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.
Wednesday August 31st.
John Huston with cattle
It is all about the meetings, ordering supplies, visiting village heads and councilors. Think of it as Governor ( Chief), District Councilor (Village Councilwoman), Mayor (Village Head). Same type of chain of authority, different names. Tomorrow the community leaders vote for or against our ideas. So we did what anyone would do, we (I.e my colleague John Huston) counted ticks from our collections this week and ate dinner, yes, pretty much at the same time. For the tick enthusiast out there, here are some of the species you may find here, all with potential implications to livestock health.
Amblyomma hebraeum
Amblyomma vareigatum
Rhipicephalus appendiculatus
Rhipicephalus evertsi
Boophilus decoloratus
The idea now is to check these cattle again in two weeks to count ticks and then count again after a dip. If we encounter fewer ticks by hand-checking than after a dip, there is clearly a problem with the efficacy of the pesticide being used in the dip tanks.
There is a lodge across and down the dirt road from us that we walked to after dinner and tick counting to sit by the mostly dry waterhole, where a few waterbuck and impala were moving about feeding. This part of Zimbabwe is mostly grassland and thorn scrub forest sitting on top of sandy soils so every path and road is basically sand with tracks of animals, a few lodge vehicles and our feet. Easy to see who comes and goes. It’s about a 75-yard walk on thin sandy paths between the main house and the guest/volunteer house where we stay. At night, one of the Painted Dog night staff will walk over if there are things rustling about which may stomp on or eat you. It is safe, but keeps you on your toes.
We walk out of the lodge back to the main house and I step across a large footprint (called a spoor). It is a lion and it was not there 30 minutes earlier. No problem. It’s flashlights in hand and a 30-second walk back to the house. It is 9:30 and we pack up our tick supplies sitting at the table. There is huge commotion 30 yards outside the window. Screaming water buffalo and lions ( not the band, real buffalo being attacked by real lions). A lion has clearly jumped on someone’s back. It is dark and we cannot see through the brush, but you hear the buffalo rushing off into waterhole and across the water. Two colleagues we are staying at the house with arrived and this time we drove to the lodge to watch the waterhole. On one side sits about 75 water buffalo just milling around looking east and a few impala doing the same. We see one of the world’s largest owls, the Eagle Owl, sitting on shore. A quick drive down the dirt road and a lone male lion crosses the path limping slightly on one front leg with no visible wounds. Unless the other lions made the kill further down, the buffalo may have won this encounter.
For the most part, field conservationists spend a large part of their lives actually living in the field under conditions such as these; random or no electricity, little or no running water or hot water at all, expensive fuel for their vehicles, poor internet and communications, health centers to treat serious injuries never close at hand, and most of all, they are one angry elephant, lion or leopard away from needing that health center.
It is warmer tonight. The bats living in the ceiling sound like they are doing the Rumba. But, I am still listening for lions across the road.
By Peter Riger
Stay tuned for more from Zimbabwe.
