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Lower Zambezi Intro | Map | Kayila | Chongwe | Mwambashi | Canoe Safaris | Packages |
African Wild Dog Conservation, Zambia
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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. This year the dogs have chosen to spend some time in the Game Management Area (GMA) across the barrier of the Chongwe River. Five pups of the Mushika pack have survived the rainy season, along with all five of the yearlings, now adults. There are 14 dogs in the Mushika pack altogether, but the alpha male, a beta male and one adult female are now missing. 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 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. |
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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 hyaena and lion, which are much higher in number in the Park than in the GMA. I plan to do at least two hyaena 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. Much time was spent chopping up wild dog faeces with a scalpel blade to try and extract DNA from them. This will hopefully provide a non-invasive method to obtain DNA samples from a wide geographical section of Zambia's wild dogs. |
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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. Kellie Leigh, Project Director, AWDC, Lower Zambezi National Park, Zambia. Additional information
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