Endangered Wild Dogs Caught in Poaching Stampede

Date: 3 September 2003

Source: IPS

Author: Wilson Johwa

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Sep 3 (IPS) - They hunt in family groups over great distances, chasing mostly impala, kudu and duiker until the prey tires and can be caught.

Thus, they have earned a well-deserved reputation for being efficient, indefatigable hunters who will disembowel prey in a matter of minutes, before lions or hyenas get a chance to move in.

Yet, less known about them is the fact that the sick and wounded, together with the young members of the pack, are looked after, fed on regurgitated food and nursed back to health.

Painted hunting dogs, also known as Cape hunting dogs or African wild dogs, so named for their individual and elaborate skin markings, were some of the most maligned of Africa's predators.

What is known about them now is that they are very social animals living in large packs numbering up to 40. There is usually one breeding female in each pack, which gives birth to a litter of up to 10 pups at a time that the whole pack takes turns in looking after.

The dogs used to be a common part of the African wilderness. But with the advent of the European colonisation, they were branded vermin and mercilessly persecuted, to the extent of being eradicated from national parks. Their numbers were reduced from some 500,000 to 3,000.

Now they are an endangered species.

Between 1956 and 1961 about 2,700 were killed in Zimbabwe alone for a bounty paid by the government to protect livestock. And those were just the recorded deaths.

This kind of slaughter went on throughout the continent where previously the dogs had been sighted even on the snows of Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and often wondered into the Sahara Desert.

The Zimbabwe population fell to a low of 150 in the early 1980s. The total for Africa now stands at about 3,000. The Zimbabwe dog population, spread through three locations: Hwange and Gonarezhou national parks and the Zambezi Valley, was the largest in the world.

But that was before poachers moved in. They have reduced the dogs' population from about 850 to 600. Tanzania has about 800 dogs, Botswana 500 and South Africa 200.

At the forefront of the species' survival in Zimbabwe is zoologist Greg Rasmussen whose Painted Dog Research Project has existed since 1989. Operating from the south western part of the country, in and around the 14,000-hectare Hwange National Park, Rasmussen and his team have been quite successful in allaying ranchers' concerns about the dogs and also bringing about a high level of awareness within the population.

Monitoring with the help of radio collars and translocation has brought the dogs in areas where they had not been seen in decades.

The project has three main focus areas: identifying through research the problems facing painted hunting dogs in Zimbabwe, disseminating information regarding the problems facing this species and actively reducing known causes of mortality and preventing those that are looming. A considerable percentage of fatalities are caused by motor vehicles as the dogs - moving in packs - frequently fall victim to road accidents, especially when they move in and out of game reserves.

Thus, apart from erecting road signs warning motorists of the dogs' crossing points along the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls highway, Rasmussen has developed a special collar for the dogs with reflective strips and a stainless steel plate. It makes it easier for motorists to see them in the dark, and also protects the dogs' windpipe should they get caught in snares.

The results of extensive tests on improved survival of dogs wearing the collars have shown that the protectively collared dogs had significantly higher survival chances than the rest.

However, given that each pack needs about 750 square kilometres in order to thrive, the dogs' future is far from secured since this exceeds what most game reserves can provide.

Some environmentalists say the only long-term solution to the problem is the creation of trans-frontier parks that will give wild dogs enough room to roam. Not only would this minimise habitat loss to humans, it would also prevent inbreeding, a phenomenon that bodes ill for the survival of the species.

The proposed Gaza-Kruger-Gonarezhou Transfrontier Park, a wildlife reserve spanning South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe has been thrown in doubt due to the reported occupation of Gonarezhou game reserve by land-hungry Zimbabwean peasants.

For Rasmussen's study packs, however, the problem has been less academic. Poaching, fuelled by Zimbabwe's chaotic land-reform programme, has led to the demise of three out of five study packs, or over 30 dogs in the last 18 months.

Since Feb. 2000, thousands of Zimbabwe's white farmers have been pushed off their land as the government sought to redress colonial land imbalances in an unplanned populist programme driven more by the ruling party's fear of losing power than a desire for genuine reform.

In many instances, government-supported war veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation struggle have move in, sharing the land among themselves. Other farms have been partitioned for ”new black farmers” many of whom are content being absentee landlords or are still trying to find their feet.

”We need an indication of who should live here and who shouldn't,” Rasmussen says of the Gwaai Conservancy, part of his study area consisting of several ranches within which game could roam, but now without careful policing. ”A lot of people have moved in merely to collect wildlife.”

Apparently, the wild dogs are not the only wild animals falling victims to poaching. The Zimbabwe Wildlife Producers Association estimates that half the country's wildlife has been killed in the last two years, when the country's land programme gained steam.

Rasmussen notes that 16 members of his project's anti-poaching unit are removing 1,000 snares a month and fear that in six months they will have no jobs since the game might have been wiped out.

”Now everyone has left the ranches, the poachers are having a free lunch,” he says. ”Most of the poaching is for selling meat and nothing else. There is absolutely no control.”

He says Zimbabwe's reputation of having the best wild dog programme has suffered a major setback.

The worst poachers are South African hunters whose ”reputation from hell” is well-known, Rasmussen says. ”The South Africans destroyed their own wildlife and had to restock with animals bought in Zimbabwe. ”Now there is this window of opportunity in Zimbabwe.”

Yet, to stem the tide, Ben Kaschula of the Commercial Farmers Union, which represents mainly white landowners, says the rule of law has to return to the farms. ”If poaching were to cease, the game would recover given time.”

For the endangered painted wild dogs, there might be no third chance.