The Wild Dog project

Category: Carnivores general, Denning, Education, Other wildlife, Random, Wild Dogs, poaching, zimbabwe | Date: Jul 11 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi Folks,

Its been a real busy here at the African Wild Dog project. I thought I would let you all in on my involvement and recent happenings lately. Regular check ups on our known packs is one aspect of the project. Now that denning season is upon us, the trips to the den are now anticipated with the emerging of this years pups, like the Maera pups from Rosemary’s last blog. Aside from our visits with the known packs Rosemary is involved in other projects that involve the Conservancy but may or may not involve Wild Dogs. Im involved in the data management of these projects, which include Wild Dog sightings, Blood analysis and poaching occurrences. Also there are spontaneous things that happen, that keeps things very exciting. For example the other day, we had to help a fellow researcher here at Chishakwe free a lion out of a cage, that was intended to lure Cheetahs for research. We have also tried to help in the tranquilizing of Nyala at another section of the conservancy with again another fellow researcher of Rosemary’s. So not only do I get to work with Wild Dogs but I get to help out in other projects occurring at the Conservancy which has been a plus to an already exciting job.

Home base

I thought I would share a picture of home base. Most of the work and data is managed here. It is also a nice view with the ranch horses in our front lawn at the moment

till next time
Rafael

2 Responses to “The Wild Dog project”

Dana, on 11 Jul 2009

How does one lure cheetahs by the use of a lion in a cage.? Aren’t cheetahs afraid of lions?

Home base looks comfy. Do predators visit there? Are the horses safe being loose like that?

Your job is certainly more exciting than my 9 to 5 in a boring office environment in Phoenix…lol!

zimbabwewilddogs, on 15 Jul 2009

Hey Dana,
Yes home base is not to shabby, it is a very old house which gives it its own character. The horse are put away at night and yes there are definately predators that come in there. The house is in the conservancey so baisicaly we are out in the bush with the rest of the wildlide.
About the cage sorry I was not too clear. Your right Cheetahs do not want to be near lions. The cage was baited with meat in the hopes that a cheetah will walk into it, however they got a lion instead which is not what the cheetah researcher wanted as you can imagine.

-Rafael

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