Zimbabwe Wild Dogs

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jun 28 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

I have recently been joined on the project by a wildlife biologist from the States, who has come to help out with the wild dogs for the next three months.  I’ll leave him to introduce himself to you. 

Hello Folks,

My name is Rafael Crespo, I was recently given a great oppertunity to join Rosemary in the African Wild Dog Project here in Zimbabwe. I am working in the day to day operations to learn more about these amazing predators. Like Rosemanry just mentioned I come from the States in which I did alot of work in the South Florida Everglades. I now join Rosemary halfway around the world to stay here for 3 months and help this project and myself grow. I am very eager to join, and to all who follow Rosemary’s passion of conserving these animals, I wish for you all to welcome myself as well.

Rafael  

4 responses so far

Category: Denning, Wild Dogs, elephants, zimbabwe | Date: Jun 25 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

I recently went to one of the wild dog dens and found it to be abandoned.  This isn’t all that unusual - the dogs will move the pups at various stages throughout the denning season as they grow or as the parasite load builds up in the den.  But not usually when they are as small as they were… So I wondered what had happened, but fortunately I had had two camera traps up at the den over the time they moved.  Here is story told by the cameras:

Adults and pups relaxing and playing at the den site:

And then, that night, our other (infrared) camera recorded this…..

A lion at the den!  The dogs moved the next day, but that was not the end of the activity at the den site…. The cameras captured the following as well, after the dogs had moved.

A warthog visited…..

Followed by….

An elephant! Who came rather close to the camera…

So! That was all a bit of excitement at the den, but a shame that the dogs have moved.

Unfortunately, I’ve been away for a couple of days and so havent yet located the new den.  I really hope all the pups are still alive. There were six, but the few pictures of the dogs captured on the cameras after the lions visit show only three pups.  Lions are the greatest cause of natural mortality for the wild dogs and kill both pups and adults.  I hope this one was just passing through, although the response of the dogs leads me to think there may be more to it.  I’ll find the new den in the next couple of days and let you know how many pups remain. 

Back soon,

Rosemary

Tags: Denning, elephants, lion predation, Wild Dogs, zimbabwe

3 responses so far

Category: Carnivores general, zimbabwe | Date: Jun 21 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

Well we’ve put the drugs to good use already.  Last night we mangaged to immobilise an adult lioness who had been fitted a few years ago with a collar that had recently become too tight.  The poor lion had very laboured breathing as a result, and I’m sure it will be a big relief to her to be freed of the collar.  We did the immobilisation with the help of the Sango Ranch, particularly ecologist Dusty Joubert and manager Dave Goosen. 

The mark left by the collar (it’s just darker hair and will fade in time).

I imagine many of you are probably thinking that animals shouldn’t be collared in the first place and would point to things like this to back up your argument.  But I must say that, so long as the collaring is done for the right reasons (which this was), the use of collars allows for far greater conservation efforts than would be possible otherwise.  The important thing is that the collared animal is regularly located and if there is any problem like this, it is removed as soon as possible, as we have done here.  It is also very unusual indeed for the collar to cause the animal any discomfort whatsoever.  Collar weights are carefully regulated and so long as they are not too tight (or too loose), have virtually no affect on the animal.

Anyhow, in this case, a problem did develop, and it was great to be able to respond to the call for help for this lioness, given that we had the drugs to immobilise her.  Thanks again to all of you who donated to our appeal.

The immobilisation - my shirt is being used as a blindfold!

The whole immobilisation went smoothly, although was made somewhat more exciting by the presence of two other groups of lions who had been drawn to the same bait and stayed around throughout the time we were working on the lioness… lots of roaring, fighting and general cavorting going on around us!     

Back soon,

Rosemary

Tags: collar removal, lion, lion immobilisation, wild dog project, zimbabwe

5 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jun 19 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

Due to the generosity of many of you who have donated to this blog, as well as generous support from Dana and the Malilangwe Trust, we have finally managed to raise sufficient funds to buy the drugs to help rescue and treat snared and injured wildlife.  Thank you all. 

Unfortunately there is often nothing we can do to help - the animal is only discovered when it is too late - but at least now when there is something that can be done, we are finally in a position to help.  I will post stories of any rescue work we do; in the meantime, a big thank you to everyone who has supported us and made this possible.

Rosemary 

2 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jun 17 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi guys,

Just a very quick note as I am flat out with field work at the moment.  I just got back from completing the spoor survey in Gonarezhou National Park (more about that later), and have had a busy few days catching up with the dogs.  I went to the Maera pack den site very early this morning and was lucky enough to see the new pups briefly - the first pups to be out so far in 2009! 

Whilst trying to maintain a semblance of detached professionalism - I do have have to say that they are utterly ADORABLE!

I had had some camera traps up at the den whilst I was away on Gonarezhou and it seems the pups first emerged on the 10th June.  You can see them as tiny dark blobs behind the adults in the photo below.

I saw a total of six pups and I think that is the full litter, but will need to confirm that at subsequent visits.  That’s not an especially big litter for wild dogs - they can have up to almost 20 - but is more than this alpha female had last year. 

I’m also pretty sure now that this pack has split: the second collared male has been missing for a while now, and there are three other males who also went missing around the same time.  Unless they ran into a snare line (which is too terrible a thought to entertain) - the most likely scenario is that they have split.  Unfortunately the collar is a GPS collar with a very short tracking range so we are having no luck finding the collar, but we shall persevere!

Back soon - just wanted to post these pics and let you know the denning season is officially underway!!

Rosemary

4 responses so far

Category: Wild Dogs, poaching, zimbabwe | Date: Jun 07 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks, 

I’m sad to report we’ve lost another one of the dogs to snaring.  The scouts found the carcass during an ambush of some well-known commercial poachers on one of the conservancy properties.  It was still fresh enough for us to identify it as one of the adult males from the Mapari pack.  Ironically, he was actually called ‘Snare’, having escaped from a snare before, although he still bore the scar around his neck.  This time round he wasn’t so lucky: he was caught around both his back legs and - from the destruction of the vegetation around where he was caught - must have died a very slow and painful death.  Poor dog.  He was only 3 years old as well.

His carcass was hidden under a bush:

The good news is that they at least caught some of the poachers, and cleared 98 snares from the area.  Unfortunately it was too late for a few impala as well who were also caught in these snares.

We took the carcass back to the car and have taken the skull for measurements, and other samples for genetic analysis.  Only time will tell what impact this tragedy will have on the denning of the pack this year.

Rosemary

Tags: African Wild Dogs, dead wild dog, snaring, zimbabwe

2 responses so far

Category: Carnivores general, zimbabwe | Date: Jun 05 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

Rueben and I have just come back from Gonarezhou having completed the first half of the spoor survey we were doing there.  It was hard work and involved lots of driving, but was well worth it - it’s such a beautiful place.  We picked up evidence of good populations of spotted hyenas and leopards, but very few lion tracks and not very many wild dog tracks either.  We even picked up some cheetah spoor which was exciting, as I’m told cheetah are not often seen in the park.

We drove spoor transects in both the morning and evenings on most days - when the sun is at the best angle to see the tracks in the sand - and then just camped out where we ended up or where we wanted to start the next day.  A wonderful opportunity, and magical to lie in a tent and listen to the sounds of the bush all around: elephants splashing through the river, hyenas making a kill, nightjars singing and owls hooting. 

Elephant tracks crossing the dry river

As always, the scenery was stunning….

 and the wildlife was special.  (Nyala calf)

We were also lucky enough to see several herds of buffalo, elephants, hyenas on two separate occasions, and even a flash of a pair of leopards running across the road!  The birdlife is awesome too.

Although we didnt see any of them, the tracks we saw suggested the park also has good numbers of the smaller carnivores - civets, genets, porcupines, wild cats and even aardwolves.  Maybe we’ll get lucky during the next stage of the survey.

We’re off back to the park on Sunday, so the blog will once again be quiet for a while…

Rosemary

Tags: Carnivores, cheetah, Gonarezhou, hyena, leoards, lion, spoor, tracks, Wild Dogs, zimbabwe

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