In response to the need for it, and due to an excellent relationship between the government vet departments, the parks & wildlife management authority and the independent wildlife sector (researchers etc), they run an annual course at the end of which you take an exam and if you pass, you get your license to immobilise wildlife. The course is extremely good and detailed, but nonetheless is only a week (rather than a 7 year veterinary training) and your license may specify that you are only allowed to work on a certain species in a certainb area, depending on what you do. Anyone can do the course in Zimbabwe but it is not recognised as a legal darting qualification elsewhere.

Hope that helps answer your questions.

Sheryl - wild dogs are incredibly muscular yes (useful for getting darts into the muscle!)… No, to my knowledge they dont suffer from serious tick bourne or fela bourne diseases and in fact I comment every time we dart about how few ecto-parasites are actually on the dogs. Compared with the lions I used to work on in Kenya, tey really have remarkably few… Perhaps becasue of the group ‘grooming’. Anthrax is not yet a problem here in the conservancy, but we are all keeping our eyes out for any sign of it.

Cheers,

Rosemary

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