Zimbabwe Wild Dogs

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: 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

3 responses so far

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.

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 so far

Category: Denning, Uncategorized, Wild Dogs, zimbabwe | Date: Jul 04 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

Forgive the infrequent posts at the moment - we are rushing around like mad things trying to keep up with the dogs as they all start to den and the pups start appearing.  This is just a brief update of where we are now…

We’ve located 5 den sites so far: the four collared packs (Maera, Mapari, Bedford and Teddy) and one un-collared pack (Star).  The Maera pack pups came out aboout 2-3 weeks ago, but I haven’t mangaged to see them again since they moved dens after the lion visited!  I recently saw the puppies of the Bedford pack for the first time as well.  We only saw 7 but camera trap photos show there to be at least 12.  All very exciting, and they are such fun to watch! 

The other packs have only recently denned down and so the pups are not yet out.  Mapari pack will probably be next, followed by Star pack.  The Teddy pack is quite late and only denned down about 4 days ago.

Having found those den sites, I am now able to ask the scouts to focus on other areas in the conservancy, so hopefully soon we should get a clearer picture of the other packs in the conservancy, and if we can find their den sites, we’ll have the chance to count them and photograph them as a baseline for the forthcoming year.

Back soon,

Rosemary

PS - I’ll conscript Rafael into writing some blogs soon, so you can see the project through a new pair of eyes!

One response 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: Denning, Wild Dogs | Date: May 22 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi guys,

Some very exciting news… We’ve just located our first den of the season!!!  It’s for the Maera pack, and they’ve chosen a very inaccessible site right in the east of the conservancy!  I dont want to disturb them yet by clearing a vehicle access route, as the den is still very new.  So I’m afraid I can’t report much more than that at the moment, although as soon as we do get a route cleared and some observations going, I’ll get back to you.  I imagine it wont be long before the Bedford pack start denning too, although the other packs probably wont for a while longer.

Rosemary

Tags: dens, wild dog den sites, Wild Dogs, zimbabwe

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