Category: Cheetah | Date: Feb 11 2008 | By: admin
Rather exciting news on the Cheetah front! I saw tracks of two adult Cheetahs a couple of days ago and now, in the same area, someone was lucky enough to see two male Cheetahs, very relaxed, going about their business and scent marking a tree. Cheetahs have particular trees in their ranges that they scent mark to let other Cheetahs know of their whereabouts, and this will provide an ideal place for us to set traps when we try to fit radio-collars to a few. It is an exact location where we know the Cheetahs go! On top of this, it is an ideal training opportunity for Snoopy and Barclay as I can take them out into the field and let them search, knowing that they will come across what we are looking for. It gets even better; knowing that Cheetahs use this area, I can set up camera-traps in the hope that we will get some photographs of these elusive felids. I will keep you posted.
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Limpopo-Shase Transfrontier Park
Rox Brummer of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, and her dogs Snoopy and Barclay report on carnivore research that is helping to conserve one of Africa's greatest cross border protected areas the great Limpopo-Shase Transfrontier conservation area, a peace park linking South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe
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8 Responses to “”
THERESA SISKIND, on 11 Feb 2008
Rox, that would be great to see photos of them going about their business, not influenced by the presence of humans. I have a feeling Snoopy and Barclay are getting loads of exercise! Another great post, thanks.
F. J. PECHIR, on 11 Feb 2008
Thank you Rox for the post! It seems that you are realy doing a hard work there. It will be very interesting to see some photos of the cheetahs. Fameles Cheetahs, with or without cubs are not territorial in at least great part of the species range, and adult males coalitions certainly presents strong territorial behavior only in the center of their main area of activity, wich is in general much more restricted than that of subadults and females, and that area is frecuently marked with scent from urine and probably interdigital foot glands. Its a good point that you have identified this scent mark place, it will help you in your work with cams and dogs (beautiful indeed!), good luck!
F. J. PECHIR, on 11 Feb 2008
Rox, what kind of traps are you planning to use to capture cheetahs? I think it must be the metal cage with some meat inside (please correct me if not). If this is the case, I would like to know your schedule to check out this traps in order to avoid any injure to this cats once inside the trap (other predators harrasing them, overheat by sun, poachers, etc). I´m sure that you also studied the option of sedated them with a dart gun; if you have the time, can you give me some comment on this? Happy to know that you will be working with GPS and thank you in advance!
THERESA SISKIND, on 11 Feb 2008
Rox, isn’t F.J. amazing! I hear about the famous cheetah, Honey, who had 3 cubs. She died after a dart hit her internal organs. Very risky business, something we take for granted will turn out ok.
limpopocarnivores, on 12 Feb 2008
Free-darting cheetahs can be very risky as they are so slim and their bones are very light. They are quite easy to break. We get a vet to do it, and there are some circumstances where it is the best option, but with skittish wild cheetahs, we will use a cage trap. The difficulty with baiting for cheetahs with meat is they they tend not to scavenge other predators kills, as they are so far down the carnivore hierarchy. If there is a kill there, then something is likely to want to claim it and the cheetah wont want to be there when it does. The conventional method for cheetahs is with live bait, a goat or a chicken, but is rather ethically uncomfortable for me, so we are going to try with urine samples taken from captive females in oestrus. I think it will work. Whenever I am using traps of any kind I check them very often, and where possible rig up an alarm. I use a spare radio-collar hung above the cage, with fishing line attaching the trap door to the magnet used to switch the collar off. When the door falls, the magnet is ripped off the collar, thus switching the collar on. My reciever will be set to the collar’s frequency so that as soon as this happens, the reciever starts to beep, just as if I were tracking. This method has the benefit that you can monitor a trap from a distance of a couple of kms, so you do not either disturb the cat and prevent it going in, or cause it any unnecessary stress.
F. J. PECHIR, on 12 Feb 2008
Dear Theresa, thank you…
I read about Honey time ago. One of her cubs was hurt and the vet miss the shoot on Honey affecting her stomach and kidney. It was so sad about her death! I know Honey for the documentaries and the book series of the BBC and is realy a hard loss, more so if you consider that the cheetah is an endangered species. When you shoot a dart to an animal you must be sure that it will be a clear shoot and be very careful about the dosis and kind of drug that you are using to prevent any “accident”.
F. J. PECHIR, on 12 Feb 2008
Thank you Rox for your kind answer! I´m happy to know that you will not use live bait!! Your idea of using the magnet and the collar is certainly interesting indeed! I wish you the best in your project and please let us know any up-date!
THERESA SISKIND, on 12 Feb 2008
Rox, we are all relieved to know that whenever possible you do not use live bait. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for that! Rox, you are living proof that science can usually come up with humane alternatives, such as the use of urine as bait, very cleaver indeed. I love the whole radio collar rig, again very impressive!
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