Zimbabwe Wild Dogs

Category: Gonarezhou National Park, Other wildlife, zimbabwe | Date: Oct 30 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

Apologies for the deviation from wild dogs - yet again!  I just had to share this story with you.

The Zimbabwean lowveld has been struggling with some major bush fires in the last month.  Much of the southern half of the Save Valley Conservancy was burnt, tragically including Senuko Lodge which was one of the most stunning places it’s possible to imagine. 

Gonarezhou has also been fighting fires… In the process, Hugo and Elsabe van der Westhuizen from Frankfurt Zoological Society (which works with the Zimbabwean Parks and Wildlife Management Authority to help conserve the Gonarezhou ecosystem) noticed a baby porcupine fleeing from the fire.  He had badly burnt feet and was never going to beat the fire, so Hugo (amidst much cursing I would imagine!), used his shirt to grab the spikey little fellow and took him back to their camp for rehabilitation.

He adapted well to his new home, enjoying the darkness of his box during the day time and coming out at night to potter around and eat the offerings Elsabe put out for him (porcupines are naturally nocturnal).  He seems to be particularly keen on potatoes, apple and sadza (the local staple food of maize meal).

With the use of gardening gloves and oven gloves (!) we managed to treat the wounds on his feet and give him an injection of long-acting antibiotics - no small challenge, I might say! He seems to be a lot better already, and his feet are healing nicely.

Bless him!

I’ll let you know how he does and how his re-introduction back into the bush goes. 

Rosemary

Tags: bush fires, Gonarezhou, porcupine, zimbabwe

One response so far

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, 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: Other wildlife, zimbabwe | Date: Sep 05 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

Just to deviate slightly from the theme of wild dogs for a minute… A couple of days ago we were in Gonarezhou National Park and stopped to look at a rock monitor lizard which had crossed the road.  As Rafael got out to see if he could find it, he heard a rustling in the grass by the road which he went to investigate thinking it was another monitor lizard.  But no - instead it was a pangolin!  One of those amazing, rare and elusive animals that most people never ever see.  MOST exciting!

Those of you who follow this blog may remember a posting a while ago about a pangolin sighting in the conservancy.  That, however, was spotted by Rueben and seen by my assistant at the time, Roy, while I was in the UK.  Mmmph.  So this was my first time to see the little fellow and i must admit they are remarkable creatures.  Note the white eye-lashes, and long front claws in the photos below.

Back soon,

Rosemary

Tags: Pangolin, scaly anteater, zimbabwe

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Category: Other wildlife, poaching, zimbabwe | Date: Aug 15 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks, 

As I mentioned, I was asked the other day to help rescue a buffalo calf that was caught in a snare.  I was a bit nervous because I hadn’t worked on buffalo before but something had to be done so off I went.  Below is a picture of the buffalo as I first saw him: struggling to free himself from the wire caught tight around his back left leg…

Having estimated drug combinations and doses from an excellent ‘wildlife capture’ book, I darted the little fellow and then moved off to let him relax and go to sleep. 

After about 15 minutes he was pretty much out although still twitching his ears and moving his head occasionally.  We blindfolded him and blocked his ears to reduce stressful stimuli (light and noise) and then removed the snare from around his leg.  It had dug very deep into the skin but looked like it would heal: we washed it out and disinfected it, and gave him some long-acting antibiotics (although I later found out from a wildlife vet that I should have given him a much higher dose of antibiotics and perhaps some anti-inflammatory: oh well, we live and learn).

Unfortunately this story does not have a happy ending though.  After we finished treating the buffalo I reversed the drugs and we moved off to watch him recover.  He was close to water and the rest of the herd was not far away so he would have had a good chance of making it, but unfortunately as soon as he came around it became clear that something was wrong.  We had ascertained that his leg was not broken while we had him immobilised, but it turned out that he had dislocated it at the hip trying to pull out of the snare.  He was evidently in a lot of pain and such an injury would not heal naturally, so very sadly he had to be put out of his misery.  Another waste of an animals life by these cruel snares.

But despite the sad ending, I learned a lot, which will equip me better to deal with such incidents in the future, and for the buffalo, it was a lot better than a slow death from dehydration and starvation in the snare, coupled with the pain of a dislocated leg, so I do believe that we still helped him.

Hopefully the next post will bring some cheerier news!

Rosemary

Tags: buffalo, buffalo calf, poaching, snaring, zimbabwe

4 responses so far

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

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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

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Category: Other wildlife, Uncategorized, Wild Dogs, poaching, zimbabwe | Date: May 01 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

Zimbabwe’s wildlife needs some help…  Those of you who are regular readers of this blog will know that poaching - especially snaring - in the remainder of Zimbabwe’s wildlife areas is posing a severe threat to the viability of our wildlife populations.  I recently got back to the Savé Valley Conservancy in Zimbabwe’s south-east lowveld from a couple of weeks away in South Africa.  Informally chatting to people back in the conservancy, the scale of the poaching problem facing our wildlife struck me forcibly once again:

“… unfortunately we lost a giraffe to a snare last week”

“… if you see those tracks of the elephant calf dragging the snare, let us know”

“… yesterday we saw a badly injured wildebeest dragging a snare, with a log attached to it; I wish there was something we could do”

“…I found a zebra with a snare round its neck, and told the manager who came to shoot it” (report from one of my scouts)

The desperate situation in the country is one cause of this enormous upsurge of wildlife poaching.  However, whilst some of this is genuinely ‘subsistence hunting’ to feed families, many people have taken advantage of the chaos and lack of law enforcement to turn to commercial poaching.  The scale of this is extortionate and un-sustainable. 

A recent article published in the Times  highlights the problem for the rhino population.  This article is well worth reading. 

The aftermath of rhino poaching

In this blog, I have frequently highlighted the problem for the wild dogs. 

But it is not just these key species which are suffering.  Snaring (the main form of poaching used in this area) is an indiscriminate, cruel and wasteful method of killing.  In my post of 2^nd April, I gave some facts and figures about this, and just want to reiterate the main ones:

In a seven year period, conservancy scouts have removed over 75,000 snares and found over 6,000 animals dead (these included rhinos, leopards, wild dogs, sable, nyala, cheetah etc).  And the wastage, as mentioned, is horrific. Of the 1,421 animals killed in snares during August 2005-November 2008, 60% were found rotten or scavenged, and only 14% were extracted by illegal hunters. 

This  magnificent leopard was caught in a snare in Feburary this year

However, it is by no means all doom and gloom and the good news is that there are a lot of dedicated people trying to help.  Progress is being made at all levels.  Here are some examples of things that are being done:

- The establishment of a project with EU funding to provide a legal supply of bushmeat to the surrounding communities to alleviate some of the poaching pressure

- A creation of awareness amongst the local politicians and at government level, as well as internationally

- Anti-poaching teams on all ranches and efforts to establish a ‘crack-unit’ of highly trained and armed scouts to operate throughout the conservancy

- Efforts by trained and licensed biologists to rescue wildlife trapped in snares and to immobilise and treat injured individuals carrying snares

We at the African Wildlife Conservation Fund are instrumental in helping to achieve all these goals. However, it is to help us achieve the last goal that we need your help.  I recently received training and a license to immobilise all wildlife species within the conservancy for the purposes of desnaring and treatment.  There are two other people in the conservancy who are also now licensed to do this, and between us we hope to be able to help the wildlife. 

Snared wild dog immobilised for treatment

Unfortunately, as mentioned in the post of 2^nd April, the cost of the drugs required is very high.  For example for enough drugs to immobilise 10 wild dogs (including the knock-down drug, the sedative and the reversal) would cost US$500, i.e. $50 per dog.  For herbivores however, the drugs are much more expensive.  One vial of the main knock-down drug (5ml) and its reversal costs US$600.  Depending on the species, this would immobilise between 5 to 10 animals, assuming no darts miss.  However, in addition to this drug, you need a sedative drug which costs US$106 per vial, and at least 2 vials of the human antidote (because this drugs is life-threatening to humans) which cost US$200 per vial.  So in order to be ready to help treat wounded wildlife, we need to buy at least US$1500 worth of drugs (and that’s only a start…).

We are also supporting the conservancy anti-poaching efforts by trying to raise money for incentives for the game scouts, and also for radios and uniforms for them.  Any donations to either of these causes would be extremely appreciated, and we can assure you every cent goes directly to the wildlife or the scouts.

Many thanks in advance,

Rosemary

Tags: poaching, snaring, Wild Dogs, Zimbabwe's wildlife

6 responses so far

Category: Other wildlife, Uncategorized, Wild Dogs, elephants, poaching, zimbabwe | Date: Apr 02 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

This is the first appeal I’ve ever put out on Wildlife Direct, but the time has come to ask for some help.  As you all know, the desperate situation in Zimbabwe is resulting in, amongst other things, a huge amount of wildlife poaching.  Much of this is for commercial purposes by persistent poachers and the level at which it is occurring is currently unsustainable.

As you’ll have seen if you are a regular reader of this blog, wild dogs are severely threatened by snaring, not only in the Save Valley Conservancy, but throughout the country.  But it is not only wild dogs that suffer.  Snaring is an indiscriminate killer – between August 2001 and October 2008, 5,981 animals of 30 different species were killed in snares.  These included endangered African wild dogs, lions, leopards, cheetah, sable  buffalo, wildebeest, nyala, impala, kudu, zebra, giraffe and even elephants.  On one occasion, one snare line killed 18 individual animals. 

 74,390 snares were recovered between August 2001 and October 2008

Almost the biggest problem with this method of poaching is the wastage.  Of the 1,421 animals killed in snares during August 2005-November 2008, 58.8% were found rotten or scavenged, 27.3% were recovered by the ranch or taken to the police as evidence and only 13.9% were extracted by illegal hunters.  This is a truly shocking waste of the wildlife resource.

However, the deaths in snares are only one part of the story.  Many animals manage to break the snare wire and free themselves, but continue to carry the snare around their neck or leg or trunk.  Many of these die and go unrecorded, and many end up being shot because of their injuries.  Others continue to suffer from these horrific injuries until they die.  

This is where we come in and where we can do something to help.  Although I manage the Lowveld Wild Dog Project, the umbrella organisation for our project is a non-profit making organisation called the African Wildlife Conservation Fund (AWCF).  Given my position in the field in Zimbabwe, and my qualifications and licence to immobilise wild animals, I am in a position to help AWCF with their general conservation efforts, a large part of which is tackling this poaching crisis.  If we can be on standby for anyone to call us to help to free snared animals or treat injured ones, we could do a huge amount to help the wildlife here. 

So at this point I am appealing for help.  The drugs used to immobilise wildlife are not cheap.  They are less expensive for carnivores: for enough drugs to immobilise 10 wild dogs (including the knock-down drug, the sedative and the reversal) would cost US$500, i.e. $50 per dog.  For herbivores however, the drugs are extortionately expensive.  One vial of the main knock-down drug (5ml) and its reversal costs US$600.  Depending on the species, this would immobilise between 5 to 10 animals, assuming no darts miss.  However, in addition to this drug, you need a sedative drug which costs US$106 per vial, and at least 2 vials of the human antidote (because this drugs is life-threatening to humans) which cost US$200 per vial.  So in order to be ready to help treat wounded wildlife, we need to buy at least US$1500 worth of drugs (and that’s only a start…).

A buffalo caught in a snare that had to be shot because no-one had the drugs to immobile and treat it

If anyone feels they could contribute something towards this, we would be enormously grateful and you can be assured your donation will go directly towards helping wildlife in the most direct and hands-on way.  Any extra money that is raised above what we need to buy the drugs will be put towards the anti poaching units in the conservancy, to help buy radios, uniforms and ammunition.

I’ll sign off here, because this post is long enough now, but if anyone would like more information, please don’t hesitate to ask.  And please consider helping us: I know it’s a bad time economically, but if we don’t act soon, it’s going to be too late for Zimbabwe’s wildlife.

Thanks in advance,

Rosemary        

Tags: poaching, snaring, Wild Dogs, wildlife, wildlife immobilisation, zimbabwe

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