Wild Conservation – A Houston Zoo Blog

Enjoy this report from conservation director, Peter Riger,  from Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe.  He is there helping Painted Dog Conservation with local community enhancement projects.

Friday September 2nd

We have recruited a member of the community who is a builder by trade to help oversee the construction projects for a month and be our community liaison. Getting this sorted out took until around 10am at which time we arrived at the Mabale livestock dip station to start work on the new water tank system. When we turned down the dirt road we were extremely happy to see not just a few community members digging out the 12 foot deep by 12 foot wide hole to hold the tank, but 43 people had shown up with shovels and picks as well as a few dogs who would lay around and watched us. There commitment to our idea was fantastic and we are sure this project will move long much quicker than anticipated. The rains will not begin again until October/November and the tank, roof, and pump should easily be in place by then.

Digging the water tank at Mabale

The rest of today was spent digging with around 1/3rd of the hole completed. Saturday is a meeting in Lupote with the community about their water issues at the health clinic and then back to Mabale to work a little as weekends are family time in the community. We will start up again Monday as well as work on the new roof, take down a tree which is threatening to fall on the tank and thus the new roof, and mortar some of the concrete showing cracks. We just then need to secure 5000 community made bricks we will purchase from them (putting money back into the community) finish the hole and start tank construction. All in all a very productive few days!

Elephants elephants everywhere.

We mentioned the amount of elephants numerous times and even tonight driving to a lodge for dinner in the park we came across over 100 elephants as well as Sable Antelope again which are always nice to see. They estimate nearly 35,000 elephants in this country. Great for elephants given their range-wide issues and poaching problems. But, it is also results in an ecosystem that is a bit out of wack. There is a trickle town effect taking place here. More elephants means less water access and resources for other mammals such as impala, kudu, waterbuck, zebra, etc. Less of these means less prey for animals such as lions, hyenas, leopards, cheetah,jackals and Painted Dogs. Less food means higher mortality and lower reproductive rate which lead to population decline. In some cases which may be occurring here, less food means the aggressive carnivores ; lions and hyenas, do better which also affects Painted Dogs detrimentally.

The waterhole theory: There is naturally very little surface water in this region except for a few pans that fill up in the rainy season. But, both National Parks and lodges have created man made waterholes for wildlife viewing throughout the parks which in theory would draw animals to them for people on safari trips. But this never ending access to water as instead bolstered the elephant population as they no longer need to move distances to find water and thus mortality is low and reproduction high. Again, good for them, but it is affecting other populations of animals in the region. The amount of food these elephants are consuming is also putting pressure on the habitat.

By Peter Riger

Keep coming back for more from Peter about his experiences in Zimbabwe.

Health clinic in Lupote

Conservation Director, Peter Riger, has returned to Zimbabwe to assist Painted Dog Conservation in helping the rural communities around Hwange National park with building water catchment systems and upgrading livestock parasite treatment.

Friday August 26th

Did you ever start the day thinking nothing will go as planned? I think this on many trips until bits and pieces fall into place. Today we had some bits and visited some pieces. We started with a visit to the town of Hwange around 10am and a visit to one of the Gov’t Veterinarians Dr. Zishiri to explain what we were working on with Painted Dog Conservation. Very similar to the April meeting with the Chief in the Village of Mabale but we wanted his input on use of tick and disease control methods and the discussions bring us a few steps closer to getting up an running. A few more errands, looking at available building supply material, an attempted meeting with the District Council throughout the day. Visit first to the health clinic in Lupote and then on the dip tank in Mabale for more measurements and figuring out water capacity. This all hopefully sets the stage for another meeting with the Chief so we can get started. If it seems as though this conservation effort is all about people, it is for now but their decisions affect wildlife here every day.

Sable Antelope

Not very exotic visiting building supply stores, cows and goats but we are still in Zimbabwe and if you want to see one of the most attractive antelope in the world, look up Sable Antelope. We were winding our way through some baboons on the main road (just another normal occurrence) and off to the side in the brush were a group of 6-7 Sable. Turn off down the dirt road to our housing, round the corner, and there stood 15-20 Elephants in the Pan. We typically call them waterholes but in Zimbabwe and Botswana these sites are known as Pans. Given we are in the winter drought season, they are more mud holes than waterholes. Water is more difficult to find so the elephants congregate here to drink what they can. Around the next corner was a small group of Common Waterbuck with a juvenile and of course back at the house the sounds of elephant, jackal, kalahari toads, insect-eating bats and a male lion are easily heard from the porch.

The project may be people and cows, but this is still Africa as you always imagined it.

By Peter Riger

Stay tuned for more of Peter’s exciting reports from Zimbabwe.