Category: Carnivores general, Gonarezhou National Park, Other wildlife, Wild Dogs, lions, zimbabwe | Date: Oct 29 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

I’m finally back from three weeks in the wilderness of Gonarezhou.  As you will see from the last two posts, I did actually have a few days at park HQs in the middle of the stay, so this is the story of what happened in phase two of the trip…

After a few days of ‘admin’ at HQ, I set off once again with Rueben and a National Parks research assistant Julius, for the three hour drive across the park into the eastern area where we were hoping to find signs of wild dogs, and if we were lucky to get a collar on to a lion.  The first evening we were there, we drove out to a stunning water-filled pan full of birds and surrounded by groups of impala, warthogs, baboons, zebra, wildebeest and even the rare and spectacular sable antelope. 

We saw no fresh lion or wild dog spoor, but it seemed like a good place for predators, so we decided to set up a calling station in an open area nearby and see what came.  To attract predators, the usual method is to play the sound of a dying buffalo calf over loudspeakers and see what comes to investigate.  In this instance, however, instead of attracting predators, we attracted a large and rather anxious herd of buffalo, come to save their calf!! 

They were very persistent and we could do nothing for the next hour or so, until they moved off to drink.  After that, our call-up attracted 3 black-backed jackals and a civet, but no larger predators…  

At least until I changed tactic and played a lion roar, at which point an immediate and very load answering roar told us there was in fact a lion not too far away!! Although the moon was only half full it was bright enough for me to make out the lion through binoculars – a beautiful male with a half-black mane.  Great!  It was wonderful to know he was around, and we decided we would try to lure him to bait the following night to try to collar him.

As it turned out, he could not have been more co-operative!  Early the next morning, I was woken up at 4:30 by the sound of a lion roaring.  I got up to investigate, and there was the lion strolling along past the camp (maybe 150m away)…  So I flung on some clothes, jumped into the car, prepared the drugs and a dart and went after him.  We followed him for a while but then lost him in thick bush, so decided rather to wait for the evening when lions become active again.   We called him again, and he came to the bait around half past eight.  I managed to dart him, and discovered (to my great surprise to say the least!) that he already had a very old, dysfunctional collar on.  Bizarre!!  This turned out to be from the wildlife reserve neighbouring the park, in which he had been collared in 2002, and from where he went missing in 2005! It turns out he is 10-11 years old, which is OLD for a lion, and evidenced by his very worn teeth.   

Despite this, he was in good condition, albeit slightly thin, and it will be great to be able to keep an eye on him now that he is collared.  The collar will hopefully also prevent him getting shot on one of the hunting concessions outside the park.  We also took some blood samples to be able to test for various diseases - Bovine TB is a particular concern, and for genetic analyses to help us establish whether there is any inbreeding in the lion population in the park. 

We are doing all this work (by the way) because there are worryingly few lions in Gonarezhou National Park, which should be a prime area for the conservation of the species, and we need to find out what factors are keeping their population so low, so we can try and do something about it.  Lion and wild dog populations are also linked in many ways, so getting an idea of the abundance and distribution of the lions in the park also has key significance for understanding wild dog populations. 

On that note, we also found evidence of more wild dogs in the park, which was extremely encouraging, and which I will report on in a separate posting. 

Back soon, 

Rosemary

Tags: call-up stations, Gonarezhou, lions, sable, Wild Dogs

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Category: Carnivores general, Wild Dogs, zimbabwe | Date: Oct 22 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

I’m back briefly from the first phase of field work in Gonarezhou National Park.  We just spent 12 days working in the south of the park, attempting to find and collar lions (to test for TB), and hoping that we may be lucky enough to find some wild dogs.  We were not specifically looking for hyenas, but got to see lots of them too!!

Our approach with the lions was to look for fresh tracks along the roads, follow the spoor for a while until we could guess where the lions might be resting up, and then that night go and play lion-attracting noises on loud speakers, along with setting up a bait, to try to lure the lions within darting range… The first night we tried we attracted a hyena, a civet and a large herd of elephants who were not best pleased by the noises of squealing pigs and dying buffalos, so we had to abort our efforts rather abruptly!

The following night, we had only been calling for about 15 minutes when a beautiful lioness stalked up.  Unfortunately she came over to my vehicle which was playing the sound, rather than over to the bait where the vets were waiting to dart her!  Eventually she got the idea and went towards the bait, but by this time a large clan of hyenas had been attracted to the bait and did a very thorough job of keeping her away!  Even had we had an opportunity to dart her, we could not have done so with so many hyeanas around, as they may have attacked her once she was too drugged to defend herself and before we could get to her.  So we contented ourselves with observing the interactions for a while and then packed everything up and left them in peace.

We didnt get many other opportunities to dart lions there - although we will be continuing to try over the next week or so - but did manage to track and find a pack of wild dogs which was MOST exciting!  We found fresh spoor early one morning and followed it for a few hours until we came across where the dogs were resting.  Unfortunately, as wild dogs tend to do (!), they saw and smelt us before we had a good look at them and bounded off.  Nonetheless, from the tracks and the number we actually saw, it seems to be a good sized pack - at least 15 adults and 10 pups.  It was also the first pack of dogs I have seen in the park and was thus doubly as exciting! 

Anyway, I’ll be heading back into the park on Sunday for another week or so, to continue to look for both lions and wild dogs and will post again when I’m back.  Hopefully I’ll have some more exciting pictures to show you then!

Rosemary  

Tags: call-ups, Gonarezhou National Park, hyenas, lions, spoor, Wild Dogs, zimbabwe

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Category: Carnivores general, Wild Dogs, zimbabwe | Date: Oct 11 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

This blog will be quiet for the next couple of weeks I’m afraid: I’m going into Gonarezhou National Park to see if we can find some lions (no tigers or bears hopefully) to help some vets who want to survey the lion population for bovine Tuberculosis (bTB).  Obviously this is largely a disease of bovids, but lions can get it from eating infected carcasses and it has been a big problem for the lions in neighbouring Kruger National Park in South Africa. 

The lion population in Gonarezhou seems to be very low at the moment, and we will be starting a project to investigate why this might be, alongside our work on the wild dogs in the park.  Helping the vets with the bTB survey and getting some collars on at the same time will be a good place to start.  It will be no small challenge though!

Anyway, I’m going down to the south of the park tomorrow where there are no communication facilities, so wont be updating this blog for a while.  Rest assured we won’t be slacking though (!) and will post again with all the news when I’m back somewhere with internet connection. 

I have Reuben with me to help track the lions and wild dogs if we do find fresh spoor, and have left Misheck monitoring the wild dogs in the Save Valely Conservancy….

Back soon (hopefully!),

Rosemary

Tags: bovine TB, bTB, Gonarezhou, lions, Wild Dogs

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

Hi folks,

Just a quick post this time (and apologies but no photos!), as I am flat out with the carnivore spoor survey.  We’ve been starting at 5:00 every day to get to the start of the transects in time for sunrise when we begin driving slowly along the roads. The trackers scan for spoor and we record any fresh carnivore tracks we see - however big or small. 

We are finding a lot of evidence of lions and hyenas, supporting our belief that the populations of these two higher carnivores are increasing considerably in the conservancy.  Good for their numbers but bad for wild dogs with whom they will compete for prey and even kill the pups…  

Leopard numbers are good but we have seen virtually no sign of cheetah.  I’ll let you know more when we’ve finished and got some firmer results.  In the meantime, I just wanted to let you know why we are a bit quieter than normal here…

Back soon,

Rosemary  

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

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Category: Carnivores general, Other wildlife, zimbabwe | Date: Sep 20 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

We recently had an amazing opportunity to go to a spotted hyena den with some film makers on Malilangwe Conservancy - a wildlife area to the south of the Save Valley Conservancy.  The hyena clan was a large one with six 8-month old cubs who were wonderfully curious and playful.  It was a real privilege to be able to spend some time with them at the den and they were very relaxed, being habituated to the filming car.  I just wanted to share these photos with you….

They aren’t quite as cute as wild dog pups, but they aren’t far off!

Have a look at Kim Wolhuter’s blog site (wildcast.net) for more photos and videos about the wild dogs and hyenas they are filming…

Back soon,

Rosemary

Tags: malilangwe, spotted hyenas, zimbabwe

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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

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Category: Carnivores general, Denning, Other wildlife, Wild Dogs, zimbabwe | Date: Jul 30 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi Folks, 

As many of you know, it is a tough place for any animal in the wild, especially a pup in the African bush. There are so many dangers, which makes the denning season, a time of high alert for the pack to watch over the pups. Its quite common for a wild dog pack to move its den site multiple times through out the denning season. This change in den sites are sometimes due to the packs decision that the den site is no longer safe because of some threat to the pups.

Below are pictures of a rock python at the old Bedford den. Fortunately the Bedford pack had just moved their den a few days before these pictures were taken.

Here you can see the drag marks to the right where the python entered the main den hole to the left.

Till next time

- Rafael

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Category: Carnivores general, Wild Dogs, zimbabwe | Date: Jul 22 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi Folks,

I could not keep this one in the bag any longer. A couple of weeks ago Dr. Rosemary Groom and Myself came across unexpectedly 4 dogs hunting along one of the Conservancy roads. Dr. Groom was able to Identify the individuals as Newt,Four-Ten,Browny and Paw Paw from the Mapari pack. Those of you who follow the dogs closely will find this exciting due to the fact that paw paw was missing for a while and her state of being was in question.  Now to our surprise she has joined the three males to make a pack. These four dogs are now a true pack since there is at least one dog of each gender in the pack who can contribute to offspring and therefore future wild dog generations. 

Below are some of the pictures I was able to snap while Rosemary was busy ID’ing the dogs.

Till next time Rafael

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Category: Carnivores general, Education, Wild Dogs, zimbabwe | Date: Jul 17 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi all, its Rafael again,

I want to take this time since I have Moreangels here with me know, to introduce herself and talk about what she is working on here at the African Wild Dog Project and maybe share her experiences so far.

As Rosemary stated in an earlier blog, Moreangels will be here for a few months working on her Master’s research. I will let her take over.

Hallo everyone. My name is Moreangels; I am studying for a Masters of Science Degree in Tropical Resource Ecology with the University of Zimbabwe. I am joining Dr Rosemary and the Lowveld wild dog project as part of my MSc research project. I will be collecting wild dog, hyena, leopard and lion faeces to determine their diets. This will enable us to see if there is diet overlap and hence competition for prey between these carnivores. This is important in determining whether lions, leopards and hyenas are a threat to the wild dog population in Save Valley Conservancy.

My first day with the wild dogs

It was to be my first time going out to live in the bush; I was full of anticipation and excitement before I even set out for my journey to Save Valley Conservancy. The day I arrived, just before sunset, Rosemary and Rafael took me out to one of the packs, the Teddy pack in Sango Ranch. This was my first encounter with the wild dogs; all my senses were alert for any sign of them. Within minutes of arriving at the den two beautiful dogs came out to gaze at us. It was amazing seeing the wild dogs for the first time, I wanted to reach out and touch them but getting out of the car was going to make they run away. All the other dogs came into view one by one and we counted eight of them. After a while they all went away, probably for another hunting adventure. It was just awesome.

Moreangels

Below are some photos I took of Moreangels drying some of her samples.

till next time - Rafael

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Category: Carnivores general, Wild Dogs, zimbabwe | Date: Jul 15 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi Everyone,

This past week has been very successful in collaring some of our Wild Dogs. We were able to fit two dogs each with a different type of collar. The types of collars we use are VHF (which emits a radio frequency that our radio receiver picks up and thus able to track its location by the intensity of the signal) and a GPS collar (which does VHF, but also Global Positioning so we can download into a computer all the places the dog has been within a set time frame). Since the GPS collar also does VHF we tend to put these collars on adult dogs since they weigh a little more than the plain VHF collars. The first dog we immobilized was an adult female from the Maera pack, this is the one we fitted with a GPS collar. Our second dog was a young female from the Bedford pack and we fitted her with a VHF collar.

In order to put a collar on a dog, the animal has to be sedated. To sedate the Wild Dog is the hard part. We use a special type of air gun that shoots a dart that contains tranquilizers in order to immobilize the dog and fit a collar on. The trick is to get close enough to the dog so we have a clear shot, the Wild Dogs seem to recognize Rosemary’s car so we are afforded to get a little bit closer to the dogs but it is still hard, for these dog are very alert. Once in a good range the next issue is to make sure there is no vegetation in front of the dog, even the slightest piece of twig can deflect the dart off the intended target.  Lastly we want the dog still and in a good position to dart, preferably a thigh muscle. All these circumstances need to line up to successfully tranquilize. Lots of precaution is taken in shooting any animal with a tranquilizer dart, one is safety to the animal and the other is the cost of the tranquilizer drugs from a missed dart. 

From left to right Rueben,Moreangels,Rosemary and myself.

till next time -Rafael

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