Zimbabwe Wild Dogs

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jun 28 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

I have recently been joined on the project by a wildlife biologist from the States, who has come to help out with the wild dogs for the next three months.  I’ll leave him to introduce himself to you. 

Hello Folks,

My name is Rafael Crespo, I was recently given a great oppertunity to join Rosemary in the African Wild Dog Project here in Zimbabwe. I am working in the day to day operations to learn more about these amazing predators. Like Rosemanry just mentioned I come from the States in which I did alot of work in the South Florida Everglades. I now join Rosemary halfway around the world to stay here for 3 months and help this project and myself grow. I am very eager to join, and to all who follow Rosemary’s passion of conserving these animals, I wish for you all to welcome myself as well.

Rafael  

4 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jun 19 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

Due to the generosity of many of you who have donated to this blog, as well as generous support from Dana and the Malilangwe Trust, we have finally managed to raise sufficient funds to buy the drugs to help rescue and treat snared and injured wildlife.  Thank you all. 

Unfortunately there is often nothing we can do to help - the animal is only discovered when it is too late - but at least now when there is something that can be done, we are finally in a position to help.  I will post stories of any rescue work we do; in the meantime, a big thank you to everyone who has supported us and made this possible.

Rosemary 

2 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jun 17 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi guys,

Just a very quick note as I am flat out with field work at the moment.  I just got back from completing the spoor survey in Gonarezhou National Park (more about that later), and have had a busy few days catching up with the dogs.  I went to the Maera pack den site very early this morning and was lucky enough to see the new pups briefly - the first pups to be out so far in 2009! 

Whilst trying to maintain a semblance of detached professionalism - I do have have to say that they are utterly ADORABLE!

I had had some camera traps up at the den whilst I was away on Gonarezhou and it seems the pups first emerged on the 10th June.  You can see them as tiny dark blobs behind the adults in the photo below.

I saw a total of six pups and I think that is the full litter, but will need to confirm that at subsequent visits.  That’s not an especially big litter for wild dogs - they can have up to almost 20 - but is more than this alpha female had last year. 

I’m also pretty sure now that this pack has split: the second collared male has been missing for a while now, and there are three other males who also went missing around the same time.  Unless they ran into a snare line (which is too terrible a thought to entertain) - the most likely scenario is that they have split.  Unfortunately the collar is a GPS collar with a very short tracking range so we are having no luck finding the collar, but we shall persevere!

Back soon - just wanted to post these pics and let you know the denning season is officially underway!!

Rosemary

4 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: May 24 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

Just a quick post today to let you know this blog will be quiet for a while - I’m off into the field to do a spoor survey in Gonarezhou National Park.  If you read my previous post about the park, you’ll know that it’s really a wild place.  We’ll be driving transects morning and evening when the sun is at an angle (best to see the spoor) and camping out wherever we end up. 

The purpose is to get some idea of the number and distribution of large carnivores in the park, specifically of course the wild dogs, but also lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, civet cats, serval etc.  Given the lack of current knowledge about the park, this will provide an excellent baseline for looking at changes in carnivore numbers in the park, and we’ll be following up on any wild dog spoor seen to see if we can see any of the dogs and get more of an idea about how many there are in the park.

I’ll send an update and let you know how we got on as soon we finish and get back to “civilisation”!!

Rosemary

One response so far

Category: Random, Uncategorized, Wild Dogs, zimbabwe | Date: May 05 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

I just came back from a trip to Gonarezhou National Park; one of Zimbabwe’s biggest national parks and certainly the most wild and remote area in the country.  The purpose of the trip was to do a recce for a forthcoming spoor survey we intend to carry out to investigate the status of wild dogs (and other carnivores) in the park. 

 Our bush camp

I was with a lowveld local – Clive Stockil – who probably knows the park better than anyone else, and we really did some proper exploring!  Some of the tracks we used had only been mapped again last year after 30 years without being used.  And here I use the word ‘tracks’ in the loosest possible sense – I certainly couldn’t see any evidence of a route through the bush, but fortunately Clive seemed to know where we he was going and we ended up emerging unscathed at the other end of the park!

We also managed to cross the Runde river – one of the biggest obstacles to working in the park – and were the first vehicles across this season.

We were rewarded at the other side by views of the famous Chilojo cliffs – truly spectacular.

We were very excited to pick up on a good number of wild dog tracks in the park, as well as tracks and other evidence of lions, hyenas and many of the smaller carnivores.  It will be very interesting to see what we find when we start working there properly later this month.

Back soon,

Rosemary

Tags: Gonarezhou National Park, spoor, Wild Dogs, Wilderness, zimbabwe

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: May 05 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Many, many thanks to all those of you who have donated to our appeal to help save Zimbabwe’s wildlife.  It’s always good to know that there are people who read this blog and care enough to donate money to help us, even in what is such a difficult financial time for most people.  I hope to have some good news to post for you soon.

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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: Uncategorized | Date: May 01 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

Just a quick post to let you know the denning season is on it’s way.  I saw the alpha female of the Maera pack a few days ago and she was quite hevily preganant!  Very exciting.  They are usually quite an early pack, and should den down in a couple of weeks so we should see the pups towards the end of May or early June.  We also saw signs of pregnancy in one of the Bedford pack females, but not yet in the Teddy pack.  I’ll keep you posted with their progress.

The mother-to-be!

Rosemary 

One response so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Apr 27 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Just a quick post to give an extremely heartfelt thanks to Pirjo, Gaylen, Ivanova & Trish who donated to our project this month, in response to our appeal for money to buy the drugs to help treat injured wildlife.  Unfortunately we are still a long way off from our goal, and not a week goes by without another report of a snared animal that needs help.  Mostly these are not followed up on (because there is no-one to help), and the animals are left to suffer their injuries, often until they die from them.  Or they are shot.  Such a waste.  I look forward to the time I can write posts about how we rescued and treated these animals.  The donations received take us that much closer to the goal.  Thank you so much.

Rosemary    

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Apr 27 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

I got back to Zimbabwe yesterday after a long, hot drive up from South Africa, where I was attending a conference and doing some shopping.  The journey was 14 hours, including 3 hours at the border, mainly standing in queues or sitting in the car in a queue to get through.  Not much fun, especially when some small beasty has clearly found its way into the air pipes of my car and died there, meaning the whole car has a delightful odour of decaying carcass and it’s a health hazard to put on the air conditioning!

Anyway, we made it through the border, and the project is now the proud owner of two new mountain bikes and a set of new uniforms for the scouts, both of which are long overdue.  I also managed to get a few essential items of camping equipment which we will be needing next month when we start working on the wilds of Gonarezhou National Park.  A few vehicle spares, PVA paint and some mountain bike parts complete the list.  Oh where are the days when a shopping trip involved skirts, tops, jeans, books, jewellery etc??!

The scouts have been doing an excellent job of keeping on top of the wild dogs while I was away and all the packs seem to be doing well.  Both scouts took photos of the different packs so I can confirm the reports and identify individuals present.  Some of the photos are less useful for identification, but are fun nonetheless….

African Wild Dogs looking for the photographer….!

And sometimes they are not even of wild dogs…

I’ll be out in the field for the next few days to do my end-of-the-month check on all the dogs, and will be back with more about the packs soon,

Rosemary

2 responses so far