Our work on Mapungubwe National Park is well underway and we are already seeing great differences in predator densities when compared with Venetia. Mapungubwe has a lot of leopards! We expected this from camera-trapping work we carried out a few years ago, but the difference between the two reserves is startling. Mapungubwe is wonderful leopard habitat, as it stretches along the Limpopo River which provides dense cover, and has many rocky outcrops in the area behind.

We have also picked up a number of lions in the area; up to 10 individuals on a section of the park that is only 10000ha. At least one group is thought to have crossed the river from Mashatu Game Reserve in Botswana and been caught on this side when the rains caused the normally dry Limpopo to flow. As we head into the dry winter, and the sand resurfaces in the Limpopo, it is possible these lions will head back across the border. The fantastic thing is that with the fences coming down, these beautiful animals now have the freedom to move like this in a way that has been almost impossible for much of the last century.

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Some exciting news on the lion front! We have some newcomers in the area and they are looking in fabulous condition. Mungojerrie was found on our northern fenceline late in the afternoon, pacing up and down and obviously extremely agitated. Wendy was out tracking the Wild Dogs at the time and left him, only to cross over into Mapungubwe National Park later on opposite where Mungojerrie had been. The park lies directly to the north of Venetia with a tar road in between. Not far inside the park and close to the fence, Wendy found a wildebeest kill with a very large lioness on it, accompanied by two sub-adult lions. The lions were all in great condition and were very relaxed. A visit later on that night showed up a total of four sub-adult lions with the lioness. This is great news for the lion population in Venetia as well as the park, as the fences between the two are due to be removed in early 2009. This will allow free movement of animals and effectively double the size of the conservation area. Healthy breeding lions in Mapungubwe National Park will add very welcome new blood to the Venetia lions, and will allow all of them to disperse in a more natural fashion.  The removal of the fences will be fantastic news for all the species and is definitely a move in the right direction. I am off to Zimbabwe for a few days for the annual meeting of the Shashe Limpopo Predator Research Group, a group of scientists and land managers in the area of the new Transfrontier Conservation Area. It promises to be a very productive meeting so I will keep you posted on my return.

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Here is the beautiful Rumpleteaser. What a cat! 

This Caracal was photographed walking down a fence late last year. It is the angle and perspective of the photo that makes it look so out of proportion.

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There is a pair of young lions that have been wandering around Venetia for some time now that have proved extremely elusive when it comes to managing to put a collar on them, so we are all extremely excited at having finally succeeded. Mungojerrie and Rumpleteaser are brother and sister and, in my opinion, are two of the most beautiful lions on the reserve. We bump into them from time to time, and the volunteer group were even lucky enough to see them hunting a kudu in front of their camp recently, but every time there is a vet on hand they disappear. We finally did it! Mungojerrie is now proudly sporting a radio-collar and so we will start to get to know the habits of this pair of youngsters.

In the photo Mungojerrie is the young lion on the right, and his father, Thunzi, is on the left.

They have been independent of their mother for over a year, but are sticking together for rather a long time for opposite sex siblings. We know they use the fence lines a lot as we often see them there. My husband has had a few encounters with them while checking our fence on his quad bike (ATV). Rumpleteaser definitely views him as prey and wastes not time in dropping down to stalk him. Being young and subordinate, it may be that they are looking to expand their territory or are simply avoiding the older, more established lions in the centre of the reserve. Now that we have a collar on Mungojerrie, we can begin to answer some of our questions.

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The battery life on radio-collars is limited and so from time to time we need to change the collars on long-term study animals to make sure they don’t expire. The size of the battery determines the length of its life, so we have to find the best trade off between the weight of the collar and the frequency with which we need to dart the animal. A very large battery may last for a long time, but could be cumbersome to the collared animal, whereas a very small one may mean having to use anaesthetics more than we would like. The collars we use on lions last about 18-24 months and are small enough that we are confident they do not bother the cats, but this is a long time period during which no further interference is necessary.

Just recently we had Dr Peter Brothers, a wildlife vet, on the reserve and so took the opportunity to change some of the collars that were approaching the end of their lives. Two male lions, Blade and Subipe, had their collars changed, along with one of the subordinate female wild dogs. We maximise the opportunity of having the lions and wild dogs under anaesthetic and take blood samples and check on the general condition of the animals. There has been an outbreak of suspected rabies in the area, so we took the precaution of vaccinating the wild dog pack. Due to their highly social nature, wild dogs are susceptible to infectious diseases and whole packs can be wiped out. There is another pack of wild dogs just over the border in Northern Tuli Game Reserve, Botswana, where some of the suspected cases of rabies have been reported, which has also been vaccinated against the disease.

In order to anaesthetise the lions to allow us to change their collars, we need to approach them in a vehicle to a distance of about 20m, then a dart filled with the drug is shot from a specially designed air-gun into the rump of the animal. There is quite a skill in shooting the dart hard enough to be accurate, and softly enough not to have more of an impact than is necessary. The rump is the target as it is the biggest muscle mass with the least chance of hitting bone. After the dart has found its mark, we wait until we can see the lion has gone to sleep (then wait a little more just to be sure), and approach carefully from behind it to check it is fully out. The heart-rate is monitored, and the eyes covered for protection while the necessary work is carried out. On hot days such as we have been having recently, we spray water over the sleeping animal in order to prevent them from overheating. When everything is completed, an anti-dote to the anaesthetic is injected and we wait from the safety of our vehicles to see that the lion comes round and walks off. They usually look a little dazed and confused to begin with but are back to their normal selves very quickly. Darting of animals should only be carried out by skilled vets and so we offer our sincere thanks to Dr Peter Brothers for his help.

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A new litter of lions has been born on the reserve! We are not sure yet which of a pair of sisters has had the cubs, as they were both mated a few months ago. One sister, Tsotsi, was mated by a known male on the reserve, and the other, Picannin, by a strange male that was passing through. We are keeping our fingers crossed for it being the new male, so that we have some new blood on the reserve.

The lion population is important for the project as we are using it as a benchmark for testing the various census techniques. The lion population is well studied and we know exactly how many there are, so we can test the accuracy of each technique against a known figure. The populations of the other species are currently unknown, and we are just starting to get our first estimates now.
Interestingly, both the spoor counts, and the home range sizes of our 3 radio-collared Black-Backed Jackals, both suggest a figure of approximately 2.5 times the lion population, or between 64-68 Jackals on the reserve. The results are preliminary, but they are encouraging, both because they come out so close and because it is close to the estimate we would expect. For the species we detect less often on the spoor counts, such as Leopard and Cheetah, it may be that we first need to accumulate bigger data sets, or perhaps that other methods may be more appropriate for these elusive felids.

Many thanks to Theresa for the kind donation. We appreciate it and every bit helps towards furthering our work here

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