Zimbabwe Wild Dogs

Hi folks,

Just a quick post this time (and apologies but no photos!), as I am flat out with the carnivore spoor survey.  We’ve been starting at 5:00 every day to get to the start of the transects in time for sunrise when we begin driving slowly along the roads. The trackers scan for spoor and we record any fresh carnivore tracks we see – however big or small. 

We are finding a lot of evidence of lions and hyenas, supporting our belief that the populations of these two higher carnivores are increasing considerably in the conservancy.  Good for their numbers but bad for wild dogs with whom they will compete for prey and even kill the pups…  

Leopard numbers are good but we have seen virtually no sign of cheetah.  I’ll let you know more when we’ve finished and got some firmer results.  In the meantime, I just wanted to let you know why we are a bit quieter than normal here…

Back soon,

Rosemary  

Hi folks,

Well we’ve put the drugs to good use already.  Last night we mangaged to immobilise an adult lioness who had been fitted a few years ago with a collar that had recently become too tight.  The poor lion had very laboured breathing as a result, and I’m sure it will be a big relief to her to be freed of the collar.  We did the immobilisation with the help of the Sango Ranch, particularly ecologist Dusty Joubert and manager Dave Goosen. 

The mark left by the collar (it’s just darker hair and will fade in time).

I imagine many of you are probably thinking that animals shouldn’t be collared in the first place and would point to things like this to back up your argument.  But I must say that, so long as the collaring is done for the right reasons (which this was), the use of collars allows for far greater conservation efforts than would be possible otherwise.  The important thing is that the collared animal is regularly located and if there is any problem like this, it is removed as soon as possible, as we have done here.  It is also very unusual indeed for the collar to cause the animal any discomfort whatsoever.  Collar weights are carefully regulated and so long as they are not too tight (or too loose), have virtually no affect on the animal.

Anyhow, in this case, a problem did develop, and it was great to be able to respond to the call for help for this lioness, given that we had the drugs to immobilise her.  Thanks again to all of you who donated to our appeal.

The immobilisation – my shirt is being used as a blindfold!

The whole immobilisation went smoothly, although was made somewhat more exciting by the presence of two other groups of lions who had been drawn to the same bait and stayed around throughout the time we were working on the lioness… lots of roaring, fighting and general cavorting going on around us!     

Back soon,

Rosemary

Hi folks,

Rueben and I have just come back from Gonarezhou having completed the first half of the spoor survey we were doing there.  It was hard work and involved lots of driving, but was well worth it – it’s such a beautiful place.  We picked up evidence of good populations of spotted hyenas and leopards, but very few lion tracks and not very many wild dog tracks either.  We even picked up some cheetah spoor which was exciting, as I’m told cheetah are not often seen in the park.

We drove spoor transects in both the morning and evenings on most days – when the sun is at the best angle to see the tracks in the sand – and then just camped out where we ended up or where we wanted to start the next day.  A wonderful opportunity, and magical to lie in a tent and listen to the sounds of the bush all around: elephants splashing through the river, hyenas making a kill, nightjars singing and owls hooting. 

Elephant tracks crossing the dry river

As always, the scenery was stunning….

 and the wildlife was special.  (Nyala calf)

We were also lucky enough to see several herds of buffalo, elephants, hyenas on two separate occasions, and even a flash of a pair of leopards running across the road!  The birdlife is awesome too.

Although we didnt see any of them, the tracks we saw suggested the park also has good numbers of the smaller carnivores – civets, genets, porcupines, wild cats and even aardwolves.  Maybe we’ll get lucky during the next stage of the survey.

We’re off back to the park on Sunday, so the blog will once again be quiet for a while…

Rosemary