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Newsletter, July 2001
Here is the first update for the year 2001 season. Once again we have had a
late start to the season as this year has been the second year of heavy rains
and high water preventing vehicle access to the National Park. Because of the
excess water flowing into Kariba dam, the project vehicle and I have been
intermittently stuck in the park while Kariba dam has opened extra gates to let
the water through. Of course this year the dogs have chosen to spend some time
in the Game Management Area (GMA) across the barrier of the Chongwe River, so
I'm considering putting flippers and a snorkel on the Toyota Hi-Lux.
The good news is that five pups of the Mushika pack have survived the rainy
season, along with all five of the yearlings, now adults. Batman is still
with the main pack, and I've managed to find a "Riddler" and
"Penguin" in the pups with the corresponding markings of a question
mark on Riddler and a white bib on Penguin. There are 14 dogs in the Mushika
pack altogether, the alpha male, a beta male and one adult female are now
missing (Art, Blacksaddle and Snowy). The alpha male may have joined the Jeki
pack to start a new breeding pack in the area.
There have been several sightings of two uncollared dogs in the GMA this season,
and each time I went to the sighting area I picked up a reading on the radio
collared dog, Blacksaddle. It is possible Blacksaddle joined up with the two
surviving females of the Jeki pack. Unfortunately on the 20th of June I picked
up a mortality signal on the collar and hiked halfway up the escarpment to find
the carcass of Blacksaddle. The radio collar only goes into mortality mode if it
doesn't move for 24 hrs, and Blacksaddle was mostly eaten so the collar had been
nudged around for a day or two by the predator that consumed him, probably a
leopard. This meant the carcass was already three days old and combined with the
fact it was mostly consumed it was no good for autopsy or sampling for disease
antibodies. A depressing start to the season.
Although there was blood spoor on the ground suggesting a kill, Blacksaddle
was a prime adult male and it is more likely he was weakened by something before
being taken by another predator, possibly by disease or a snare. The body was
found in a remote part of a mountain out of the typical range of the dogs, near
water, so he may have crawled up the gully for water in a weakened state. All
guess work unfortunately, but at least we know when and where he died rather
than another mysterious disappearance.
The consequences of this loss now mean I am back to scratch on tracking the
dogs. Permits for radio collaring have been delayed due to the transitional
phase of the Zambian Wildlife Authority (ZAWA), so there was only the one radio
collar on from last year. Its back to looking for 14 needles in a haystack and
trying to have a vet around at the time I find them to re-collar. New radio
collars are on the way from Sirtack in New Zealand, which have been modified so
they are lighter and have a more tapered and more effective anti-snare plate on
them. Snares continue to be a big problem for the dogs of the Lower Zambezi.
The Mushika pack has spent a lot of time in the GMA this year, after four years
of being seen only in the National Park. The GMA is much thicker bush with
little road access, so tracking is substantially more challenging than in the
park, with or without radio-collars. It is interesting that the Mushika pack has
followed the same pattern in home range shift as the Jeki pack, from the middle
of the National Park to the Western GMA. It is likely that this is related to
the density of competing predators i.e. spotted hyena and lion, which are much
higher in number in the Park than in the GMA. I plan to do at least two hyena
surveys this year, along with individual identifications of the lion population,
with the assistance of the tour operators in the area who are always out
tracking the lions on game drives.
I spent Africa's wet season in a lab 2 hours from Sydney, after enrolling into a
Ph.D. program with the University of Sydney's Faculty of Vet. Science. It was a
bit of shock to the system to be back at Uni, but great to get some academic
focus into the project. Much time was spent chopping up wild dog faeces with a
scalpel blade to try and extract DNA from them. The things we do. This will
hopefully provide a non-invasive method to obtain DNA samples from a wide
geographical section of Zambia's wild dogs.
AWDC has received interest from a wide range of organisations. I was invited
to present a paper at the Australasian Zoo's and Aquaria (ARAZPA) conference in
NSW in February, which received one of four commendations awarded out of more
than fifty papers, an indication that the project is seen as a valuable
contribution to in-situ conservation. Additional talks were given at Victoria's
Open Range Zoo and Perth Zoological Gardens. The Munda Wanga Environmental Park
here in Zambia is now collaborating with AWDC for educational work, and to set
up a long term breeding program for wild dogs once AWDC has come up with
information on the genetics of the Zambian population. AWDC is now a registered
non-profit society here in Zambia.
The next few months will be spent trying to re-collar the LZNP dogs, and
initiating wild dog surveys in the Luangwa and Kafue National Parks in Zambia. I
also hope to set up a mini-lab in my tent for nice fresh DNA extraction from
wild dog pooh.
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