Zimbabwe Wild Dogs

Hi folks,

Just a quick post from me today, as I’m actually busy with a 5 day intensive advanced first-aid course.  For the work I do, especially when I’m in Gonarezhou which is fairly remote, I do need to be trained in emergency first aid procedures.  So I’ve temporarily left the wild dog field work in the capable hands of Rueben and Misheck and instead will be spending the week doing this course.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that a couple of days ago, we unfortunately found the collar of the Mapari pack collared male, Darky, lying on the ground.  There is no way that the collar could have come off by itself, but nor did we find any carcass anywhere nearby where the collar was located.  This leads us to suspect a human-caused death of the wild dog, with the collar being removed from the carcass to prevent us finding it.  But we will probably never know for sure.  Darky was collared almost a year ago to the day – the 4th December 2008…

Darky immobilised for collaring whilst a curious pup checks him out

For now, given the loss of the collar, the pack is now virtually impossible to find and so we will struggle to keep an eye on them until we get an opportunity to re-collar.  I only hope that if it was a snare that killed Darky that he was the only one that was caught.  On occasion, snare lines can catch and kill many indivudals in a pack.  I’ll let you know what we find next time we manage to locate the pack.

Rosemary