Zimbabwe Wild Dogs

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 30 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi guys,

I just want to say a huge thank you for all those kind comments for Rueben.  I have passed them on to him and he is very touched (albeit slightly confused!) by such overwhelming kindness and support from people he doesn’t even know.  He is also extremely grateful for the money donated to help him buy the powdered milk his child needs.  The following is what he wrote to you all:

Dear Sirs/Madams,

I am very glad to write this letter to you all who are sending me some money for finding my childs food.  I am very happy with your help of sending me that gift.  I never forget that for all my long and short life of mine.  My wife died on 7th August 2009.  I was very sad about that and she left a very young child with 12 days old.  By now she has one month, 6 days old.  My child’s name is Chiedza and my wife’s name was Ester.  Thank you for sending me the US$ to help my child,

Yours faithfully,

Rueben Bote (senior tracker of wild dog project; worked years).

No responses yet

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Aug 25 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

I’m afraid I have some sad news to report.  The wife of our head tracker, Rueben, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly last week.  We are all shocked and feel terribly sad for Rueben.  Very sadly, she left behind a new-born baby girl - Rueben’s first daughter, who was born just two weeks before her mother died. 

This means that, on-top of his personal grief, Rueben is struggling to cope with funeral expenses and compensation to her family, as well as having to buy powdered milk to feed his baby daughter.  This is hard to come by in Zimbabwe and is imported from South Africa which makes it very expensive.  We will do everything we can to help Rueben through this difficult time, including trying to buy the milk for his baby, and if anyone feels that they could help us with this, we would all be very grateful. 

One tin of powdered milk, which lasts for one week costs US$5.  Any donations made to the project in the next week I will put aside for Rueben and after that if you want your donation to go to helping Rueben and his daughter, please just leave a comment, and I will ensure it goes to him directly.

Rueben has been with the wild dog project for 13 years now.  He is an extremely talented tracker, a hard worker and has become a good friend.  Please help us to help him during this difficult time.

Thank you,

Rosemary

10 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized, Wild Dogs | Date: Aug 24 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

While we’ve been busy trying to remove snares from wild dogs, our camera traps have been working hard and recording some very cool puppy sightings.  So just for a break from dead puppies and snared dogs (!) I thought I’d post some cute puppy pics from our camera traps. 

Sadly due to being so caught up with other things, I’ve had very little time to sit at the dens and watch the pups.  At least we are recording their numbers an movements via these camera traps though!

Back soon,

Rosemary

Tags: camera traps, trail cams, wild dog puppies, Wild Dogs

2 responses so far

Category: Wild Dogs, poaching, zimbabwe | Date: Aug 22 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

Sorry we have been quiet recently.  Both Rafael and I have been out in the field from sun-up to sun-down doing our best to remove snares from dogs.  Unfortunately we havent yet been successful - the affected dogs are very skittish and wary and we simnply cant get close to them - but we will keep trying.

On a more positive note, the dogs we have de-snared recently are doing well, and aside from the litter of pups that was killed by lions, the pups are generally doing well as well.  Many of them are now getting to the really cute age where they are curious and inquisitive and come up to the car to check you out - cute photos coming soon I promise!

Hopefully we’ll have some good news to report on the de-snaring in the next few days too, but if it’s quiet on the blog, you’ll now know why!

Back soon,

Rosemary

Tags: snaring, wild dog puppies, Wild Dogs, zimbabwe

2 responses so far

Category: Other wildlife, poaching, zimbabwe | Date: Aug 15 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks, 

As I mentioned, I was asked the other day to help rescue a buffalo calf that was caught in a snare.  I was a bit nervous because I hadn’t worked on buffalo before but something had to be done so off I went.  Below is a picture of the buffalo as I first saw him: struggling to free himself from the wire caught tight around his back left leg…

Having estimated drug combinations and doses from an excellent ‘wildlife capture’ book, I darted the little fellow and then moved off to let him relax and go to sleep. 

After about 15 minutes he was pretty much out although still twitching his ears and moving his head occasionally.  We blindfolded him and blocked his ears to reduce stressful stimuli (light and noise) and then removed the snare from around his leg.  It had dug very deep into the skin but looked like it would heal: we washed it out and disinfected it, and gave him some long-acting antibiotics (although I later found out from a wildlife vet that I should have given him a much higher dose of antibiotics and perhaps some anti-inflammatory: oh well, we live and learn).

Unfortunately this story does not have a happy ending though.  After we finished treating the buffalo I reversed the drugs and we moved off to watch him recover.  He was close to water and the rest of the herd was not far away so he would have had a good chance of making it, but unfortunately as soon as he came around it became clear that something was wrong.  We had ascertained that his leg was not broken while we had him immobilised, but it turned out that he had dislocated it at the hip trying to pull out of the snare.  He was evidently in a lot of pain and such an injury would not heal naturally, so very sadly he had to be put out of his misery.  Another waste of an animals life by these cruel snares.

But despite the sad ending, I learned a lot, which will equip me better to deal with such incidents in the future, and for the buffalo, it was a lot better than a slow death from dehydration and starvation in the snare, coupled with the pain of a dislocated leg, so I do believe that we still helped him.

Hopefully the next post will bring some cheerier news!

Rosemary

Tags: buffalo, buffalo calf, poaching, snaring, zimbabwe

4 responses so far

Category: Carnivores general, Denning, Other wildlife, Wild Dogs, zimbabwe | Date: Aug 11 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi Folks,

A couple weeks ago the Teddy pack suffered a hard loss. I came across 4 dead pups at the Teddy Den. The pups were seen the day before by another member of the conservancy, 100 meters or so away from the den, alive and resting on the ground with no adults seemingly in the area, which seemed odd to begin with. The next day they were in the same area dead, most probably due to lions. We found lots of lion spoor and since we had a camera trap at the den we inevitably caught lions on camera as well at the den. We still don’t know exactly why the pups were out of the den unattended and with lions being in the area all signs point to them as the cause of the incident. Another odd situation was the decision for the dogs to remain at the den even after the visit from the lions. If you notice the date on the pictures below, the lions were at the den about 9 days before the pups were found dead. There were no other pictures of lions thereafter and the most recent pictures taken on the camera trap were taken the night before and were not discernable. We only have a couple of infrared cameras and unfortunately this particular den had a regular motion detector camera, so the pictures we got the night before were completely black, although some movement had to have set it off.  The dead pups were the first ever visual of the Teddy pack pups even from the camera trap, so we do not know exactly if these are all the pups. Since the incident our trackers have been searching for the Teddy pack but no signs of them as of now. 

In the first two pictures below you can see the second lion on the top right hand side just barely in the photo.

till next time -Rafael

4 responses so far

Category: Wild Dogs, poaching, zimbabwe | Date: Aug 08 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

Rosemary here again - sorry I have been quiet recently; I was away for a while and then have been busy in the field since I got back.  Anyway, the day before yesterday I got a call about a badly snared dog.  We rushed straight out but didnt manage to find the dog again, although our tracker Misheck did manage to follow the tracks from where the dogs had been seen and locate a den site.  This was good news: not only was that another den site located but it would give us a chance of finding the injured dog again.  So yesterday morning I went out again and fortunately we found the snared dog near the den.  The wire from the snare was all around his neck and clearly irritating him, and the wound looked bad (note the wire in the photo below)…

 Luckily we successfully managed to immobilise the dog and remove the snare.

The wound was pretty bad but fortunately had not cut through the wind pipe and was fairly clean, so I think we got there in time…

Fortunately I had my family visiting me and all were very helpful ensuring the dog got the best possible care.  We cleaned and disinfected the wound and gave him a dose of long-acting penicillin to prevent infection.  Then we gave him the reversal drugs and watched him until he was safely on his feet again.

When I checked on him this morning, he was with the other males in the pack and looking fine - it was clearly a relief to him to be able to rest his head without the snare wire catching on things. 

So that was a pretty busy morning, but about half an hour after I got back home, I got a call to come and rescue a buffalo calf caught in a snare.  Again we successfully managed to do this, and I will post a blog about it in a few days.  But I just want to thank those who donated money for the drugs because had I not had those drugs I would not have been able to help either the dog or the buffalo.

Back soon,

Rosemary

Tags: darting, injury, poaching, snaring, wild dog immobilisation, Wild Dogs, zimbabwe

2 responses so far