Zimbabwe Wild Dogs

We had 10 collars to fit to lions during the survey so, once we were sure we had properly counted and recorded all the lions in the group, if we had an opportunity to dart an adult, we did so.  In total, in the two week survey we managed to collar 8 cats: 4 adult females and 4 males.

In general the immobilisations went very well and the lions were back on the bait as soon as they recovered from the drugs. Here are some pictures of some of the lion collaring exercise:

We used a red filtered spotlight to light the animals for darting: they looked pretty eerie!

In most cases, after initially jumping up as the dart hit, the lions returned to the bait where they fell asleep.

We then fitted the collars, took blood and other samples and treated any serious looking injuries.  In most cases the lions were reversed after about an hour and all recovered without a problem.

We’ll be getting a student in in the next few months to monitor these lions in an effort to investigate the impact of different hunting strategies on lion family groups, and also to work on mitigating human-lion conflict when lions kill livestock.  It’s a sister project to the wild dog project, and will provide great information for the wild dog project as well, because of the impact of lions on the wild dogs.

The lion team was generously hosted by Chishakwe and Sango Ranches for most of the survey: thanks also to Humani, Senuko and Hammond Camps for having beds ready for us when we pitched up filthy and exhausted in the middle of the night!

Hi folks,

We are busy with the lion survey in SVC at the moment and have had some great lion experiences.  The purpose of the survey is to try to establish the number of lions in the conservancy, but also to investigate group size and the age and sex structure of the population.

The baiting sites were chosen randomly to give maximum coverage of the conservancy.  We set up the baits and the vehicle by 17:30 every night and then started calling the lions, using the traditional lion call up sounds (mainly the sound of a buffalo calf in distress).  We stayed at each site till 23:00 (or later if lions were present) and then left the baits with camera traps up, to record any animals that may have been too shy to come in while the vehicle was there.

The first couple of nights in the extreme north of the conservancy were very quiet.  And my goodness was it cold sitting out in the back of a vehicle until 23:00 every night!!!  Here’s a photo of us checking the bait at the end of the night – all kitted out in cold weather gear, and feeling a bit like teddy bears!

On the second night, we attracted a couple of adult lionesses to the area, but they were too shy to come right in to the bait.  Here’s one of the camera trap pictures of the skittish one. you can just see her eyes shining in the background, but that’s as close as she came.

Third time lucky however, and on the third night we had a group of two adult males and two adult females come in – all very relaxed and confident.  We had some great sightings of them, and even managed to dart and collar one of the males and one of the females for future monitoring.

Both collaring exercises went well and both animals returned to the bait almost as soon as they had woken up!  Here is our newly collared male tucking in just as soon as he could stumble in the direction of the meat!

Another two weeks of the survey, so more pics coming soon,

Rosemary

Hi folks,

The other day I posted a camera trap photo of the first sighting of the Crocodile Pack Pups.  In later pictures we can see there are at least seven pups and may be more!

They are very cute things – full of character and some of them have especially beautiful markings.  I just hope they make it through the denning season without being discovered by lions.  Unfortunately they have denned in an area with a very high lion density, but let’s hope they remain unaffected by them.

On the subject of lions, we are starting a big lion survey in the Save Valley Conservancy today, to try and find out exactly how many lions there actually are and what the group composition, age structure etc is.  We have several collars to put on during the survey so that lion monitoring can be continued in the future.  So if I’m quiet on this blog for a while, that’s why.  But I’ll try and post some pictures of the lion survey soon.

Cheers,

Rosemary

Well, as I said in the last post, we were very lucky with our collaring exercise in Gonarezhou.  We darted three subadults the first night, with the help of Dr Chris Foggin (chief wildlife vet) who wanted to test the lions for Bovine TB, a disease which has recently been identified in the buffalo population in the area, and which can spread into lions.

We were very lucky – having arrived late in the area, we were out looking for a suitable baiting site when we happened to see a small group of lions!  The first time I have EVER seen lions in the park without calling them!  By the time we had moved off and made up darts, they had disappeaered but knowing they were nearby, we set up the bait and had 5 lions feeding on it in minutes!

Here you can see three of the lions at the bait -the one in front was the one darted – you can still see the dart in her.

The darting and collaring all went well – despite the very out-of-season rain which we had all night!  Brrrrr it was cold!

Three nights later we called again, and, as I said in the last post, got a different 4 lions on the bait.  We darted a large adult lioness, and loaded her into the vehicle to work on her away from the bait site, so as not to disturb the other lions.

Once collared and measured, we reversed the drugs and closely watched the lioness as she recovered.  She was soon back to normal and joined the others at the bait, none the worse for wear.  You can see her back at the bait sporting her new collar in the photo below.

So that was all pretty successful and the following day, having checked up on the collared animals and removed any signs of our work, we headed north to a different area of the park.  Due to various delays, including punctures and getting stuck in the riverbed (!), we were very late getting to our next site.  We were too late to do any preliminary investigation into where the lions were likely to be, so we decided to just set up opportunistically, try calling for an hour or two, and then give and up and try properly the following day.

But no – our luck held, and after an hour of calling we were stunned to hear the sound of lions arriving at the bait!  Crazy luck.  So having had our star gazing disturbed by the arrival of the lions (!), we put the spotlight on them and noted that the younger animal had quite a bad injury.  We darted the large one to collar her and the injured one too, to treat the injury.  Both darts hit well and both lions went down right at the bait – still trying to eat as they fell asleep!

The injury had looked worse from a distance than it was – it was a largely superficial tear of skin, but we treated it with wound powder and spray and gave her a shot of antibiotics. (Note the tea-towel blind fold… we’d immobilized far more lions than I expected to even see, so we were down to scavenging for blindfolds!!)

So – a pretty successful week all in all, and the collars we fitted will help us enormously to keep track of the fortunes of these lions, and hopefully help us to figure out what is going on to keep the lion population so low.

Back soon,

Rosemary

Hi folks,

As most of you will know, we have been concerned for some time about the very low number of lions in Gonarezhou National Park.  We’ve been working in the park for three years now, gathering data on all the large carnivores there and last year we formally established a lion project, with the aim of  increasing the lion population in the park through mitigating the threats.

Part of the project involves monitoring the lions to look at litter sizes, cub survival, causes of adult mortality, group composition and fragmentation, as well as to allow us to react more effectively to incidences where lions come into conflict with humans.  In order to do this monitoring we need to get some collars on to the lions, so we can find them.

So we set off into the park for a week of trying to catch lions!  Here is the team packed and ready to go….

The collaring was a task I was not looking forward to – envisaging lots of long, cold, unproductive nights trying to call lions in without any luck.  As it turned out, we were extremely lucky and in the week we were in the park we managed to dart six lions and collar three of them (the other three were darted for veterinary disease testing or, in one case, treatment of an injury).

The first step each evening was to set up the bait and thorn-scrub screen and tie the bait tightly to the tree and/or stakes to prevent the lions running off with it.

Next we set up our calling equipment – the noise of a dying buffalo calf is broadcast over speakers to attract the lions to the bait.

And once everything is ready, we sit and wait…  These photos are taken on the second night of calling – in total we had four lions at the bait that night: two adult females, one adult male and one subadult male.  We use a spotlight with a red filter to avoid disturbing the animals.

Once we had identified a suitable individual for collaring I darted him/her and got on with the business of collaring and taking blood samples etc.

I’ll post pictures of that part of the exercise in the next post…

Cheers,

Rosemary

My time in Mabalauta was very exciting as I got to see my first Gonarezhou Lions. A lioness and her two 3yr old cubs, one male one female.

The cubs where extremely curious and came to us! So thanks to them for some great pictures.

I guess we got a little boring for them….

Well they are never boring to us. Hopefully we will be able to put a collar on the adult pretty soon so we can monitor them.

Cheers for now

Heather

Hi Everyone

Heather here, its been  24 days on the job and what an experience already!  The tented camp in Chipinda Pools that I am living in is great. I will be honest it has taken some getting used to with all the noises, especially at night. The tree right there has hundreds of bats that make their presence known around 6.30pm and 5.30am. The hippos love the green grass outside and I hear them munching away, and then of course every now and then an Elephant crashing around in the back ground.

I spent one week in Chipinda Pools and one in Mabalauta. Thanks to Gonarezhou National Parks i got to stay in one of the chalets, I recommend them, they are great too…

That would be me waving in the shadow. Hello!

Till next time, cheers

Heather

Hi folks,

I’m excited to be able to introduce you to a new team member.  Heather Brand will be joining us from the 1st March to work on the Gonarezhou Lion Project.  Heather is a Zimbabwean – in 2008 she represented Zimbabwe in the Olympic Games as a swimmer – and we are thrilled to have someone with such drive and determination working with us.  (She is also an ecologist having done her degree in wildlife ecology in the States!)

Heather and I have just spent a few days in Gonarezhou for meetings etc, but we did get a chance to get out on a couple of game drives.  As always, Gonarezhou never fails to provide spectacular views and stunning flora and fauna….

Once Heather starts work in March, I will conscript her to write some blogs (!) so you’ll be hearing from her – and more about the Gonarezhou Lion Project – then.

Back soon,

Rosemary

Hi folks,

A very quick post as I’m in the middle of the bush with very limited access to email.  The spoor survey we are conducting is indicating there are a LOT of lions here in Bubye Conservancy.

Here are photos of a pair of young males we bumped in to a couple of days ago – they were stalking the car!

Back soon,

Rosemary

Fantastic news guys… I have just received an email from Lin on Senuko, and all 6 pups are alive and well! Here is a lovely photo of 2 of the pups taken by Lin this morning.

Aren't they just so sweet!

Becky