Photo © PDC
Grants made to Painted Dog Conservation by Predator Conservation Trust
December 2005 August 2006 March 2007 July 2007 March 2008 May 2008 October 2009
This page: February/March 2010, April 2010, May/June 2010, July 2010, August 2010, September/October 2010, November 2010 .
Archived 2009 updates: March 2009 April 2009 July 2009 August 2009 September 2009 November/December 2009
Archived 2008 updates: April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 August 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008
Archived 2007 updates: January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September/October 2007 November 2007 December 2007
Archived 2006 updates: February 2006 April 2006, May 2006, June 2006, October 2006 November 2006 December 2006
One of the most endangered large carnivores is the Painted Dog, also known as the African Wild dog, and the Cape Hunting Dog. These beautiful animals have been ruthlessly persecuted by man to the point where they are extinct in most areas where they formerly lived and only a few small populations survive. The Painted Dog was generally regarded as vermin and was persecuted in farming areas under the auspices of protect livestock, and even in many national parks under the misguided intention of protecting antelope populations). Now however they are no longer persecuted in national parks, but they still face a difficult future for a number of reasons, one of which is their need for large areas of land to hunt in (the average home range for a wild dog has been reported as between 400 and 900km2). The largest populations of Painted Dogs are found in Tanzania, Botswana and Zimbabwe, with smaller numbers found in other countries such as Namibia, Zambia and South Africa.
The trustees of the Predator Conservation Trust are pleased to be able to help in the fight to conserve the Painted Dog by funding a grant to the Painted Dog Research Project (also known as Painted Dog Conservation) based in Zimbabwe.
The Painted Dog Research Project was founded by Greg Rasmussen in 1989 and is now a unique and thriving and successful conservation project. Based on the edge of the Hwange national park, the painted Dog Research Project works in a number of broad areas to conserve the wild dogs:
The Painted Dog Research Project has recently succeeded in getting the Zimbabwean government to give special protected status to the wild dogs - quite a feat given Zimbabwe’s current difficulties.
The Anti poaching teams patrol on a daily basis searching for snares left by
poachers which they then remove. It is estimated that 10% of snares will if not
removed eventually kill an animal, so when you consider the fact that the anti
poaching teams have removed over 10,000 snares in the last 4 years this shows
the incredible impact they are making. While poachers don't set snares for wild
dogs the snares don't discriminate in the animals that they kill and so dogs
have been killed by the wire snares.
Greg and his team have also started fitting the dogs with special radio collars
that have a steel plate attached to catch a snare and prevent it killing the
dog.
Like the Brown Hyena project, the Painted Dog project has had success in reducing the number of animals killed on the roads by getting special road signs erected.
Painted Dog Conservation opened their Iganyana Children's bush camp in 2004 to
teach the children from the local area about wildlife in general and the wild
dogs in particular, and this is already proving very popular with over 1200
children having visited the camp already.
For a conservation project to really succeed in the long term, it is important
that the local population feels part of it and that they see the benefits of
conserving the wildlife. Greg and his team have had great success in getting
the support of the local community, which has helped them avoid the worst of the
problems Zimbabwe has endured in recent years.
One of the successful community projects that is run is an arts and crafts centre where the old wire snares removed by the anti poaching teams are used to make wild sculptures which the local population then sell to Painted Dog Conservation who then export them and sell them abroad. This means the people who take part are able to earn money and thus see direct benefits to Painted Dog Conservation. A recent addition to the project was to allow the local children to attend when they are not at school (the local police requested that Greg do this to keep the children occupied and out of mischief). Rather than the children being paid for their sculptures, the project instead pays their school fees for them instead.
Painted Dog Conservation recently carried out a wild dog reintroduction. Painted dog puppies had been confiscated from wildlife traffickers trying to smuggle them out of the country to South Africa, and after being hand reared they were introduced to an island in lake Kariba which had a large quantity of game but which has had no predators for some decades. The game animals were unused to predators, so the wild dogs which were having to learn to hunt for the first time were on an even footing and hunted and fed themselves for several months before being darted and reintroduced to the wild in Matusadona national park.
To learn more about Painted Dog Conservation, click here to visit their website.
Painted Dog Conservation identified that their 13 year old dart gun was in urgent need of repair/refurbishment, a process that will lead to it being out of action for up to eight months while it is sent back to the manufacturers (the bureaucracy associated with shipping a dart gun which is classed alongside firearms is horrendous). Obviously the project could not function properly for that length of time without a dart gun, so they approached the Predator Conservation Trust for funds to purchase a new dart gun. This would allow the original to be refurbished without the project field work suffering and would result in them ending up with two dart guns - which as the project is going from strength to strength will be of enormous help and needed.
The trustees of the Predator Conservation Trust were extremely happy to be able to help Greg Rasmussen and his team by funding the full cost of the dart gun plus a number of low impact tranquiliser darts at a cost of around £1200.
Photo © PDC
In mid July we were approached by Greg Rasmussen of the Painted Dog Project in
Zimbabwe to see if we would be willing to help purchase a vehicle for
the projects anti poaching units. The trustees were all in favour of funding the
vehicle and quickly raised the additional funds needed to purchase the vehicle
in its entirety. We worked quickly to get the funds ready while Greg located a
suitable vehicle. Just 3 weeks from the initial approach a suitable
vehicle had been located, the funds transferred and the vehicle purchased.
On 6th August three of the PCT trustees, Bob Kimber, Simon Marsh and Anthony
May, travelled to Oxfordshire to meet Greg Rasmussen and formally hand over the
new vehicle - by now adorned with the logos of both Predator Conservation Trust
and the Painted Dog Project.
The Anti poaching teams patrol on a daily basis searching for snares left by
poachers which they then remove. It is estimated that 10% of snares will if not
removed eventually kill an animal, so the fact that the anti
poaching teams have removed over 10,000 snares in the last 4 years shows
the incredible impact they are making. While poachers don't set snares for wild
dogs the snares don't discriminate between the animals that they kill and so dogs
have been killed by the wire snares. The anti poaching teams operate 365
days a year and visit different areas at random to avoid a pattern that would
help the poachers avoid them. They rely on having a working vehicle to
carry out their work.
The total cost of the vehicle (including a spare engine which will be invaluable
in keeping the vehicle running in the harsh conditions in which it will be
operating) was £4100 (approx US $7800).
In August 2006, Predator Conservation Trust funded the purchase of a landrover and a spare engine for the Painted Dog Project in Zimbabwe. The spare engine required a thorough overhaul and some new parts to get it to the state where it is now a fully working spare engine. The work has been carried out in the UK while the Painted Dog Project team arranged for shipping of the landrover, the engine and a large quantity of other equipment from the UK to Zimbabwe. The landrover and spare engine are now en route to Zimbabwe where they will be invaluable in helping the Painted Dog Project's anti-poaching unit carry out their vital work. The Trustees of the Predator Conservation Trust have approved a grant of £300 towards the costs involved in getting the spare engine refurbished.
The landrover funded by the Predator Conservation Trust has been shipped from the UK to Zimbabwe along with the spare (and freshly refurbished) engine, and is now in active use with the Painted Dog Project's anti-poaching unit. Having a reliable vehicle plus a spare engine will be a great help for the anti poaching unit in carrying out their vital work.
In March 2008, the Trustees of the Predator Conservation Trust approved a grant of around £1000 (US $ 2000) to Painted Dog Conservation in two parts.
The first was for the purchase of remote camera traps. These can be placed and left alone. An infra-red beam is broken by any animals that pass through it and this triggers the camera to take a digital photograph. Some of the units will be used at suspected Painted Dog den sites to monitor them for any activity without disturbing the dogs that may be using them, and others will be used to develop fieldwork protocols for planned work in Cameroon.
The second is for the purchase of GPS units which are designed to integrate with Google Earth (Super Tracksticks). These provide a continuously updated record of the exact route, stop times, speed and direction and other valuable information. The Super Trackstick even has its own built in temperature recorder to monitor and record its environment. These units can be used when doing survey work (e.g. population counts where transects need to be recorded accurately). They will also be used by the anti poaching units and will provide a detailed map of the areas covered by the teams and will be a great help in maximising the efficiency of the teams and planning where to deploy them.
The Predator Conservation Trust ran a successful fundraising campaign in conjunction with the Safaritalk website (www.safaritalk.net) from February to April 2008. The campaign was to purchase collars which are fitted with special plates made from aluminium which runs along the base of the collar with 3 rows of rivets, 17 in total, protruding from it. These stop the snare sliding across the collar and onto the dogs neck stopping it from cutting into the dogs neck, and the rivets also help the dog break the wire snare and escape.
Read about the appeal in our forum or on Safaritalk.
In the space of a few weeks the members of Safaritalk very generously donated enough funds to purchase three of these anti-snare collars at a cost of £510 (around US$1020). The funds have now been transferred to Painted Dog Conservation for them to purchase the collars.
In early October 2009, the Trustees of the Predator Conservation Trust were pleased to be able to make another grant to Painted Dog Conservation. The grant was for £1000 and was for several VHF collars. The collars will allow the PDC team to keep track of painted dogs after they are released into the wild.
I prepared the dart as quickly as I could, testing the plunger, the needle, and its collar until I was happy. After filling it with 1.8 ml of our pre mixed drug cocktail of Ketamine and Xylazine, I pressurised it and loaded it into my darting rifle. It had taken three minutes but now I was ready and so, predictably, the dogs decided to walk away! I cursed under my breath. Not because I had Professor Tom Ogilvie – Graham with me, a most distinguished veterinarian from the UK, but because this was not the time to lose control. The pack that was now slowly walking away from me in the pouring rain was the Kutanga pack and Bulls Eye, the alpha male, was with them. We hadn’t seen him yet, but the signal from his collar told me he was there, somewhere in the long grass or hidden in the thick undergrowth. Then we saw him. He was easy to identify because he was limping along slowly on three legs. His front left leg held high up under his shoulder, clearly in pain, he was not prepared to put any weight on it. Tom held the darting rifle for me while I drove slowly along through the thick bush, trying to catch them up, wishing Jealous were with us. With his excellent eyesight and tracking skills I would have been more confident of staying with the pack, even in these horrendous conditions, however we had split up and were now out of radio range. I could not lose the pack. We had been searching for them for almost three weeks, since a report from our friends at The Hide had informed us that one of the pack was limping badly and Tom was due to leave in the morning. We got close to the pack and I aimed at Bulls Eye, just as he walked on. Luckily I didn’t press the trigger. Patience is needed when darting and I held on to mine despite the growing tension I was feeling. We followed behind again until they stopped and I was able to get along side them only 12 metres away. Bulls Eye was at the back of the pack and Moth, a young male, came up to him and started to lick the left leg that Bulls Eye was still holding high off the ground. Now we knew the injury was near his elbow. I waited for the opportunity and fired the dart. By no means the best shot I have ever made, I think the tension got to me, but the dart was in. The pack moved away and we followed again, trying not to lose sight of Bulls Eye through the pouring rain and watching the time, anxious for the five minutes it takes for the drug cocktail to work. Bulls Eye slowed and wobbled slightly on his three legs. He turned to look at us and then lay down in a thicket, his head getting lower and lower until he was asleep. I manoeuvred the landrover through and around some more bushes until we were next to him. The rest of the pack looked on as we placed him on a blanket and Tom inspected the wound while I went about the rudimentary precautions of plugging Bulls Eye’s ears and placing a blindfold on him.
Ketamine and Xylazine work well but the anaesthesia is very light so we always do this and work quietly. The smell from the wound was terrible. It was full of maggots and very deep. Maybe a bite wound, certainly something had punctured very deep. I was relieved that it was not a broken leg, though Tom pointed out it was almost as bad as the tendon was infected and surgery may be necessary. Fifty minutes later Bulls Eye started to come around, Tom quickly finished off what he could do under the conditions and was happy enough. He had really cleaned the wound and given long acting antibiotic plus treatment to keep the wound as clean and free from flies as possible. Now only time would tell, Tom estimated that it would be three weeks before we would see any sign of improvement and if there wasn’t any by then, we should consider getting Bulls Eye to a vet for surgery. Bulls Eye was fully awake and calling for his pack mates. After a bit of manoeuvring I got us back into the open and we saw the pack searching around. They stopped to look at us and then headed back towards where we had left Bulls Eye for a reunion we were delighted to witness. I checked the damage to my landrover, caused by the “bush bashing” that has been required to get up close to the pack in the first place. It wasn’t too bad and we headed back towards the PDC office, some two hours away. We met Jealous on the way and his grin was a wide as ever when we told our story, which he would only believe when I showed him the photographs!
This was the second incident involving the Kutanga pack in as many weeks. Squirrel, already being treated for a painful swelling, had recently undergone surgery to amputate a badly broken leg. He had been seen limping badly by Jealous and our friend Roger Parry.. Closer examination had confirmed a broken leg and PDC staff led by Foggie, jumped into action. Roger has a lot of experience with darting wildlife and Foggie asked him to help as I had just returned from our USA / UK fundraising trip and was still one day’s drive away. This situation could not wait that long and I talked to Roger over the phone, while Foggie alerted a vet, Dr. Stevenage, in Bulawayo. Roger darted Squirrel and they loaded him into Foggie’s landrover for the four-hour drive to Bulawayo. Xmas was with them and Jealous stayed monitoring the pack. Dr. Stevenage phoned me when they arrived at his surgery and we discussed the extent of Squirrels injuries. I asked him to do the best he could and he pinned the broken leg and cut away the swelling, which turned out to be a non-malignant tumour. Four days later however the pin came away and there was no other option but to amputate. Roger was not around this time so our friend from the Hwange Lion Project, Brent Staplekamp, offered assistance. Martin Steimer and Foggie drove him to Dr. Stevenage again. We have seen three-legged dogs in the wild survive for many years and felt that this was the best option for Squirrel. Even a few more months in the wild was going to be better than euthanasia and now at least he was not in any pain. After some recuperation time, Squirrel will be reunited with his pack. It was while Jealous was out searching for the pack, with a view to us reintroducing Squirrel that the report on Bulls Eye came in. We have never dealt with such incidents before and were very grateful for the assistance of Roger Parry, Brent Staplekamp, Dr. Stevenage and Professor Tom Ogilvie – Graham. Greg and I have since speculated over the distances the pack is covering in search of available prey and wonder if the injuries are not related to that. We will never know for sure, maybe it’s just simple bad luck, but a dog’s life is not one you would ever envy and our concerns for the pack’s welfare are real.
All of this was going on while the Bush Camp quietly worked its magic in the background. The school programme is again interrupted in Zim, with teachers on strike so Wilton has worked over time to ensure that the children do not miss their once in a lifetime opportunity. He has been to every school and got the message out that the Bush camp is open. Each school has been given a date and a guarantee that the children will be picked up on that date. A recent booking by a school in Harare tested Wilton and his team who had to conduct three back-to-back camps, just to ensure that the Children from Gwayi Primary School were not disappointed.
Professor Tom Ogilvie – Graham had not come out to Zimbabwe to assist me with an injured dog, though of course he didn’t mind. He had actually come as a Trustee of Wildlife Vets International, to see what PDC does and bring vaccines for rabies and distemper, which we needed for a programme we had set up with the Government Vet in Hwange, Dr. Zishiri. Over a two-day period, Dr. Zishiri gave us four of his staff to carry out the vaccination of domestic dogs in the region. In total we vaccinated over 450 dogs, treated most of them for worms and other conditions. Our motivation for this was simply to help the painted dog population by reducing the chances of rabies or distemper spreading from the domestic dog population into the wild. It was a rather good PR operation as well.
Thus a very, very busy and testing start to the year. I was proud of the PDC staff who have shown great determination and resolve already this year, especially after such a tough time last year. Greg and I were happy to be able to fit in a quick visit to our friends and supporters in the USA and UK and were delighted by the continued level of support and commitment afforded us. I have said it before but will never get tired of saying that we cannot do what we do without you. Thank you.
It’s still raining hard!
Peter Blinston
“Shall we do it?” I asked Jealous. He gave me his usual smile and said, “lets go”. Janet and Sandra, our long time friends and now Trustees of PDC UK, were with us. They watched this little cameo between Jealous and me play out with some amusement. We were on the trail of the Kutanga pack again and they had moved off the road into a thickly wooded area. As usual I was torn between Hwange and Harare, and this was my last day before I had to travel from Hwange to Harare for meetings with National Parks. After dealing with Squirrel (who was still in our Rehab Facility) and Bulls Eye (who was fully recovered now) there seemed to have been some in-fighting between Moth and Blaze for the apparently vacant alpha male position. It seems that Bulls Eye was in fact the low ranking male. Now Moth and Blaze were badly scarred from the fighting. Blaze seemed to have come off worse and was limping badly and had multiple bite wounds over his body, including the most delicate of places for a male!
We will never take chances with the welfare of a dog. It was the welfare of the tyres on my Landrover that caused the momentary hesitation between Jealous and me as we surveyed the thick bush in front of us, full of intimidating, thorny, acacia trees. Jealous’ smile was a knowing one, as he would be fixing the punctures. We pushed forward, experience telling us that the dogs had now settled for the morning and would not move until the late afternoon, unless they were disturbed. We have done this many times before and quickly closed in on the pack, using the signal from Moth’s collar to guide us. We sat staring hard into the thick bush, searching for a telltale flick of an ear or tail. It was Janet who spotted the slight flicker of movement and I slowly manoeuvred the Landrover to within 12 meters of the snoozing dogs. I quickly prepared the dart, filling it with the immobilizing drugs and took aim. Blaze got to his feet slowly and stood for a second looking at me. He shifted his weight slightly, in obvious pain, and I fired. My aim was good and the dart hit home in his upper left thigh. He moved off a few metres, pulled the dart out with his teeth and lay down. It was as if he knew and welcomed what was happening. Five minutes later he was in a drug induced “sleep.” Jealous and I moved quickly but quietly, picking Blaze up and carrying him to the side of the vehicle to begin treating him. His wounds were extensive though not too severe, not as bad as those of Bulls Eye and Squirrel anyway. Working methodically from top to tail we cleaned up all of the bite wounds, flushing them out with diluted betadine solution. I administered two long acting anti- biotic injections, while Jealous fitted a collar, as the rest of the pack sat watching us just a few metres away! It really felt like they knew what was happening, that it was not a bad thing, that we were helping their pack mate. An hour had passed and Blaze started to come round. With the reversal injection given we cleared our kit away and got into the Landrover. Blaze staggered on wobbly legs to the rest of the pack, who mobbed him with typical enthusiasm and they all moved a short distance away into the shade of the thick bush. We drove away, happy that we had done all we could and confident that he would recover quickly.
I left the next morning on my eight- hour drive to Harare for my meetings. Jealous kept up the daily monitoring as I wanted to deal with Moth on my return five days later and we still had to get Squirrel back into the wild with his pack. With Squirrel’s release in mind, Xmas and his Rehab team, assisted by Jealous of course, set up our capture sheeting in the Rehab, creating a funnel with the plastic sheets that would be used to quietly walk Squirrel into our trailer when the time was right. He had been immobilized so many times due to his horrific injury, so I didn’t want to immobilize him again and anyway wanted him to be wide awake on his release day. I was back in Hwange five days later after successful meetings in Harare. Jealous had kept up with the pack and so we were confident that we would locate them as we set out in the morning, hopeful that we would get an opportunity to dart Moth, whose wounds had deteriorated in the days that had elapsed. Sure enough we caught up with them at around 8am and happily they were moving to an open area, not too far from Hwange Main Camp. We called Xmas at the Rehab and told him to be on standby. The pack sat around a waterhole, which had suffered terrible elephant damage over the years, but for once we were happy with this as it meant that the pack were out in the open and easy to approach. It was also a very overcast day and quite cool, making us think that they would not be in any hurry to head for the shade of the thick bush, as they would normally do at this time on a hot day. It was easy to approach them and relatively easy to dart Moth. I had darted him in Dec 2009 to fit his collar, and he had shown some apparent resistance to the immobilizing drugs. It was no different this time. Despite the dart hitting home perfectly in the muscle of his upper left thigh, he refused to “go down.” He lay in a sphinx position as the alpha female, Ester, licked his wounds. I cursed under my breath and prepared another dart just in case. Ten minutes had passed and he looked drowsy but his eyes were still open. Slowly I inched my Landrover forward, while Jealous sat in his tracking seat, a blanket in his hands. Moth didn’t move as Jealous quietly slipped out of his seat, covering Moth’s head with the blanket. I administered a small top up injection and we went to work on his wounds as the rest of the pack sat watching us again. We knew that this was as good an opportunity as we would get to release Squirrel, so Jealous drove away a short distance to get within range of our radio network and called Xmas, giving him the instruction to get Squirrel into the trailer. By the time we arrived back at the Rehab Facility this had been done with little fuss. Quickly we hooked up the trailer and drove back to the waiting pack. It was a simple matter of opening up the trailer and letting Squirrel jump out. He ran towards the pack on his three legs, seemingly overjoyed to be back with them. They recognised him immediately and seemed rather surprised that he was back or maybe alive! It was rather amusing to watch and any apprehension we had over the reintroduction evaporated quickly. We sat watching them run around for an hour, playing happily before they moved off into the bush. Over the following days we kept up with them, anxious to see if Squirrel could cope and not hinder the pack’s progress. All seemed well; the pack hunted successfully on several occasions and the in-fighting seems to have come to an end.
The first School term has come to a close and Dought and his team are undertaking much needed maintenance work. It’s a relatively quiet period for us, allowing time to reflect on the successes of the year so far and examine areas where there is need for improvement. We have benefitted from such fantastic support from all of you so far this year, something we never take for granted and always appreciate.
There are many challenges ahead of us, so please don’t relax. We won’t !!!
Peter Blinston
Our fears were confirmed when Greg and Ester walked into the den site. There was no sign of life. The Kutanga pack had moved 25 km away two days before this, something they would never do if they still had pups, which is why we checked the den site. We had seen the alpha female “Ester” mating in April and watched her closely during the weeks of her pregnancy, Jealous often expressing concern that she “looked a bit thin.” We calculated her due date and received confirmation of the den site via the GPS collar fitted onto Bulls Eye, one of the males in the pack.
During the period May 31st to June 7th the GPS collar on Bulls Eye confirmed that he and thus the pack returned to the same place each day and by doing so he gave away the position of the den site. The pups were born on May 31st. We were obviously excited and eagerly awaiting the day when we would be able to see the pups. Jealous saw the pack hunting in the Hwange Main Camp area on June 8th, which is roughly 10 km in a straight line from the den site. The alpha female was with the pack and he knew immediately that something was wrong. The pups were only a week old, she should have been with them! We monitored them over the next couple of days as they hunted many kilometres from the den, trying to remain positive, as the female was not with them. Then one evening she was there, they had killed a kudu and looked very full. We have learnt over the years that during denning season the pack eat quickly and waste no time in rushing straight back to the den to feed the pups and/or any adults left on “pup guarding” duty. We sat in silence, rather despondent, watching the pack playing, they had no desire to go anywhere and as night closed in quickly around us, we drove home. Early the following morning we located the pack again and followed them on their 25 km trek.
We have of course speculated over the fate of the pups. The distances the pack have been covering and continue to cover each day to find enough food are probably the best indicator of what happened. Much of Greg’s Doctoral Thesis concentrated on the cost of hunting in terms of energy used. It’s our belief that the alpha female was not getting enough food and though she carried the pregnancy full term, we believe that the pups born would have been very weak and she was unable to suckle them due to her own malnourishment, so they died. Our concerns over the state of the Hwange ecosystem have been growing and growing. Suitable prey species for the dogs have declined dramatically over the last 30 years and we are seeing the evidence of this now on a daily basis. Packs are covering more than 12 km a day hunting, when even in the late 1990s the average was only 6 km. Put simply, the energy they spend on such hunts may not be replenished by what they catch, which is obviously not a sustainable situation. We have already stepped up our lobbying of National Parks Management, urging them to implement changes in the face of the growing evidence and this situation is driving our new position on how we use our Rehabilitation Facility.
Against such a bleak backdrop, our Children’s Bush Camp continues to bring a ray of sunshine and a smile to our faces. After the School’s Easter Holidays, we opened up again for a busy month, with the children from Dopota, Mabale and Dete Primary Schools all enjoying their week-long camp. The signs of the Bush Camp’s success continue to come in with children being ever eager to learn. Wilton finds that the children are more excited than ever and so well prepared when he visits them the day before they are due to attend the camp, one chilled from Dopota asking if she could stay for two weeks not one, though she has never even seen the camp before!! Wilton has also added a new quiz to the curriculum, which is more fun for the children and challenges them and their teachers to really focus on the lessons taught so that they score the highest marks possible.
Peter Blinston
Starvation Island revisited:
I stood, rather pensive, watching the guys launch the boat, not because of any issue with them, but because I was about to embark on yet another trip across lake Kariba to Starvation Island. The Island has become such a part of my PDC life having experienced some near death experiences there during the five years since we first introduced the dogs. The last time I had been there was in April and it was the memories of the appallingly rough crossing that was making me rather agitated. The Lake at least looked calm enough this time!
We do not have dogs on the island at the moment, however we do have a certain responsibility towards this programme. This particular visit was prompted by the need to check on a feeding programme for the resident impala and waterbuck that were dying of hunger as the result of exceedingly high water levels in Lake Kariba. The panacum grass they rely on for food had been covered by the lake waters. The feeding programme was initiated and spearheaded by nearby Bumi Hills Safari Lodge. They had raised considerable support from the Zimbabwe people and were busy sending bales of grass and feed over to the island on a daily basis in conjunction with the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority, who control the area as part of Matusadonna National Park. It made no sense for us to duplicate efforts and so, with support from Sea World, we combined our efforts. The bales of grass had been delivered and I wanted to see what was happening.
Everything was well under control with the Management of Bumi Hills doing an excellent job. They collected the ZPWMA scouts in the morning and then ferried several boatloads of grass and feed to the island. By this stage they had three “drop zones” established and it was interesting to see the impala and waterbuck observing from a distance as the food was spread around. The ZPWMA scouts patrolled the island while the boats went back for more feed, checking for any new carcasses and snares. Several animals have died, though not too many, thanks to this concerted effort. With the lake waters now receding, we hope that the worst is over. There is enough food to last up to the end of August and hopefully by then the impala and waterbuck will be able to feed themselves again properly. However, the situation will continue to be monitored.
Back in Hwange, Jealous was busy trying to keep up with the Kutanga pack. After losing their pups in June, they were now fully nomadic, covering enormous distances each day in the search for food. The GPS collar on Bulls Eye was filling in all of the gaps and indicated that the territory being used by the pack was approaching 2000 square kilometres! A typical territory size just ten years ago was 750 square kilometres. With Greg, Jealous had witnessed the pack kill a sub adult female kudu late one evening, which is a good meal for a pack of six hungry dogs. However rather than wait around as they would normally do after such a feast, they moved some ten kilometres away, possibly getting into another area for hunting while they still had the energy to do so.
Wilton and his Bush Camp team had another very busy month with the camp hosting two schools from outside of our normal programme area in addition to the local schools. It was a pleasure to host the children from Hwange Orphans (funded by Christian Care) and Acacia Primary School from Zambia. This was the second time that we had had children from Christian Care and the first from a school outside Zimbabwe, quite a success and the children from Zambia didn’t want to leave! A THANK YOU card displayed in the office speaks volumes on the impact the camp had on the children. During Wilton’s post camp visits he discovered that the children had talked enthusiastically to their parents about their experiences. One boy from Ndangababi School said his father had made a comment that “ the bush camp should be a forever thing as the children had opened up their mind on nature and conservation issues.”
Peter Blinston
We often marvel at the sociality of life as a painted dog and their caring nature. Greg describes it as “a kind of three musketeers approach of all for one and one for all.” On the whole, this is indeed a good representation of life within the pack. The old, sick and injured are often cared for and fed, while pups take priority when it comes to feeding. However it’s not all nirvana. In their daily life the dogs exist on a knife-edge, expending huge amounts of energy in the search for food, avoiding conflict with larger, more powerful predators. Life in the wild for painted dogs is extremely tough and can be brutal. A fact we were recently reminded of as we stood over the body of Blaze, one of the males in our embattled Kutanga pack.
He had been with the pack at 7 PM as they hunted, the new moon providing them with enough light and extra cool hours for foraging. At 9 PM he was missing. The alarm bells were only sounded when Jealous caught up with the pack at 7AM the following morning and Blaze was still missing. We immediately started searching in the area where he had been seen last and quickly picked up the signal from his VHF radio collar. He was not moving. I called Jealous on the radio and he joined me to walk into the bush. We had done this many times before but the presence of a pride of seven lions in the area added to the nervous tension. The signal from Blaze’s collar told us that he was not far away. As we approached, the signal did not change to a moving signal but remained at the familiar slow pulse of 30 beats per minute, a resting beat, but not something we wanted to hear in this case. We soon found his body. Bite marks on his head and back right leg gave some indication as to his cause of death but as we turned his body over we were shocked to see that he had been castrated. We carried his body back to my Land Rover and drove to our Rehab where Greg was waiting. We speculated over the injuries and concluded that a honey badger was probably the likeliest assailant. However there were clearly other injuries and a post mortem revealed that he had also been kicked in the chest, suffering two broken ribs. We concluded that Blaze, in his weakened state after being kicked, had perhaps been attacked by the honey badger, but we will never know for sure. What we do know is that the Kutanga pack was left in turmoil again.
The injury and ultimately the loss of Alpha male Squirrel had caused some
unusual in-fighting in the pack earlier in the year. No sooner had that dust
settled than we were dealing with the loss of the new born pups and now this.
The remaining members of the Kutanga pack appeared at our Rehab Facility the
next day. Certainly no coincidence, a lot of haunting hoo calling indicated that
they were looking for their lost pack mate. We feared that this incident may
have been one too many for them to suffer and that the pack may dissolve.
Squirrel had been the alpha male and after his death, Blaze had been seen mating
with the alpha female. Thus we took advantage of them lingering near the rehab
and managed to fit a GPS collar to the alpha female, Ester, and also a VHF
collar to one of the other females. This quickly proved to have been worthwhile
as the males started to hunt further afield, leaving the females outside our
Rehab. Several days would pass before they returned to briefly interact with the
females before heading away again. Occasionally the females would join them on
the hunt but soon returned to the Rehab and this pattern of behaviour continues
today. Collectively they are spending much more time outside of Hwange National
Park. On two occasions it was necessary to deploy our anti-poaching units into
the area through which the dogs were moving.. Areas notorious for poaching and
poorly protected by other stakeholders. On one such occasion our APU found the
seven lions feeding on a
buffalo that had died in a line of 30 snares. Nearby was the carcass of another
lion that had also died in a snare. The dogs were 500m from this!
As an organisation we are geared up to deal with issues such as the above and
we receive tremendous support from Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management,
especially on the antipoaching
side of things, however others could and should do more. Our Bush Camp programme
for the children is well documented and we intend to take this out into the
community in a more proactive
manner, as encouraged by the Minister of Environment himself and we are stepping
up the working relationship with other NGOs in the region who focus more on
development. Our Rehab facility is currently home to ten dogs, six of whom are
being prepared for release back into the wild where they belong. There is no
such thing as a normal day at PDC and we never stop.
Jealous, Wilton, Dought and Foggie ensure the programmes run as smoothly as possible, while the rehab staff under Xmas and the APU under Zulu continue, committed to their work. None of this can continue without your equally committed support, for which we are forever grateful.
Peter Blinston
The sound of the chase, fast feet racing by, the kill and eating noises were all unmistakable. The Kutanga pack had killed an Impala. Good news indeed for them but wonderful for me as it was right outside my house in Hwange! I was having dinner with Ester, Hans and my Father, having just arrived back in Hwange after an unusually long absence of six weeks due to personal commitments, followed by the annual fundraising trip to the USA. It was as if the dogs were welcoming me back! A bit of an exaggeration in reality, but the coincidence of them making a kill right in front of the house only minutes after I got back was a little hard to ignore. It was as if they were saying “welcome back and look at us, we are doing fine.”
They were actually doing ok for once. Ester and Jealous had been doing a great job, keeping up the monitoring of the pack and dealing with what we now call the “usual” issues with the Kutanga. One of the males, Moth, had a badly wounded ear, which was red raw and hanging down. Ester immobilized him and cleaned the wound. A few days later he was “fighting” with John and Romany, two residents at our Rehab and his ear got torn again!! Its healed now but looks rather floppy. Alpha male, Bullseye, has been limping around but has also recovered now as has the young female, Shoulder Patch. With the pack now spending a lot of time outside Hwange National park and thus in the poaching “hot spots”, we decided that all of them should be collared and happily Ester delt with this. The collars not only give us a handle on each individual but also afford them some protection from snares and perilous roads.
The fighting with our resident dogs at the Rehab is something we have not expected and is cause for concern. However, for now, we have built a screen to present a visual and physical barrier that seems to be working, though it has not stopped the Kutanga from “visiting” every two or three days. The dog news on the whole is rather encouraging. We have received sightings of a pack of 11, another pack of eight and a pack of two. Greg, Ester and Jealous have been making quite an effort to get collars on these dogs but all of their efforts have been frustrated so far. Ester and Jealous came closest when they actually saw the pack of 11 at a waterhole deep inside Hwange NP, called Secheche. Thus the pack have been named Secheche. Their territory is deep inside the pack however it is also close to the South East boundary, so collaring them is a high priority for us. Our only real concern is for the Kanondo pack, which is just three dogs and hasn’t been seen in quite a while. Their territory is to the east of us in the Gwayi Conservancy, an area of intense poaching activity, which our APU patrol regularly.
Wilton and his Education Department team have completed a couple of very busy months, hosting five schools during the period, including the Harare International School whom we were delighted to welcome back after a year’s absence. All of the camps went very well as usual, with the kids having the time of their lives. Well over 4,000 children have now attended our Children’s Bush Camp. Wilton has added Dominic Nyathi to his team, tasking him with taking over the Conservation Clubs we established in 2008. Dominic has a lot of experience in teaching in the local area and is a well known figure. The Conservation Clubs is really an extension of the Bush Camp programme and aims to work with the same kids in their communities, engaging them in hands-on activities that carry a conservation message such as clean up campaigns and tree planting.
As ever, we are tried and tested and it’s with the help of your tremendous support that we can achieve so much. On my recent trip to the USA I was reminded that you can never say thank you enough, and certainly I will never get tired of saying thank you to everyone who has helped make PDC what it is today.
Peter Blinston
November was a pivotal month for Painted Dog Conservation. After many years of trying, we finally succeeded in our ambitions to begin monitoring the dogs in Mana Pools. Mana is a key national and regional population and as such, collecting data on pack numbers, individuals and their movements is considered vital. To this end, I went to Mana Pools with long time dog friend and chairman of PDC Netherlands, Ron van der A. For me it was a real ―bus man‘s holiday‖ as we had a single focus. Apart from a cooling swim in the Zambezi River after we arrived at Vundu Camp, hot and bothered from our long drive, itwas all about the dogs. Vundu camp is owned and run by Nick and Desiree Murray. It was purely by chance that we booked to stay at the camp, however it was soon clear that we had made the right choice as Nick is almost as fanatical about the dogs as we are and has years of experience operat-ing in Mana Pools.
We set out at 4:00 AM the following morning, the sky heavy and threatening rain. The temperature quickly soared to impossibly uncomfortable degrees. Nick knows Mana Pools like the back of his hand and we dissected the place, hindered by the limited road network. By 10:00 AM we were extremely hot and frustrated, then Desiree called on the radio. The dogs, the Vundu pack, had been seen to the west the day before, on the Wilderness Safari Concession. Nick sought permission for us to drive onto their private concession, which was granted without any hesitation. Mana Pools is a re-mote place and the operators there work cooperatively with each other and we have a good relation-ship with Wilderness through our work in Hwange, however we were all delighted by their willingness to help. It got even better, as they had actually seen the dogs that morning, while on a game drive with their clients. One of the guides knew me from our work on Starvation Island and he took us to the spot where the dogs had been resting just an hour before. Nick and I walked into the thick bush, dodging elephant herds and hoping that the lion we had just seen was walking the other way! I was thinking that it would have been good to have Jealous with us to track them down but I need not have worried. Nick‘s tracking was as good as any I have seen and we soon found the dogs resting in a dry river bed. It was 11:30 AM and really, really hot. It felt like my eyeballs were melting!! Far too hot to even think about darting dogs and so we watched them for a short while be-fore they moved on into thicker bush.
We came back in the afternoon and Nick tracked them down again while guiding us around a large bull elephant. He lost the tracks on hard ground and we searched around a little, before looking at a distant tree line and simultaneously saying ―they must be over there.‖ Sure enough they were. The tree line marked another dry riverbed but the dogs had found a last remaining puddle of water in a bend in the river. It was muddy and smelly but particularly inviting as a way to cool down and avoid the annoying flies. We sat quietly on the bank of the river above them, not much more than 20 metres away. Ron was with us this time and we counted over and over again but could not come up with the same number of individuals in the pack. I had never seen so many dogs in one pack. I gave up counting so I could just enjoy sitting with them, watching them play happily together. Elephants eventually disturbed the dogs and they reluctantly left their precious muddy puddle. We edged back to the vehicle as night fell, nervously avoiding the same elephant herds but so happy that we had found the pack.
At 4:00 AM the next day we set out again and in typical dog follow-ing tradition we could not find them. Completely frustrated we returned to camp at midday and did what we could to keep cool in the blistering heat. The offer of an afternoon on the river, swimming and generally taking it easy was so tempting but we stuck to our mission and went out again to bounce around in the Land Rover looking for mystical dogs. Nothing. But the rains finally came and relieved the oppressive heat.
4:00 AM again. Our last morning. We drove around with increased tension and
saw impala running hard through the bush. Straining our eyes through binoculars
we searched for the dogs but could not see anything and kept moving. Nick picked
up what could have been the footprint of one dog. However because it was only
one and not 20+ we moved on and turned down into the riverbed where they had
been resting the two days prior. This time he stopped the car and leapt out
quickly to confirm the footprints of at least 18 dogs walking through the deep
sand. We raced around and finally caught up with them on an airstrip near to
where we had seen the impala running. It was almost the perfect situation for
darting dogs. Open ground, good shade trees nearby and water. However, the dogs
were quite full. Normally we do not dart a dog when its stomach is full, however
we were under some pressure and luckily we had a vet with us
from the USA, who happened to be a guest at the camp. I decided it was worth the
risk and we closed in on the alpha female.
The darting and collar fitting were all done quickly and efficiently and soon the alpha female, now named Tait, after Nick‘s daughter, was back with her pack, wearing a GPS collar. We waited with them for another couple of hours and finally agreed that there were 23 dogs in the pack. Mana Pools is quite inaccessible during the rainy season and so the GPS collar will give us vital data on the pack‘s movements during this period. We drove back to Harare, tired but very pleased that this first mission had been so successful.
Despite what I now consider to be the usual difficulties, it had been another
successful year for PDC. Wilton and his team supervised more schools than ever
before through our Children‘s Bush Camp programme, including one from Zambia.
Our anti poaching units have worked well with National parks and we have been
encouraged by the sightings of new packs of dogs in Hwange National Park. It‘s
your support that continues to make this possible and we cannot thank you enough
for
that. We are of course looking forward to working with you again in 2011.
Peter Blinston
Painted Dog Conservation - year end report 2010
© Predator Conservation Trust.
