Zimbabwe Wild Dogs

Hi all,

Yesterday I visited the Mambira den in the south of the conservancy and changed the camera trap. Unfortunately the camera trap had been knocked by something and the photos were not very clear. We also saw fresh lion tracks leading up to the den hole, and no sign of any adults of pups (although perhaps the pups were deep inside the den, and the adults still out hunting). The previous evening, Lin Barrie (the owner of Senuko ranch), had spent some time at the den and saw all 4 adults and 6 pups (yes, we have now confirmed it is in fact 6 pups!) playing and making lots of mischief. Hopefully the dogs managed to keep away from the lion, or have simply moved dens – we’ll know more in the next day or so, but 5 weeks is a very dangerous age for wild dog pups as they start to get bold, noisy and mischievious, spending more time outside the den even when the adults are not around. Here are some great photos courtesy of Lin.

 Becky

6 Mambira pups

Mambira pups

Pup with impala ear in it's mouth

Hi guys,

It may be no surprise to tell you that the Bedford pack have moved dens again!!  This is their fourth den this year. The huge increase in the lion population seems to have really taken its toll on this pack. We hadn’t had much luck seeing either the adults or the pups at their third den, and unfortunately when we went last time it felt abandoned. When looking at the photos from the camera traps it was clear that they were visited by lions again. Tracks on the ground also confirmed this. Sadly, one of the photos clearly shows a lion with a pup in its mouth.

Lion tracks going into den hole

Lion tracks going into den hole

Lion tracks amongst wild dog tracks

Lion with pup in its mouth

Fortunately though, they didn’t move far and since finding their fourth den and putting up camera traps, I can confirm that there are still three healthy pups left. This is a big loss for the pack as they originally had thirteen pups, but fingers crossed these three remaining will make it into adulthood. They are spending a lot of time outside the den, and are extremely energetic and lively!

Three remaining Bedford pups

We also managed to collar one of this pack (the previous collared dogs split to form a new group), and this should make it easier to track the dogs should they move dens again or stop denning altogether.

Fitting Twinspot with a GPS collar

The other packs seem to have escaped the lions so far (touch wood!), this pack has just been extremely unfortunate.

Becky

Hi guys,

Well I’ve been here just over a week, and already there’s been lots to do! We’ve visited two den sites and have been following the progress of two more groups of dogs.

When searching for the collared dogs within the Bedford pack we realised that the pack had split. It appears that both collared dogs and three of their siblings have travelled south and joined with a group of four unknown dogs. We managed to put a collar on one of the unknown dogs, so with three collars in total we should find it relatively easy to keep track of them. We can’t be sure, but we believe that the dogs from the Bedford pack are female, and the four unknown dogs are male, so hopefully they will have created another breeding pack. We’ll be keeping a close eye on them…

Unknown male (Dumbo), who has joined with some Bedford siblings, being given a GPS collar.

As Rosemary mentioned in a previous blog, the Bedford breeding pack have moved dens, and we have been monitoring them to try and count the puppies. Before they moved we counted thirteen puppies, but unfortunately since then we have only managed to count five. It could be that they were taken by the lions which were seen at their previous den, but it is likely that we don’t ever find out. The five remaining puppies, however, look healthy and full of energy!

Twinspot babysitting the Bedford puppies

No more news yet on the new female within the Bedford Bachelors, but we’ll be sure to update you if anything changes!

Becky

Once again the conflict between lions and wild dogs becomes apparent.  Here is a photo of lions at the Bedford den a few days ago – the one in the foreground looks like a male and the one in the background (top left), a female.   The female is peering into the den hole where the pups sleep.  The dogs have not been seen since….

Two lions at the wild dog den site

Unfortunately we have not found the pack since this happened.  Unless the lions killed all the pups – which is unlikely as we found no carcasses near the den – they should just have moved dens, but we cannot find their new den at the moment.  The collared members of the pack rarely stay at the den and so radio tracking those individuals is not helping us.  The pups are still small – assuming there are still pups left – so it would be unusual for them to have moved far away, but we haven’t had any luck finding them in the last couple of days.

Wild dog pups at their den (before the lions visited)

I hope we will find them soon, and that we will have some good news to report to you.

Hi folks,

I’m back from the park now, having completed the spoor survey.  I’ve yet to do the offical data analysis, but, as expected, we found very little evidence of lions, but plenty of sign of spotted hyena and leopards.  Excitingly we did find wild dog tracks in quite a few different places, suggesting the existence of at least 3 if not 4 different packs of dogs in the park.

Here are some more photos to illustrate my last week…

If you’ve gotta do data entry, there are worse places to be I think…

Office spot on top of the Chilojo Cliffs

And likewise for somewhere to camp – not a bad view!

Camping spot

The park in general has some spectacular scenery…

And some interesting driving conditions too… This is us crossing the Runde River at the Madawo causeway!

And lastly there is always some interesting wildlife around…

The photo above is of the old lion I collared in October last year.  He is at least 12 years old (which is OLD for a lion!), but is still doing well.  Although we never saw any other lions with him, the tracks indicate there is a lioness around as well who is probably helping him hunt.

I’m now back in the conservancy, and will post an update on the wild dogs soon

Hi folks,

I’m still in the middle of the large carnivore spoor survey in Gonarezhou National Park, but have come back to Park’s Headquarters briefly to refuel and re-fill our water containers. I thought I’d post some pics of the survey so far…

The Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority kindly lent us a vehicle (sponsored by Frankfurt  Zoological Society) in which to conduct the spoor survey.  The workshop folks had ingeniously constructed a seat for Rueben on the front of the vehicle, where he looks out for tracks as I drive slowly along the roads.

This has been my view from the drivers seat for most of the past week…!

We’ve seen lots of signs of large carnivores in the park – mostly spotted hyenas and leopards, although we have also seen fresh signs of wild dogs in a couple of different places.  But remarkably few signs of lions, indicating there is a genuine cause for concern about this species in the park.  We also see a LOT of these tracks… African civets.  They seem to be very abundant in the park!

And from time to time we get to see things other than tracks!  We watched this small herd of elephants mud bathing and spraying water around the place, over lunch break one day.

And finally, just before it gets dark we stop wherever we end up – or wherever we need to start the next day – and make camp….

It’s a real privilege to be able to spend so much time in such a beautiful and wild national park.  Except for at the headquarters, it’s very rare to encounter another person or vehicle and the feeling of remoteness is complete.  It does get lonely sometimes, but on the whole I enjoy it, and it will certainly be a nasty shock getting back to the office!

I’m off out into the park again early tomorrow morning to complete the survey, and check up on one of our collared lions.  I’ll be in touch again in a week or so, when I’m back.

Rosemary

Hi folks,

A few days ago, five lions were moved from Malilangwe Trust down to Gonarezhou National Park.  Malilangwe Trust is a relatively small conservation area, and managers needed to reduce the number of lions there.  Neighbouring Gonarezhou NP seemed the sensible place to move some to, given the low lion population densities in the park at the current time.

So on Tuesday night, a pride of five lions were moved into the park.  They were released in an area by a river with plenty of prey, but no other lion prides.  The pride structure was one adult female, two subadult females and two subadult males – all beautiful and healthy lions. 

The five lions at the release site – just prior to being woken up with the reversal drugs (all are blindfolded to protect their eyes from damage).

Lion whisker spots – can be used for identification

The translocation and release went smoothly, and when I checked on the pride the following day they were all doing well. 

Julius tracking to locate the lions

By Thursday, they had moved off and we were unable to locate them from the ground - hampered by very few roads and the fact that the rivers were uncrossable.

The Runde River at the base of the Chilojo Cliffs – not crossable at this time of year

There is a GPS collar on the pride however, so they will be located from the air in the next week or so, and the collar downloaded, so we will be able to see where they have moved off to and settled down. 

Back in the conservancy we continue to have hot, dry days with no sign of rain.  Rueben came back from annual leave yesterday, so hopefully we will have more luck with our efforts to find and count the wild dogs now!

Back soon,

Rosemary

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