How adult penguins fish and the body condition of their chicks are directly linked to local fish abundance, and could potentially inform fishery management, a new study has found.
The researchers studied an endangered African penguin colony during a rare three-year closure of commercial fisheries around Robben Island, South Africa, and their findings are published today in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
Fishing is often considered to be one of the biggest drivers of biodiversity loss in the ocean. It is so widespread that we lack an understanding of the ‘natural’ relationships between marine predators and their prey, and thus the extent to which predators are disrupted by competition from fisheries.
This is a critical knowledge gap since many marine predators such as penguins are considered indicator species: a species whose success indicates the condition of their habitat.
Dr Kate Campbell, who led the research at the University of Cape Town as part of her PhD project, said: “Understanding how African penguins forage to feed their chicks in their variable marine environment can help us identify conservation measures for these endangered populations.”
“A three-year commercial fisheries closure around Robben Island, South Africa created a unique opportunity to study how African penguins directly respond to natural changes in local abundance of their prey – anchovies and sardines,” she added.
The researchers estimated fluctuations in prey fish populations over three years within the fisheries closure zone (20 km radius around Robben Island) using 12 hydro-acoustic surveys, which detect the presence of anchovies and sardines by bouncing sound waves off their swim bladders (gas-filled organs).
Over the same time period, researchers used GPS-temperature-depth loggers to monitor adult penguins’ fishing behaviours for one trip to sea per breeding season. At the Robben Island colony, researchers also measured the diet of breeding adults and the body condition of chicks.
They found that local abundance of anchovy and sardine was directly linked to African penguin foraging behaviour and chick offspring condition; a common assumption about predator-prey relationships which has rarely been tested in the absence of fishing.
When fish abundance was lower, adults increased foraging effort: foraging for longer, swimming further and diving more often. This likely explains why chick body condition also declined, as finding fish became more challenging for breeding adults and required more energy.
Dr Richard Sherley of the University of Exeter said: “Interestingly, the variation in foraging behaviour between individuals also increased when prey fish were scarcer.”
“While some ‘superstar’ penguins find food easily, others are less successful. Once food gets harder to find, more individuals will start to struggle and work harder, but they will do so at different rates, increasing the variation we see in foraging effort,” he added.
These results indicate that penguin foraging behaviour and chick condition could be key indicators for local fish abundance, making a case for their inclusion in the monitoring of local ecosystem health.
“Since these short-term changes will likely have knock-on effects for chick survival and penguin population size, they could be used as powerful early warning signs to inform fisheries’ policies and marine conservation efforts,” said Campbell.
“Technological advances also means there’s exciting potential to better understand how these endangered penguins behave when prey resources are scarce,” she added.
“Hopefully, In the future, we could aim to effectively balance fishery management with penguins’ needs, to reduce the impact on local economies whilst maximising the benefits to our oceans,” Sherley concluded.
Full report: Kate J. Campbell, Antje Steinfurth, Les G. Underhill, Janet C. Coetzee, Bruce M. Dyer, Katrin Ludynia, Azwianewi B. Makhado, Dagmar Merkle, Johan Rademan, Leshia Upfold, Richard B. Sherley (2019). Local forage fish abundance influences foraging effort and offspring condition in an endangered marine predator. Journal of Applied Ecology.https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13409
I’m more than 2,000 metres high – barefoot – toes searching for a grip on the cliff face. A harness around my waist and the advice of our guides are the only things preventing me from injury. Our goal, I know, will be worth it. At the top of this towering rock is Abuna Yemata Guh, a sacred rock-hewn church boasting stunning views of Ethiopia’s Tigray region. It is a back-breaking climb to get there, not everyone can do it, but the view alone is worth the effort, while inside holds centuries-old wonders.
Our adventure began in Aksum, the former capital of the Aksumite Empire now a tourist town of around 70,000 people. Here, my partner Martin and I met our tour operator who took us on a nearly four-hour drive to the foot of the rock on which Abuna Yemata sits.
Abuna Yemata is just one of Ethiopia’s many beautiful churches carved from rock. The most famous are the 11 medieval monolithic cave churches found in Lalibela, a mountainous area around 650 km from the capital Addis Ababa. Typically, and unlike Abuna Yemata, they are dug into the earth, so the roofs sit at ground level.
However, quite apart from being constructed on a 2,500-metre-high spire, we found Abuna Yemata unique among the other Ethiopian churches. To begin with, the views it offers over Gheralta Mountain are jaw-dropping, while the panoramic vistas over the plains below are life-affirming. Its remote location and hazardous access (they call it the least accessible place of worship on Earth) ensure there are very few tourists. It’s also fascinating to note that the church is still used by locals – mothers clamber up the rock face with babies strapped to their backs to pray.
Our climb started with a relatively simple 30 minute hike up a steep incline. When we hit the middle section, however, our guides took us to one side, strapped us into harnesses, and attached safety ropes. After removing our shoes out of respect for the holy land we were about to reach, we started our ascent. It was difficult, often scary, work. We scrambled for secure stones and reached for the assistance of our local guides just to make it up.
On a side note, if you go to Abuna Yemata, take a local guide (not just your tour operator guide). Not only are they very knowledgeable and help you along the climb, but they are required by local law. You will be asked to tip well at the end of your climb, but it’s worth the extra cash.
After around one-and-a-half-hours of climbing, we dragged ourselves over the lip onto the top – tired, relieved, but delighted. Our reward was a 50cm ledge, barely enough to stand on, but boasting gorgeous views over the lands below. In awe, but aware of the long drop just inches from our toes, we pushed on to the church itself to discover the wonders inside.
Like many Ethiopian Orthodox churches, Abuna Yemata is divided into three chambers – a music room, a Holy Communion room, and a room that holds an Ark of the Covenant replica. The domed walls of the church were decorated with stunning frescoes depicting tales from the Bible. We stood in awe, taking in these near-perfect original artworks which have sat there for centuries, preserved by the environment’s lack of humidity.
As we explored in a blissful daze, we met the kindly priest who makes the same perilous climb every day to continue the work of the early Christians who created this 6th century church. The experience of meeting him and feeling the undoubted spirituality of the church is overwhelming. The climb is tough, sure, but ultimately a small price to pay to visit this unique monolithic beauty.
While our experience was a magical one, I do want to reiterate that some people simply won’t be able to do it. In particular, the last few meters are very difficult and require a great deal of physicality (and a fair bit of bravery too). Yes, you’ve got to make your way around the corner of that small ledge you see in this photo with a straight drop down right next to where you step.
We took our journey with a Spanish couple travelling with their parents. As we reached the last stretch, the parents felt the final push was too much of a risk for them.
We weren’t told at the beginning of the trip how difficult it was going to be nor was there any orientation.
I feel if they had been warned before they made the ascent, they might not have gone on it in the first place – Ethiopia’s tourism industry still has a way to go to meet the high standards found in other parts of the world.
However, if you think you can handle the physicality, then we definitely recommend you to make the journey to Abuna Yemata – so long as you’re not afraid of heights.
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 competition is ow closed for entries and we are excited to announce the Semi-finalists! Only two weeks to go before we announce our winners!
There are two galleries showcasing the Semi-finalists. To see the other gallery click here:Semi-finalists Gallery 1
The following gallery of Semi-finalists is in no particular order.
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 competition is ow closed for entries and we are excited to announce the Semi-finalists! Only two weeks to go before we announce our winners!
There are two galleries showcasing the Semi-finalists. To see the other gallery click here:Semi-finalists Gallery 2
The following gallery of Semi-finalists is in no particular order.
Recent research has revealed that lion populations in southern Africa show a significant loss of genetic diversity, and the negative trend has been traced to when European colonial settlers arrived in the area, and to the outbreak of rinderpest in the region.
This is a summary of the research document – please download the entire report for a greater understanding.
Most research focuses on reductions in population size and distributions, whereas the researchers believe that loss in genetic diversity is of utmost importance for the conservation of lions. Genetic diversity contributes to individual fitness, species evolutionary potential and ecosystem function and resilience.
Lions are an important flagship species that has undergone a significant population and range decline, with recent estimates of the lion population in Africa between 16,500 and 35,000 individuals. This represents an estimated decline of 42% over the past 21 years. Significant declines in lion and other wildlife populations have also been noted further back in time. As is the case for other species, the reduction in lion numbers has been driven primarily by human-wildlife conflict and habitat loss.
The research, conducted by Dures, Carbone, Loveridge, Maude, Midlane, Aschenborn and Gottelli, was based on comparing modern and historical lion populations from the KAZA region – Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Historical DNA samples were extracted from museum specimens.
The resultant data demonstrates that, over the past century, the lion population of the Kavango–Zambezi region has lost genetic diversity, with current-day observed heterozygosity reduced by 12%–17% compared to historical populations, represented by a significantly more significant inbreeding coefficient. Although this decline is not as dramatic as that seen in some highly threatened or bottlenecked species such as Mauritius kestrel (Falco punctatus) at 57% or sea otters (Enhydra lutris) at 43%, it nevertheless represents a worrying reduction in diversity considering this population is one of only six lion strongholds remaining in Africa.
This decline in genetic diversity coincides with the arrival of the first western settlers in 1890 and the subsequent rise of the colonial presence in the region after the end of the Matabele Wars in 1897.
Modern firearms became more prevalent following European settlement and predators were often persecuted as vermin. Another contributing factor was likely the outbreak of the rinderpest virus during the late 1890s, which resulted in the death of vast populations of buffalo, giraffe and wildebeest, as well as domestic livestock. Such an epidemic is very likely to have also had a considerable impact on the predators of the region.
Rinderpest outbreak in 1896 in South Africa, which killed large numbers of cattle and cloven-hoofed wildlife
There is a risk of overestimating the potential for modern populations to resist the effects of the pressures that they face if genetic factors are not considered. Populations that may be regarded as stable by contemporary conservation managers may in fact show signs of genetic erosion, thus needing greater conservation attention.
The dramatic population decline of the African lion has made the protection of the remaining populations and the improvement of gene flow between populations of the utmost importance and has led to several transboundary conservation initiatives. Efforts must be made to conserve genetic diversity, without which a species resilience and ability to adapt to future unpredictable events become significantly compromised.
Full report: Simon G. Dures, Chris Carbone, Andrew J. Loveridge, Glyn Maude, Neil Midlane, Ortwin Aschenborn, Dada Gottelli (2019). A century of decline: Loss of genetic diversity in a southern African lion‐conservation stronghold. Diversity and Distributions.https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.12905
A three-month-old baby elephant has been rescued after being found wandering on its own in the Maputo Special Reserve, Mozambique. The tiny baby has been stabilised and now awaits the necessary permits for transfer to a specialised care facility in South Africa, for eventual release back into the wild.
This amazing rescue story is thanks to the co-operation from a range of people and organisations listed at the end of this article, but the survival of the frail elephant is now in the hands of the authorities, who need to issue the necessary paperwork. Drs. Carlos Lopes Pereira (ANAC) and Michelle Henley (Elephants Alive) are in conversation with the Department of Environmental Affairs in South Africa to secure the import permits.
Image: Supplied
First to the scene were members of the Muvucuza Community in Maputo Special Reserve, who alerted rangers to the baby elephant that was wandering around alone. These community members need to be given special mention and thanks – because without this intervention the baby elephant would surely have perished.
A team quickly responded, led by Mozambique’s National Administration of Conservation Areas (ANAC), Saving the Survivors, Dyck Advisory Group and Peace Parks Foundation (PPF).
Image: Supplied
The calf was found to be extremely weak and hungry, and it is estimated that it had been alone for about three days. Veterinarian Dr João Almeida from Saving the Survivors said that the situation was touch-and-go for several hours. Specialised fresh milk had to be flown in from South Africa, although fluids were immediately administered intravenously.
The baby elephant has now slowly gained its strength and hopes for its survival are now high. The baby elephant is currently receiving plenty of fluids, and bottle feedings every two hours. She has started passing faeces and is sleeping regularly – these are all good signs.
Image: Supplied
A PPF technical advisor working in Maputo Special Reserve has advised that elephants seldom abandon their young, and speculated that the baby may have been sick for some time. He added that working together to protect the wildlife in this reserve is critical to conserving its biodiversity.
Maputo Special Reserve is fast-becoming one of Mozambique’s top tourist destinations, which will greatly improve livelihood opportunities for the local community.
Pangolins, the scaled, prehistoric-looking creatures native to Africa and Asia, are the most illegally trafficked mammal on the planet. Conservative estimates are that 10,000 of them are killed and exported every year. However, the likelihood is the figure is magnitudes higher than that. Over one million pangolins are thought to have been illegally poached between 2000 and 2013*. (*World Animal Protection)
It’s therefore increasingly rare to read a good news story about pangolins, let alone catch a glimpse of one of these unique animals in the wild. However, the Lilongwe Wildlife Trust (LWT), a leading conservation organisation in Malawi, have been able to provide both.
Earlier this week, the animal care team at LWT were alerted to the presence of three adult pangolins which were being held at a local police station after confiscation from an individual illegally in possession of them.
Pangolins are killed for their meat which is considered a delicacy and their scales which are used in folk remedies in places like China and Vietnam – and it’s unknown whether these three were destined for the same fate.
Given the time spent away from their natural habitat and the undoubted stress caused by being kept in human captivity, it was decided that the pangolins needed to be taken into the care of LWT who run the award-winning Lilongwe Wildlife Centre, a wild animal rescue and rehabilitation facility in Malawi’s capital.
The pangolins were handed over to LWT’s expert animal carers and taken straight to the centre where they were given a full veterinary check, as well as food and water, and were placed in an environment as closely matched to their natural one as possible.
Not every animal that arrives at the Lilongwe Wildlife Centre is lucky enough to be released back into their natural habitats. Some are too injured, too young, or too humanised to rejoin the wild, and remain under care at LWT’s sanctuary.
However, the ending for the pangolins was the happiest that could have been asked for.
After two days of recuperation, the animals were placed in crates and transported to a suitable location a few hours outside of Lilongwe to be finally freed.
Under a dramatic Africa sunset, the trio were removed from their crates, and after some initial hesitation, one by one uncurled their scales and shuffled off, in their own inimitable way, back into the wild of Malawi where they belong. Safe at last.
Earlier this week Elephants Alive discovered one of their collared elephant bulls seriously injured in Umbabat Private Nature Reserve (UPNR). Not knowing the cause of the injury, they immediately got in touch with the warden of the reserve, Bryan Havemann, who, after an assessment of the bull, secured a permit from Mpumalanga Tourism and Parks Agency (MTPA) for the team and vets to intervene.
The elephant in question is known as Matambu, a bull in his prime but with failing eyesight. He is considered to be placid in nature and quite docile, which made darting him on foot relatively stress-free and quick by a team that included Wildvets, Dr Joel Alves and Havemann.
“The reserve doesn’t normally intervene when injuries are as a result of natural causes,” said Havemann, “but in Mutambu’s case we couldn’t be sure what the cause of the injury was until the wounds were assessed”.
It was established during Matambu’s assessment that the injuries to his genital and rump area were most likely caused by the tusk of another elephant bull.
First collared in 2006 by Elephants Alive, Matambu has proved to be vital to their studies. He has partial sight in one eye (which has a cataract), and blind in the other. This was discovered in 2017 during a routine change of batteries in his collar when a veterinary ophthalmologist was called in to assess him. Neither eye is likely causing him any pain or distress, however, the cataract will likely cause complete blindness over time.
Once Elephants Alive discovered that Matambu was seriously injured, they felt it was important to intervene to treat him as he is an important study animal. Aside from this serious injury, he is in relatively good health.
After an hour of being tranquillised and successfully treated, Matambu woke up and slowly walked away to live another day. Elephants Alive and the reserve will continue to monitor his recovery.
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 competition is now closed for entries and this week we will look at the first of our finalists: The Top 101!
There are four galleries showcasing the Top 101. To see the other galleries for the Top 101 click here:Top 101 Gallery 1, Top 101 Gallery 3, and Top 101 Gallery 4.
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 competition is now closed for entries and this week we will look at the first of our finalists: The Top 101!
There are four galleries showcasing the Top 101. To see the other galleries for the Top 101 click here:Top 101 Gallery 1, Top 101 Gallery 2, and Top 101 Gallery 4.
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 competition is now closed for entries and this week we will look at the first of our finalists: The Top 101!
There are four galleries showcasing the Top 101. To see the other galleries for the Top 101 click here:Top 101 Gallery 2, Top 101 Gallery 3, and Top 101 Gallery 4.
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 competition is now closed for entries and this week we will look at the first of our finalists: The Top 101!
There are four galleries showcasing the Top 101. To see the other galleries for the Top 101 click here:Top 101 Gallery 1, Top 101 Gallery 2, and Top 101 Gallery 3.
Elephants in southern Africa have been the subject of much debate recently, particularly after Botswana announced that it was reviewing its elephant management strategies. The process of determining how best to manage elephants in southern Africa went one step further over the past weekend when the heads of state of the countries with the largest remaining elephant populations met in Kasane, Botswana to formulate a collaborative management strategy.
This a brief summary of the strategy adopted by Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, which jointly make up ‘The Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) – which is home to more than half of the remaining African savannah elephants. For a more detailed understanding of this strategy, please download the strategy document here.
Please note that this document does not directly address the issues currently creating tension, such as Botswana’s trophy hunting and culling discussions, or the reported attempts by KAZA countries and South Africa to convince CITES to permit trade in ivory. Rather, this document provides the umbrella strategy within which those matters will be researched and potentially implemented.
1. The wellbeing of these elephant populations hinges on maintaining their habitats and upon ensuring the movement of elephants from more densely-populated areas in Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia, to areas in Angola and Zambia – by securing wildlife migration movement corridors.
2. The latest elephant surveys indicate a population of at least 220,000 elephants across the five KAZA countries, with 85% concentrated in Botswana and Zimbabwe. Populations in southeast Angola and southwest Zambia have suffered major declines due to poaching. The area of Kavango and Zambezi (formerly Caprivi) in Namibia have suffered from increased poaching, although elephant populations are reportedly growing.
3. Growing elephant populations may pose a threat to diminishing riverine and woodland habitats, and the species dependent upon such habitat.
4. Increasing elephant populations in certain areas, combined with human population growth and settlement in existing wildlife dispersal areas is leading to increases in human-elephant conflict, resulting in increased illegal killings and the increased need for problem animal control.
5. The KAZA portions of Angola and Zambia have large tracts of suitable elephant habitat, but with smaller populations of elephants and other wildlife (and concomitant lower human densities), which should provide a “pull” effect from areas with higher elephant populations, via the wildlife migration corridors.
6. Wildlife migration corridors are under various stages of intactness and some face the threat of permanent closure due to encroaching human settlements, agriculture and infrastructure developments (roads, rail, riparian), livestock disease control measures (veterinary fences) and mining.
7. Long-term monitoring of the KAZA elephant population is required, as well as identification and mitigating of threats to elephant populations. One such threat is climate change, to which elephants are already vulnerable in areas of limited water supply. This dynamic exacerbates human-elephant conflict.
1. Facilitate integrated land use to ensure long-term ecosystem integrity and connectivity for KAZA’s elephant population. Short- and medium-term activities in this regard include ongoing and increased data collection and analysis, ensuring an adaptive management process, protection of Angolan water sources of the four major rivers flowing through KAZA, awareness-raising amongst various sectors that impact on elephants, providing formal legal recognition for wildlife migration corridors, and re-alignment or removal of existing veterinary fences.
2. Maintain and manage KAZA’s elephants as one contiguous population. Short- and medium-term activities in this regard include aerial surveys, analysis of elephant movement data, understand data on human distribution and land-use, better use of existing elephant poaching data (MIKE), and integrating elephant management strategies for each KAZA country into this strategic planning framework.
3. Promote the co-existence of humans and elephants for ecological, social and economic benefits. Short- and medium-term activities in this regard include supporting alternative livelihoods for local communities that help mitigate conflict, engaging with communities about conflict mitigation and building capacity for data collection, and to develop policies and practices to permit communities to sustainably manage, utilise and benefit from elephants and other wildlife.
4. Reduce the illegal killing of elephants and the illegal trade in elephant parts. Short- and medium-term activities in this regard include mobilising financial, human and material resources to combat the illegal killing and trade, coordination of transboundary ground-based patrols and air surveillance as well as cross-boundary pursuit of wildlife criminals, review existing legislation to permit extradition of wildlife criminals, engaging communities to help fight wildlife crime, better use of DNA analysis to better inform evidence-led prosecutions, and aligning of customs and immigration procedures with regard to the movement of illicit wildlife products and better training of personnel in this regard.
5. Establish a high-level decision-making process to achieve the above. Short- and medium-term activities in this regard include a 5-year review process, ensuring that KAZA partner countries allocate sufficient financial and other resources in these regards, and establishing reporting and feedback mechanisms.
Most people travelling to East Africa visit its vast savannas and bushland that abound with Africa´s famous megafauna. However, East Africa also harbours a wide variety of tropical forests, for example mangroves, coastal and cloud forests. The latter are, for example, found in the Taita Hills in southeast Kenya.
The Taita Hills reach an altitude of up to 2,200 metres above sea level and rise abruptly from the lowland Tsavo plains. With their rugged hilltops they collect the clouds that come in from the Indian Ocean leading to humid and wet conditions and the formation of cloud forests.
Fallen giants have torn gaps into the canopy cover. Their slow decay is promoted by a myriad of fungi and deadwood insects. The ground is covered by a dense layer of leaf litter. The air smells humid and earthy of life and decay.
As I am writing this, it is raining, as it has for almost every morning since my arrival. It is December, the short rainy season. It is grey, misty and windy. This is the season that most birds choose as the start of their breeding season. Females start looking for suitable nesting sites, lay and incubate their eggs, and together with their mates feed their nestlings and later fledglings until they can fend for themselves.
One of them is the placid greenbul (Phyllastrephus placidus). Placid greenbuls are understory insectivores. That means they prefer the forest level in-between the forest ground and the canopy for foraging insects and for breeding. Placid greenbul females built their nests in the understory vegetation – often climbers, dracaena, bushes and ferns – about 1 to 1.5m above the ground. Their nests look like fallen leave debris, but are in reality delicately built with cosy mosses as bedding.
After laying two light bluish eggs, females incubate them for about two weeks until two helpless, naked little greenbuls hatch. To feed and raise them, the whole family helps: the mother, father and the surviving young from the previous breeding season.
Placid greenbuls are so-called (facultative) cooperative breeders. Sometimes their flocks are also joined by unrelated greenbuls, but these usually don’t help to feed the ever-hungry nestlings.
However, it is not very likely that the eggs will ever hatch or that the nestlings will fledge as almost 70% of all nests are predated. Snakes, small mammals, blue monkeys, baboons and raptors are the main culprits.
If the predators are detected, the whole greenbul flock gathers and starts a real ruckus: they utter loud distress calls, flapping their wings vigorously. They might even start rolling on the ground – pretending to be injured. All to distract the attention of the predator away from the nest. Not always successful, however (as the video at the end of this article shows) where an African goshawk snatches away the nestlings leaving the parents distressed and confused.
The fertile soils of the Taita Hills have attracted human settlers for hundreds of years. Today, more than 90% of indigenous forest have been lost to agriculture and the remaining cloud forest is highly fragmented.
Besides habitat loss, conditions within the remaining fragments have changed.
For example, forest fragmentation affects predator communities and for species such as placid greenbuls this means that nest success may be even lower. Other factors, such as insect prey availability, microclimate, parasite communities and the frequency of human disturbances, have likely changed as well and probably make life for placid greenbuls more challenging.
The mist has cleared and the clouds have torn apart – time for another day in the forest to find out more about the challenges of greenbul life in a fragmented, disturbed landscape…
The video below was shot as part of my research on the effects of habitat degradation on parental behaviour in placid greenbuls. The two nestlings were first fed by the breeding male (identified by his colour rings), and then by the breeding female. The noise in the background when the goshawk appears are the parents who try to distract the goshawk from the nest.
References:
• Newmark, W. D. & Stanley, T. R. (2011). Habitat fragmentation reduces nest survival in an Afrotropical bird community in a biodiversity hotspot. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
• Spanhove, T., Lehouck, V. & Lens, L. (2009). Inverse edge effect on nest predation in a Kenyan forest fragment: an experimental case study. Bird Conservation International, 19(04):367.
• Van de Loock, D. (2018). Life-history strategies of a facultative cooperative breeder in a fragmented Afrotropical cloud forest. Ph.D. thesis, Ghent University & University of Antwerp, Belgium.
Rise of the Matriarch is at its core a community that celebrates and supports women on the frontline of conservation and human-empowerment doing incredible, often groundbreaking work.
There are so many remarkable women throughout Africa not only fighting to save our planet but empowering communities, creating change and inspiring the younger generation. Despite the incredible work these women are doing, their efforts are still so often overlooked, and they do not always receive the support they deserve.
Their stories are captivating, the work they are doing is important and benefits us all, and we feel that more people should know about these organisations and these women. We want share their stories through the Rise of the Matriarch community, and in doing so support them and allow them to expand upon the work they are doing.
The Rise of the Matriarch Vision Film, which you can watch on our YouTube channel, serves as a mood board, highlighting what this initiative is all about, and giving a glimpse into some of the amazing characters we will feature in both the long-format and short-format content.
Rise of the Matriarch is a community of women supporting women, and men supporting women – where we lift one another up, support and empower one another.
Rise of the Matriarch is two-fold, not only will we be creating a long-format broadcast series, we will also be sharing short-form digital content.
Our Rise of the Matriarch documentary series, which we are currently pitching to broadcasters, will focus on female heroes and the iconic species they are fighting to protect, working in challenging circumstances and in diverse and beautiful wilderness areas. Each episode will give viewers a real and raw look at the personal challenges these women are facing while working in fields where they are often exposed to unchallenged gender bias.
We will take viewers on a journey across Africa, delving below the surface, giving an intimate look at the lives of the incredible species these women are fighting to protect, the threats these animals are facing and the importance of protecting and conserving them.
We will explore complex issues in these episodes that these women are working to address such as rhino poaching, human-wildlife conflict, the illegal pet trade and other environmental and humanitarian issues.
In addition to this long-format series, we have an online community where we will regularly be sharing digital content in the form of short films and photography on YouTube – these will also be housed on our website, Instagram, and Facebook.
These short films and stories, like our “Meet Ruth” film below, will share the stories of beautiful, strong women as they pursue their passion for conservation or human-empowerment, leading the way and creating a path for the next generation.
These shorter films will feature women in junior and senior roles, women working both behind-the-scenes in conservation and on the frontline – and will keep the momentum going after the long-format series airs.
We will feature a call to action at the end of each long-format broadcast episode directing viewers to the online community and encouraging people to follow along as we share stories of women, and to get involved in various ways – to be part of creating change.
In the words of Maria Diekmann in our vision film, “If a woman finds an inner strength, then there’s nothing that can stop her”.
We love this passion and through our research we are discovering more and more women that against all odds, have persevered and are doing what they love and feel called to do – women who are making a real difference.
Through this community, we want to encourage the younger generation to find their inner strength and pursue their passion too. We are collaborating with organisations like African Leadership University who are currently running a programme awarding eight scholarships for their incredible MBA Programme to women – and you can be a part of this by nominating someone who you feel has potential and would be well suited to this.
ALU are growing a new generation of African leaders and we have loved collaborating with them on this and hope to work with them and other similarly minded organisations going forward.
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 competition is now closed for entries and this week we will look at the last remaining entries chosen for the Weekly Selection galleries.
There are four galleries showcasing this week’s Weekly Selection. To see the other galleries for this week’s selection click here:Weekly Selection Gallery 1, Weekly Selection Gallery 2, and Weekly Selection Gallery 4.
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 competition is now closed for entries and this week we will look at the last remaining entries chosen for the Weekly Selection galleries.
There are four galleries showcasing this week’s Weekly Selection. To see the other galleries for this week’s selection click here:Weekly Selection Gallery 1, Weekly Selection Gallery 2, and Weekly Selection Gallery 3.
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 competition is now closed for entries and this week we will look at the last remaining entries chosen for the Weekly Selection galleries.
There are four galleries showcasing this week’s Weekly Selection. To see the other galleries for this week’s selection click here:Weekly Selection Gallery 1, Weekly Selection Gallery 3, and Weekly Selection Gallery 4.
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 competition is now closed for entries and this week we will look at the last remaining entries chosen for the Weekly Selection galleries.
There are four galleries showcasing this week’s Weekly Selection. To see the other galleries for this week’s selection click here:Weekly Selection Gallery 2, Weekly Selection Gallery 3, and Weekly Selection Gallery 4.
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 competition is now in the last week for receiving entries and at midnight on April 30th (CAT time) the competition will close for submissions, after which our judges will spend the month of May considering every selected photo before announcing our winners!
There are four galleries showcasing this week’s Weekly Selection. To see the other galleries for this week’s selection click here:Weekly Selection Gallery 1, Weekly Selection Gallery 3, and Weekly Selection Gallery 4.
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 competition is now in the last week for receiving entries and at midnight on April 30th (CAT time) the competition will close for submissions, after which our judges will spend the month of May considering every selected photo before announcing our winners!
There are four galleries showcasing this week’s Weekly Selection. To see the other galleries for this week’s selection click here:Weekly Selection Gallery 1, Weekly Selection Gallery 2, and Weekly Selection Gallery 4.
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 competition is now in the last week for receiving entries and at midnight on April 30th (CAT time) the competition will close for submissions, after which our judges will spend the month of May considering every selected photo before announcing our winners!
There are four galleries showcasing this week’s Weekly Selection. To see the other galleries for this week’s selection click here:Weekly Selection Gallery 1, Weekly Selection Gallery 2, and Weekly Selection Gallery 3.
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 competition is now in the last week for receiving entries and at midnight on April 30th (CAT time) the competition will close for submissions, after which our judges will spend the month of May considering every selected photo before announcing our winners!
There are four galleries showcasing this week’s Weekly Selection. To see the other galleries for this week’s selection click here:Weekly Selection Gallery 2, Weekly Selection Gallery 3, and Weekly Selection Gallery 4.
Written by Dr Michelle Henley – Elephants Alive Director, Co-founder and Principal Researcher
We struggle as humans to understand our own actions. How can we begin to understand and provide possible interpretations for the actions of other species? Yet elephants have been acknowledged as ‘sentient’ beings in the National Norms and Standards for the Management of Elephants in South Africa according to which ‘…..interventions to manage an elephant should seek to minimise any resultant pain or trauma to the elephant’1.
‘Sentience’ refers to an ability to feel or be aware of feelings2. But how has science assisted us in arriving as such an abstract conclusion?
To name but a few of the latest findings: Not only are elephants capable of engaging in effective tool-use3, but they have also passed the mirror self-recognition test as have apes and dolphins4. Elephants’ brains have a relatively large hippocampus compared to primates, which may explain their long social and chemical memories5. Consequently, they can keep track spatially of where other individuals are relative to themselves6, and it has even been shown that elephants can classify subgroups of humans that pose different degrees of danger7.
Humans still represent the biggest threat to elephants and their stress hormone responses to particular human activities (hunting, immobilisation, translocation or tourism) have successfully been quantified8,9. Elephants are known to exhibit concern for deceased individuals or to offer assistance to conspecifics in distress10. Research has shown us that elephants show higher levels of interest in elephant skulls and ivory than in other natural objects11.
We now know that the oldest individuals in a group have enhanced social discrimination and consequently function as essential repositories of social knowledge12. Gradually it has become permissible to talk about elephant cognition13 or the empathy of elephants14, and with this in mind, we would like to introduce you to an elephant and her family, which typifies these traits which have recently been bestowed upon elephants.
We have known the Grass herd for several years and have always been struck by their level of habituation. All the individual females within this family unit have been given the genus names of Southern African grass species. Some individuals in the herd are more familiar to us than others.
Eragrostis (Love grass) was one such individual. She was an old cow who had stopped lactating and had the habit of bringing up the rear of the herd. With time we realised that Eragrostis was blind. Despite her handicap which slowed her down considerably, her daughter Themeda (Red grass) made sure that she was never far from her and usually only an audible rumble away.
The old great-grandmother of the herd seemed to have lost her fear of man. She habitually used the roads as walkways, presumably because they represented easier walking as opposed to stumbling through the bush. Consequently, she frequently encountered humans traversing the roads and must have gradually realised that they mean her no harm. As Eragrostis seemed particularly habituated, we had the privilege of watching and experiencing the level of patience with which her daughter would wait for her.
On wind-still days, Eragrostis would stand still and spread her ears slightly after emitting a contact rumble, which she knew that one of her closest of kin would answer. The appropriate response would help her move in the right direction. On more challenging days, Themeda made sure that she was never too far from her mother to prevent her from rushing back to her and offering her a comforting greeting or a gentle touch of the trunk, which was usually sufficient for Eragrostis to orientate herself again.
Sadly, we no longer see Eragrostis, and we presume that she has died. Given what research has revealed in terms of elephants’ consciousness and intelligence, we can well imagine that Themeda will remember where in the sea of bush, her mother’s bleaching bones are slowly decaying.
We have on occasion, seen the ghostly silence and seriousness that befalls an elephant when they find the bones of another although we have not known the degree of relatedness amongst them. If you were fortunate enough to witness the care with which Themeda used to assist her mother, you would also not find it hard to imagine how she would probably tenderly caress her mother’s bones when she came upon them. Is Themeda paying respect toward the social repository that her mother’s skull represents or is she merely remembering her?
We may never know, but as researchers strive to understand the consciousness of certain species experimentally, we may well one day look back with humility.
Suggested reading
• 1DEAT 2007. Draft National Norms and Standards for the management of elephants in South Africa. Department of Environment and Tourism. Government Gazette, 2 March 2007.
• 2Geddie, W., 1966. Chamber’s Twentieth Century Dictionary. W.R. Chambers, Ltd. London.
• 3Hart, B.L., Hart, L.A., McCoy, M., and Sarath, C.R. 2001. Cognitive behaviour in Asian elephants use and modification of branches for fly switching. Animal Behaviour 62: 839–847.
• 4Plotnik, J.M., de Waal, F.B.M. and Reiss, D. 2006. ‘Self-recognition in an Asian elephant’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences103: 17053–7.
• 5Hakeem, A. Y., Hof, P. R., Sherwood, C. C., Switzer, R.C., Rasmussen, L. E. L. and Allman, J. A. 2005. Brain of the African elephant (Loxodonta africana): neuroanatomy from magnetic resonance images. The Anatomical Record287A: 1117–1127.
• 6Bates, L.A., Sayialel, K., Njiraini, N., Poole, J.H. Moss, C.J., and Byrne, R.W. 2007. Elephants have expectations about the locations of out of- sight family members. Biological Letters4: 34–36.
• 7Bates, L.A., Sayialel, K.N., Njiraini, N.W., Poole, J.H., Moss, C.J., and Byrne, R.W. 2007. Elephants classify human ethnic groups by odour and garment colour. Current Biology. 17: 1938–1942.
• 8Burke, T., 2005. The effect of human disturbance on elephant behaviour, movement dynamics and stress in a small reserve: Pilansberg National Park. MSc thesis, University of KwaZulu Natal, Durban.
• 9Viljoen, J.J., Ganswindt, A., du Toit, J.T. and Langbauer, W.R. 2008. Translocation stress and faecal glucocorticoid metabolite levels in free-ranging African savanna elephants. South African Journal of Wildlife Research38 (2): 146-152.
• 10Douglas-Hamilton, I., Bhalla, S., Wittemyer, G. and Vollrath, F. 2006. ‘Behavioural reactions of elephants towards a dying and deceased matriarch’, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 100 (1–2): 87–102.
• 11McComb, K., Baker, L., and Moss, C. 2006. African elephants show high levels of interest in the skulls and ivory of their own species. Biological Letters2: 26–28.
• 12McComb, K., Moss, C., Durant, S.M., Baker, L., and Sayialel, S. 2001. Matriarchs as repositories of social knowledge in African elephants. Science292: 491–494.
• 13Bates, L.A., Poole, J.H., and Byrne, R.W. 2008. Elephant cognition. Current Biology 18: R544-R546.
• 14Bates, L.A., Lee, P.C., Njiraini, N., Poole, J.H., Sayialel, K., Sayialel, S., Moss C.J. and Byrne, R.W. 2008. Do elephants show empathy? Journal of Consciousness Studies, 15: 204–25.
The surgical removal of Africa’s remaining large-tusked elephants continues, with the announcement by trophy hunters JWK Safaris that a client of theirs has killed another giant elephant in an area bordering Gonarezhou National Park, Zimbabwe.
Subsequent notes from the editors:
We have subsequently inserted the words “in an area bordering” into the introduction paragraph above, to clarify that the elephant was hunted outside of the national park. This was a careless error, and we apologise without reservation. The main point of this news post is that another giant elephant has been taken by the trophy hunting industry, and this point remains;
JWK have removed their Facebook post referred to below, and so we include a screen copy of it at the end of this blog post).
Here are two photos of a trophy elephant bull that was hunted yesterday in the Gonarezhou Safari areas of Zimbabwe on a hunt guided by PH Nixon Dzingai.
Carl booked this hunt for PH Grant Taylor who is in photo with Nixon. These tusks have not been weighed yet.
This is an exceptional Gonarezhou trophy bull with long, thick and symmetrical tusks that are typical of the Gonarezhou and Kruger gene.
Hunters best wishes JWK Safaris — with Grant Taylor.”
The elephants targeted by JWK Safaris roam between national parks and the adjacent hunting areas, as evidenced by this statement on their website: “All of the Zimbabwean hunting concessions that JWK Safaris have on offer are open to the adjoined National Parks that serve as feeder Parks to the hunting areas.”
Copy of the original Facebook post by JWK Safaris:
Copy of the original Facebook post by JWK Safaris.
STROOP – Journey into the Rhino Horn War, has taken one of the world’s top wildlife prizes, ‘Best of Festival’, at the International Wildlife Film Festival in the United States
The groundbreaking South African film, STROOP – Journey into the Rhino Horn War, has taken one of the world’s top wildlife prizes, ‘Best of Festival’, at the International Wildlife Film Festival (IWFF) in the United States over the weekend. The local film was up against big budget films from the likes of National Geographic, the BBC, PBS and Netflix which usually dominate the natural history filmmaking landscape. So it was a surprise win for filmmakers Susan Scott and Bonné de Bod.
Says a delighted de Bod: “STROOP’s reception worldwide continues to amaze us! We had hoped the international community would take notice of our heartbreaking rhino issue in South Africa but they’ve reacted hugely to the film, and this is now our 17th win since the film’s release just a few months ago.”
Scott, director of the film, adds: “The IWFF is known for looking at all aspects of wildlife filmmaking and we actually thought STROOP might stand a chance to get selected last year. In fact we wanted to world premiere there and were aiming for it in our edit, but we just could not get STROOP finished in time. So it’s surreal for us that the film is being honoured this year by the prestigious festival for which we were just hoping to get selected. It’s an incredible achievement for the film and once again this puts our rhinos firmly in the international spotlight.”
STROOP – Journey into the Rhino Horn War tells the shocking and touching story of the ongoing poaching of rhino and the trade in its coveted horn
The theme at this year’s IWFF, held in Montana, was ‘adaptation’, with the focus set on humans and animals struggling to adapt to a changing climate, as well as filmmakers who spend years on a story and find new ways to reach audiences.
Said festival director, Carrie Richer: “The trend of embracing the responsibility of showing those kinds of stories is pretty real. It’s the longest standing wildlife film festival in the country and it celebrates wildlife, the environment and people’s relationship to wildlife through film.”
This year saw over 300 films submitted from all over the world, of which 70 films were selected from 36 countries with STROOP ultimately selected the ‘Best of Festival’. The film also won the ‘Best Independent or Feature Film’ category.
Judges from the IWFF stated after the double win: “Even if you think you already understand the rhino poaching crisis, STROOP must be seen. It is heartwarming and heartbreaking and the access is unprecedented. The filmmakers are endearing and courageous. It will stay with you long after you finish watching.”
The International Wildlife Film Festival is attended by over 12,000 people and involves top wildlife filmmakers, producers, scientists and conservation leaders. The week-long festival is a juried event that recognises scientific accuracy, artistic appeal and technical excellence of films submitted from around the world. Past IWFF ‘Best of Festival’ winner Chasing Coral, went on to be short listed for an Academy Award after its win in 2017.
STROOP was an independent undertaking by Scott and de Bod who self-funded and crowdfunded through the public and later received post-production grants to help them finish the film. Since its world premiere at the San Francisco Green Film Festival in September last year, the film has been officially selected for 25 film festivals and has been picked up by the London-based Journeyman Pictures for international distribution. These two latest accolades picked up at the IWFF mark the films’ sixteenth and seventeenth awards.
STROOP is now available to watch on iTunes, Amazon and Google Play. DVDs can be purchased via www.stroop-film.com. The filmmakers are in talks with local broadcasters and hope to have the film on South African television soon.
Electric game drive vehicles: Any game drive vehicle will do @ Electric Safari Vehicles
“Switch it on,” I suggest eagerly, as Steve concludes his intro and we are parked off in the shade of a large tree at Makanyi Lodge, Timbavati.
“It has been on since you arrived,” he returns, a smug grin barely suppressed.
Having driven a diesel Defender for much of my life (my Landy is 25 years young, and has trundled almost 300,000 kms – still going strong), and various Landcruisers, in remote and tough terrains across Africa, I expected the performance of an electric game drive vehicle to be, well, on the soft side. There I said it. Was I wrong!
Now I am no vehicle expert, but I do recognise an industry game-changer when it seduces me from the first second.
The same quintessential safari game drive experience. Just better @ Simon Espley
MY TURN AT THE WHEEL
During my time at the wheel, we descended into a sandy and rocky drainage line and bumbled to the end with barely a shudder. In my experience, Defenders take on these obstacles like a tractor – slowly and determinedly. And Landcruisers require careful control of the accelerator, to avoid wheel-spinning.
Both vehicles can handle this terrain, but in different ways, and experienced off-road drivers understand that. This beast had no such issues.
I chose a sandy and rocky riverbed to test the mettle of this beast @ Simon Espley
The deep sand was simply not noticed, and no skill was required beyond steering. And the rocks. Well, we simply climbed and descended them with barely a twitch of my right foot, or the use of the breaks.
And the acceleration on the open jeep tracks was breathtaking, truly – they will have to speed-govern this thing in game reserves.
A hint of the past, but the fuel tank is no longer there @ Simon Espley
NOISE
Let’s talk about noise. There was none. Aside from the sound of tyres rolling over gravel, and the odd creak from the chassis and suspension. It was quite eerie actually. A bit like cycling.
This meant that for a change I could actually hear and read the bush sounds during the drive – bird alarm calls, far-off leopards grunting, insects zitting. This alone is a significant improvement in the safari experience. And the wildlife we encountered during the drive (elephants, giraffes, impalas, warthogs and birds) seemed totally unfazed by our arrival, and more relaxed with us being there.
One elephant came up to us and browsed just behind the silently idling vehicle. When we moved off he did not flinch, as animals often do when you kickstart a fossil fuel engine.
Things look different under the hood @ Electric Safari Vehicles
EXPERT OPINION
Long-time friend, and deeply experienced safari camp logistics expert, Kevin Leo-Smith, did not hide his enthusiasm – which is unusual for this quiet individual. He understands more of the technical stuff than I do, and was obviously extremely impressed with the vehicle’s performance, mechanical setup and at how Steve replied to his many practical questions about the costs and logistics of running this vehicle.
In fact, Kevin was still raving about this vehicle on the brief drive back to his home town of Hoedspruit. Very unusual. If Kevin is happy with the technical stuff, so am I.
The vehicles look like any other game drive vehicle @ Simon Espley
COST AND CARBON FOOTPRINT SAVINGS
Many lodges will use solar to charge these vehicles, and the carbon footprint and cost benefits of the switch from fossil fuels to electric are obvious. In addition, Steve says that lodges need not buy new vehicles – they simply convert their old vehicles, and end with vehicles that are as good as new.
Makanyi Lodge proudly going electric @ Simon Espley
And so, the savings on environmental and financial costs compared to a new vehicle are significant. Ongoing repair and maintenance costs are also minimal, because of the removal of the hard-wearing parts of fossil-fuel vehicles.
This vehicle is a no-brainer decision, both economically and ecologically.
WHO IS STEVE?
Steve Blatherwick is the hard-working genius behind Electric Safari Vehicles, and his vehicles are now being sought after by safari lodge owners who want to make a difference, and save money.
He is a busy guy, understandably so. Get in line.
Steve Blatherwick with one of his conversions @ Electric Safari Vehicles
FINAL COMMENT
I cannot think of one advantage that fossil-fuel game drive vehicles have over this particular rendition of the electric game drive vehicle. This is surely the beginning of the end for fossil-fuel game drive vehicles…
I want one.
VIDEO: Watch a brief amateur video made by the writer:
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 competition is heading into the last week for receiving entries and at midnight on April 30th (CAT time) the competition will close for submissions.
There are two galleries showcasing this week’s Weekly Selection. To see the other gallery for this week’s selection click here:Weekly Selection Gallery 1
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 competition is heading into the last week for receiving entries and at midnight on April 30th (CAT time) the competition will close for submissions.
There are two galleries showcasing this week’s Weekly Selection. To see the other gallery for this week’s selection click here:Weekly Selection Gallery 2
The concerns expressed include the likely killing of elephants, warthogs, baboons, vervet monkeys, porcupines and various bird and other species that are attracted to the fruiting citrus trees, poaching security, extraction of excessive amounts of water from the Klaserie River, noise and chemical pollution, threat of herbicides to biodiversity, the aesthetic blight of homogeneous orchards and farm infrastructure in a wildlife and tourism area and the disruption of the necessary expansion of the Greater Kruger.
In her assessment of this Draft Impact Report, researcher Jessica Wilmot of Elephants Alive has scored the Report as ‘poor in analytical components’ and ‘unsatisfactory because of omissions or inadequacies’. She goes on to say that the Report does not identify: a) possible alternatives to the one proposed or b) adverse impacts of the proposal or specific measures to prevent or reduce those impacts.
Map showing location of the planned citrus farm on the Greater Kruger boundary, with proposed cultivation area in green. Click to enlarge.
Wilmot also questioned the objectivity of the compiler of the report, as a negative finding would cause them to lose favour with future developers.
She went on to say that developments where only one person will benefit financially should not be placed above the long term needs of the ecosystem and the region. Developments like this in wildlife areas tend to seed a long-term process of degradation and destruction, as other developments are likely to be approved once the first is in place.
Wilmot’s report, which will form part of the process going forward, goes into great detail, and exposes significant shortcomings in the Report. She asks important questions about phrases and claims in the Report, and we can only hope that the authorities exercise their duties and apply the necessary rigour to this process.
We are concerned that the above blog post has created an inaccurate impression of the state of the Selinda concession (NG16) when it was purchased from us by Dereck Joubert in 2005. We wish to place on record that our operating methods in Selinda during our 10-year tenure as concessionaires have been recognised as being some of the foremost by any safari operator in an era that saw many shifts in Botswana’s applauded conservation strategies.
We started the process of isolating trophy hunting away from prime wildlife areas, and of using detailed wildlife and habitat research and surveys to determine, and in many cases, reduced hunting quotas. Our role led to the area becoming known as a prime wildlife area – a reputation that continues to this day.
Despite our respect for Dereck and his safari successes, we feel it is important that we set the record straight with regard to his claims relating to our custodianship of Selinda Reserve prior to his involvement.
Selinda spillway game drive, during the time of the former owners of Selinda Reserve
The provisions of the lease we signed with the tribal owners of NG16 in 1994 stipulated that Selinda Reserve be used for both consumptive and non-consumptive tourism.As a photographic safari company,we understood that hunting and photographic safaris do not mix and consequently decided to zone the concession into three well-defined areas:
• A high-density wildlife zone (Zone A), where all photographic safaris were conducted (two safari camps, a support HQ and a walking safari trail). There was zero tolerance for hunting in this zone. This is the zone where Dereck currently operates his Selinda camps with great success, thanks in no small part to our efforts.
• A medium-density wildlife zone (Zone C) where a safari camp (some 70km distant) was established, to be run and managed by ourselves. Hunting outfitters would book this camp as ‘guests’ during the legislated hunting season. This control allowed us, as the concessionaires, to mediate any unethical hunting practices, and fulfilled the conditions of the lease. This zone bordered the community area of Godikwe and allowed the benefits of hunting to filter through directly to them. Even back then we understood and believed that involving local communities in direct benefits is vital for conservation success.
• A low-density wildlife zone (Zone B) to act as a buffer between the above two zones. Although hunts rarely occurred here, the environmental limitations of little to no water, poor browse/grazing, and a limited road network precluded or severely limited any hunting successes. This zone comprised the greatest land area of the concession and separated the two permanent water sources of the Linyanti/Kwando and Okavango.
Selinda Reserve Zones 1995 to 2005
Prior to our involvement in 1994, Zone A was indeed a major hunting area and there is no doubt that many nefarious and unethical hunting practices took place, both through citizen hunting and commercial trophy hunting. Indeed, this is what precipitated the government standpoint to redefine and re-allocate the enormous blocks of land that make up northern Botswana’s wilderness.
Therefore, Dereck’s claim that ‘all hunting was stopped when we took over’ is misleading. Yes, he did close down the limited hunting quota allocated to Zone C – and deserves credit for that. But in fact, we closed down ALL hunting in the prime wildlife area of Zone A 10 years prior to his purchase of the concession. The current placement of Dereck’s camps in Zone A of the Selinda Reserve enjoys the fruits of our decisions and management, as did our guests prior to our selling the company in 2005.
Principally we are not against ethical, well-managed trophy hunting whereby benefits are enjoyed by a wide sector of the community, particularly impoverished villages such as Godikwe. However, we did not wish to engage in hunting ourselves. Consequently, we sub-contracted the hunting quota of Zone C to professional outfitters under strict guidelines governing their operation on the concession. The payment we received for these contracts allowed us to run and manage a safari camp in Zone C that continued to operate outside the six-month hunting season. This year-round presence helped us keep poaching at bay, and employ people on a permanent basis
The financial benefit of this arrangement also provided us the budget to conduct tri-annual aerial surveys of Selinda Reserve. We were the only concessionaire in Botswana to maintain surveys throughout our tenure – which the current Selinda concession holders have sadly phased out and discontinued.
WILDLIFE RESEARCH AND SURVEYS
Example of historic biomass distribution on NG16. 1995-2004 under the previous owners; 2005-2008 under the current ownership. No significant changes are discernible.
Our company was the only safari operator to establish comprehensive, repeated and systematic wildlife surveys and monitoring in northern Botswana. Aerial surveys were conducted every spring, summer and autumn following one-minute latitudinal transects using four counters in a fixed-wing aircraft. The data was then analysed using the Norton-Griffiths method and compiled into a detailed annual report.
Furthermore, monthly ‘full moon ground counts’ were conducted using set road routes and data gathering sheets. These were then augmented with ‘supplementary counts’ specifically to monitor cryptic species, including small and large predators, including lions. Mortality records were also maintained of all observed predator/prey interactions, unknown causes and hunting offtake. As far as we are aware there is still no private concessionaire investing in and conducting wildlife monitoring with anything close to the intensity and thoroughness of our efforts – including the Selinda Reserve of today. It would be a challenge for any private concessionaire to proclaim any trends in wildlife numbers under their custodianship without quantifiable, historical public records to back it up.
Female Selinda leopard 2002
It is clear from our carefully maintained records that wildlife populations were flourishing during our time, subject of course to the usual ebbs and flows common to any large intact ecosystem that is subject to changes in season, rainfall, flood regimes and other natural events. Therefore, Dereck’s claims of ‘post hunting wildlife rebounds’ are also confusing and misleading.
If you prefer to believe an independent third party, then read this report on a third party website by a tourist of his visits to Selinda Reserve during our time there. He visited us many times over 10 years, and wrote this report in 2015, of his own volition. His report includes his personal accounts and many photos, which speak for themselves.
HUNTING QUOTAS
Our detailed survey records of wildlife population numbers, densities and distributions for most species within NG16 were provided annually to the Botswana Department of Wildlife & National Parks (DWNP). Every year, concession by concession, the DWNP would set the quotas for the hunting season ahead. We would peruse these quotas as they pertained to NG16 and request the department to reduce or remove quotas if we felt that certain species required additional protection. At no time did we ever request DWNP to increase a quota.
Selinda pride on an elephant carcass in 2002
PREDATORS, SPECIALLY LIONS
During our custodianship of NG16 the predator populations were healthy and well dispersed throughout the area. Male lion coalitions were stable and the two principal prides (Selinda and Spillway prides) were tremendously successful in raising cubs to independence. And we can back these claims up because we have the data.
Example of supplementary counts to monitor cryptic species such as lions
Through 1997 to 2003, various award-winning wildlife filmmakers and photographers chose Selinda as their base of operations because the predator population was so healthy – especially lions. The tourist’s report referred to above includes photos of many lions, shortly before Dereck took over Selinda Reserve in 2005.
Therefore, claims by Dereck that only two lionesses ‘survived the ravages of trophy hunters’ are also confusing and misleading.
Monitoring ID photos of resident male lion coalition at Selinda in 2004
CLAIMS ABOUT OUR STAFF
Claims that ‘the staff of the previous owners were 100% hunting staff’ are simply not accurate. With a staff complement that hovered around 60 individuals (not 12, as claimed) we ran our small camps and operations with 80% of the staff solely employed for photographic safaris. The safari camp in Zone C was utilised by trophy and photographic guests alike, at different times of the year, but the staff we employed ran the camp and were employed permanently and not involved in the hunting which, as already mentioned, was contracted out.
Therefore, claims by Dereck about our staff, their employment status and remuneration are also confusing and misleading.
Selinda camp, during the time of the former owners of Selinda Reserve
FINAL THOUGHTS
The ecotourism industry in Botswana is constantly evolving, and we are proud to have played a substantial part in the process that has brought Botswana to the top of the safari tourism heap in Africa – the benefits of which Dereck’s company now enjoys. We are also proud to have played a role in converting a previously heavily-hunted wilderness into the wonderful safari tourism beacon that Selinda Reserve is today. In that way, we see ourselves as having helped pioneer the journey back to intact wildlife populations and ecosystems. Dereck and his team have taken that baton over from us; earning our respect in the process and we wish them only good things for the future. But perhaps he, and they would be wise, and gracious, to recognise and applaud the efforts of those who have gone before them, rather than cast us as the villains.
Walking trail in Selinda during the time of the former owners of Selinda Reserve
South African National Parks (SANParks) and its conservation partners in the Greater Kruger region are in the process of implementing additional strategic and collaborative management interventions as part of an integrated rhino management approach. As part of several initiatives, some entities will embark on the strategic dehorning of rhinos in the Greater Kruger Protected Area landscape, and Balule Private Nature Reserve were able to execute dehorning during the last week.
In a seven day, highly specialised operation, the rhino population of Balule has been dehorned.
The operation was carried out with professional precision and in conjunction with our neighbouring reserve. It is believed to have been the largest single dehorning operation yet carried out in the Mpumalanga and Limpopo Lowveld focusing on free-ranging wild rhinos.
Source: Balule Nature Reserve
Balule is a Private Reserve, open to the Kruger National Park and its neighbours in the Association of Private Nature Reserves (APNR). It is privately funded and has been hit hard by illegal poaching in the past several years.
The relentless onslaught has reduced the rhino population within Balule by nearly 70% since 2012.
Family groups have been severely compromised and sex ratios skewed leading to a dire situation for the natural prosperity of our rhinos.
Source: Balule Nature Reserve
Accordingly, in order to stem the losses it was resolved to:
• Explore, and if possible implement, a dehorning strategy so as to reduce the attractiveness of the targets to poaching syndicates; and
• Implement additional security measures.
Following ten months of planning and extensive stakeholder consultations, which included South African National Parks specialists from the Kruger National Park, neighbouring reserves and provincial authorities, the appropriate permits authorising Balule to proceed with the operation were issued.
This multi-disciplined operation was carried out by a large specialised team comprising the Balule management team, four wildlife veterinarians, a fixed-wing spotter aeroplane and two helicopters. In addition, vehicle-based ground teams with air-to-ground communications, systematically moved through the reserve capturing and dehorning all rhinos that were located.
The entire operation was closely monitored by a LEDET official who was furthermore responsible for the collection of DNA samples from every rhino, which will be entered into the RHODIS system which is hosted at the University of Pretoria, Onderstepoort genetics laboratory.
Source: Balule Nature Reserve
Balule is host to a black rhino population which belongs to the Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency. These rhinos were successfully released in Balule in 2011 as part of the WWF Black Rhino Expansion Program (BREP program).
ECPTA approved this security intervention and their officials were present during the dehorning of their black rhinos in Balule. Valuable data and genetic samples were collected during the dehorning immobilisation of the rhinos.
During the operation increased security measures were in place and a specialised third-party asset protection security organisation were present. All horns were removed from the reserve daily and placed into secure off-site storage facilities.
Source: Balule Nature Reserve
Balule approved this extensive operation, as it had become abundantly clear that with the current intensity of rhino poaching, the Balule rhino would become extinct within the next two to four years, unless more drastic measures were taken. This, in spite of the already substantial financial investments into security, both in terms of manpower and technology which has been spent over the past few years.
The dehorning project is not viewed as a standalone initiative, but will contribute towards the existing multi-faceted suite of security initiatives which already exist within the APNR and Balule. Furthermore, the Balule dehorning project is contributory towards the GLTFCA integrated rhino management program, which is underpinned by the cooperative agreement which exists between Balule, other Protected Areas open to the KNP and the KNP.
Given the pioneering nature of this project, the effectiveness against poaching as well as the health and well-being of the rhinos will be closely and scientifically monitored into the future, with the ultimate objective of ensuring the survival of the wild rhino population within Protected Areas, the Country and in Africa.
Holding it in your hand, it doesn’t look like much. It is just a piece of wire, with a loop here and there. Place this wire in the hands of wildlife poachers though, and it becomes one of Africa’s most deadly weapons.
Snares and traps kill millions of animals across the world each year. Throughout Africa, the snares are most often used to capture antelope for bushmeat. In some instances, the goal is to target key high-value species for trafficking of body parts.
Unfortunately, snares do not discriminate, catching anything that dare cross their path. A devastating find last week in Limpopo National Park, Mozambique, was once again evidence of this sad fact. Strategically concealed in a high-density antelope movement area, a snare line had not only slain a waterbuck, but also three endangered African wild dogs.
It was clear from analysis of the scene that the wild dogs had not been the targets of this trap. The carcasses were intact with no body parts removed. Most likely responding to the distress calls of the trapped waterbuck, the dogs had also been caught in the snare line.
Wild dogs are one of the most endangered carnivores in the world with only a few thousand thought to still be found in mostly southern and eastern Africa. According to Wildlife Act, African wild dogs are particularly susceptible to being caught as bycatch in snares as, if one dog gets caught, the rest of the pack are most likely to go back to find the missing individual, becoming ensnared themselves.
To the teams in Limpopo National Park, this is a distressing setback to concerted efforts aimed at specifically protecting the carnivores and other keystone species that roam through the expansive 1-million ha park.
Often dubbed the “forgotten side of poaching”, the relevance of snares as a critical danger to wildlife populations has long been acknowledged by Mozambique’s conservation authority, the National Administration of Conservation Areas (ANAC). Working closely in collaboration with Peace Parks Foundation, ANAC has intensified efforts to rid protected areas from these “wildlife landmines”.
It is not easy removing snares though. They are well-hidden, most often anchored to the ground or around a tree, in the path of high animal activity. As a general member of the public, you would easily walk past multiple snares and not even know they were there. Combine that with the size of conservation space that these rangers have to cover, and this is truly a daunting task.
Various operational activities have been enhanced in Limpopo National Park to address such challenges. Along the park’s western border – a boundary shared with Kruger National Park – an intensive protection zone (IPZ) was established to enable focused tactical application of 80% of anti-poaching resources. The IPZ safeguards the section of the park with the largest concentration of game, and therefore the most potential for tourism development.
A central command centre equipped with the latest technology systems has been established with the help and support of the Dyck Advisory Group (DAG), and 29 additional rangers employed. The rangers are expertly trained through the Southern African Wildlife College, and many of them are experienced trackers with an eye for finding snares and traps. Over the past two years, the number of monthly patrols executed also more than doubled.
In addition, through a partnership with Panthera, a specialised anti-poaching team was launched in the park last year – a unit dedicated to assisting the park and the Greater Limpopo Carnivore Programme with the conservation of wild cats and canines. Closely integrated into the park’s overarching anti-poaching strategies, this unit patrols the carnivore range areas, removing snares and responding to other risks that threatens the lives and well-being of all carnivores, but especially the park’s lions and wild dogs.
The compounded impact of these interventions has resulted in great success. Over the past five years more than 5,500 snares were removed from Limpopo National Park. The collaboration between ANAC and Peace Parks has also resulted in more than 12 000 snares being removed from Zinave and Banhine National Parks over the past three years. Together with Limpopo National Park, Zinave and Banhine form the core Mozambican components of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area.
Of course, it’s not all about snares, and the boosted anti-poaching efforts have improved response to poaching on all levels – within the park, and as part of cross-border collaboration with Kruger National Park. Augmented by joint wildlife-crime strategies and integration of systems protocols between South Africa and Mozambique, the strengthened law enforcement approach in Limpopo National Park has directly contributed to an almost 70% decrease in poacher incursions from the park into Kruger over the past six months. Contributing to these successes is the use of a helicopter that Peace Parks, GEOS Foundation and DAG recently acquired for Limpopo National Park, to address a deficiency in aerial support to rangers on the ground, and compliment similar aerial response across the border in Kruger.
The impact of a more effectively secured park on wildlife populations is evident. A steady recovery of game numbers across Limpopo National Park is noticeable, which in turn are able to sustain higher predator numbers. The region’s wild dogs, known for the big range areas in which they roam, are not only returning to the park, but choosing to den within the IPZ.
Although this is news that warms our hearts, so our responsibility towards these awe-inspiring animals intensifies. And you can help – every contribution, no matter how big or small – takes us closer to sustainably keeping boots on the ground, and snares out of the bush.
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 competition is now in full swing and there is only a month left to go before entries close!
There are three galleries showcasing this week’s Weekly Selection. To see the other two galleries for this week’s selection click here:Weekly Selection Gallery 2 and Weekly Selection Gallery 3.
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 competition is now in full swing and there is only a month left to go before entries close!
There are three galleries showcasing this week’s Weekly Selection. To see the other two galleries for this week’s selection click here:Weekly Selection Gallery 1 and Weekly Selection Gallery 2.
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 competition is now in full swing and there is only a month left to go before entries close!
There are three galleries showcasing this week’s Weekly Selection. To see the other two galleries for this week’s selection click here:Weekly Selection Gallery 1 and Weekly Selection Gallery 3.
Ethiopia is a fascinating country. Rapidly recovering since 1991 from the ravages of Marxism, and only relatively recently discovered by cultural and wildlife tourists, it is one of three countries in the world that has never been colonised.
It is the second-most populous country in Africa, after Nigeria, with 105 million people, comprising 80 ethnic groups, speaking 80 languages and a further 200 dialects. Their alphabet has 270 letters. And while on numbers, Ethiopia boasts 900 bird species, of which 55 are endemics or near-endemics.
So here I was, in Ethiopia with Christian Boix from Africa Geographic, ready to embark on a 9-day photographic safari through the rugged lands of this extraordinary country in the Horn of Africa.
I knew I was in for something special when I was shown three ‘lifers’ – Tacazze sunbird, baglafecht weaver, Swainson’s sparrow – in the scrawny hedge between the terminal building and car park on arrival at Addis Ababa.
This was shortly followed an hour later by six more ‘lifers’: the African thrush, Rüppell’s robin-chat, brown-rumped seedeater, streaky seedeater, white-collared pigeon, and the red-cheeked cordon-bleu, all spotted in the vacant lot next to our hotel.
It was an early start the next morning as we set out north across the Sululta Plains. In my mind, I imagined I would see an arid, famine-ridden country, but instead, I was delighted to find us travelling through verdant fields, rolling hills, and found myself spellbound as I gazed upon the stunning Jemmu escarpment.
The colourfully dressed people, villages and the many markets we encountered throughout the trip are a travel and street photographer’s dream. Although still a dismally poor country, there was little squalor, and a pastoral life seemed to sustain the typically large families adequately.
En route to Fiche – picking up amongst others wattled ibis, moorland chat, Botta’s wheatear, thick-billed raven, blue-winged goose, and the Abyssinian longclaw – we sat next to a large troupe of geladas (sometimes called the bleeding-heart monkey or the gelada “baboon”), the only grass-eating primate and the male of which is nothing short of spectacular!
Birding at the Debre Libanos Monastery and the Portuguese Bridge was brilliant! We saw white-cheeked turaco, Egyptian vulture, white-billed starling, fan-tailed raven, Rüppell’s black chat, Hemprich’s hornbill, Bruce’s green pigeon, Abyssinian slaty flycatcher and banded and double-toothed barbets.
Birding at the monastery in this devout country held further interest for the camera: large numbers of colourful pilgrims, roadside markets, ubiquitous donkey water-carriers and other beasts of burden.
A charming feature throughout the trip was seeing and photographing Ethiopians going about their daily lives. We saw almost medieval methods of threshing teff, using oxen to trample, and separating wheat by hand.
The roads were always bustling with livestock herds, shepherds, brightly-dressed women, and smiling urchins appearing out of nowhere in numbers.
The next day, we ventured south and stayed at Lake Langano on our way to the Bale Mountains National Park. Birding was excellent, and the list grew rapidly with the Abyssinian ground-hornbill, bare-faced go-away-bird, Rüppell’s starling, blue-breasted bee-eater, African citril, white-winged tit, and black-billed wood-hoopoe amongst others. A highlight was getting within metres of a flock of 200+ great white pelicans.
And so it continued… Magnificent scenery, continuous photo stops, lots of hopeful children and many more lifers on the scenic Sanetti Plateau: Rouget’s rail, spot-breasted lapwing, chestnut-naped spurfowl, Thekla’s lark, Ethiopian siskin and red-billed chough.
On this 4,000-metre-high plateau, we were very fortunate to see the Ethiopian wolf, the globe’s most endangered canine, with a population of around 400. They feed exclusively on the abundant giant-mole and Blix’s grass rats.
The variety of fauna and flora at this altitude was incredible, and the giant lobelia, which flowers once and then dies, was photographed from every angle. Returning to Bale, the mammal list grew with Starke’s hare, Melenik’s reedbuck, mountain nyala, klipspringer, duiker, warthog and bushbuck – the last four all slightly different from their southern races.
A day excursion to the historic Sof Omar Caves and surrounds yielded, amongst others, Brown-tailed rock-chat, bristle-crowned starling, slate-coloured boubou, rosy-patched bushshrike, crimson-rumped waxbill and white-bellied go-away-bird, as well as hamadryas baboons and camels.
Before I knew it, we were heading back to Addis Ababa, with stops at the famous rock-hewn church of Adadi Mariam and the Tiya stelae field. Ethiopia is richly endowed with historical and cultural sites.
We also stopped at Lake Awasa for the fish market and ate freshly prepared sushi right next to hundreds of marabou storks. Close to our hotel, we added to the list a beautiful sunbird, a white-rumped babbler, a northern grosbeak-canary, and a blue-headed coucal.
The Ethiopian adventure ended with a stroll through the capital’s Merkato. The market is one of the largest in Africa and a noisy, impenetrable mass of teeming people, products, and exotic odours. Exhausting, claustrophobic yet exhilarating – something not to be missed as our senses were assaulted.
The food on the trip was great, especially the wat (spicy stew) with the staple injera, siga tibs (spicy strips of meat) and the tere sega (steak tartare, sort of). The hotel accommodation, like the roads, was, how should I say, variable. The locals were charming, humble and helpful. We did feel very safe throughout.
His enthusiasm only exceeded Christian’s knowledge of the world’s birds, photography and many other topics and sciences. Bebete was our skilled driver, considerate, courteous and professional.
In total, we chalked up 260 bird species in five days – 80 lifers for me, and that was out of season by necessity. But, most memorably, I discovered Ethiopia.
Lex van Vught is a retired businessman. He is a travel and wildlife enthusiast, avid birder, and bridge addict. He publishes an annual calendar based on his photography to raise funds for vulnerable children (see www.thecharitycalendar.org). His bucket list continues to grow….
“It’s all about China isn’t it?”, we at the EPI Secretariat are often asked. It’s true that global demand for ivory has predominantly come from China in recent years, and that some Chinese nationals have played a key role in the illegal trade. That’s why we were so encouraged by that country’s 2018 closure of its domestic ivory market. This month, we’ve been pleased to see the Chinese government take active steps to discourage its expatriate population in Africa from becoming involved in the illegal wildlife trade, including in key EPI countries Botswana and Kenya.
But Western countries should not preach. Let’s take the long view. For hundreds of years, European traders travelled to West Africa, their appetite for ivory matched only by that for slaves. In the late 17th Century, a Dutch ship trading with the Empire of Benin (in modern-day Nigeria) would typically return to Europe with a cargo of 7,000 kilos of ivory. By today’s calculations, that’s the amount of ivory found on about 700 elephants (although tusks were often much larger then).
In other words, in those days a single ship carried ivory from more elephants than today survive in all of Nigeria. This trade carried on for hundreds of years. And just as it was European demand for ivory that destroyed the great West African herds, it was European hunters who shot the elephant to the verge of extinction south of the Limpopo in the 19th century.
History lessons and recriminations will get us nowhere. Today the most important decisions for the future of elephants are being taken by African governments.
Through the EPI they have a platform to shape policy that meets their specific needs, and raise funds internationally. Eight of our member countries have now completed their National Elephant Action Plans (NEAPs), and others are working hard to do so. We hope countries in Europe and Asia will respond generously.
My life had been in a state of limbo since my adventure on a Botswana mobile tented safari with my new friends Philimon, BK and Joe. How does one top that experience in Botswana, when your definition of travel is the journey itself, and being as far away as possible from the iPhone and iPad-toting hordes of tourists, and the luxury lodges that all look the same and offer the same experience?
After doing my research, I was getting depressed because the kind of exclusivity I crave as a photographer is a must if you want to take those amazing shots that you will savour for the rest of your life. Getting those shots requires your own vehicle and guide, access to areas not teeming with other tourists, and spending hours with your subject matter.
And if you are serious about wildlife photography, a couple of days in Africa is not nearly good enough; you need a minimum of a week. Let’s face it, the likely cost of all of this exclusivity can be staggering…
And so, after weeks of fruitless searching, I reverted to the travel team at Africa Geographic, who had arranged my Botswana safari. A few hours later there was a reply in my mailbox:
‘Hi! We think that we have something right up your ally, something new! We have teamed up with a professional photographer in the Maasai Mara! He’s got his own camp right there, with easy access in and out of the Mara’.
Hmm, I have been to the Maasai Mara seven times before, and although it is a fantastic place, the crowds can be a bit off-putting for an experienced traveller seeking exclusivity. But okay, you have my attention. Tell me more.
‘He’s got this specially rebuilt 4×4 vehicle, and permits to go offroad – where most tourists cannot go. And the best thing is that they can close down the camp just for you – you will be the only guest’.
At this stage, I wondered if I would have to sell both kidneys and mortgage my home to afford what sounded like heaven. But no, the price was amazing, considering the level of exclusivity. I paid in a rush to stake my claim.
Soon after I found myself flying into Kenya and was winging my way from Nairobi to the Maasai Mara on a Safarilink flight, instead of my usual long and bumpy minibus option.
On touchdown in the Maasai Mara, I was greeted by guide and camp manager John Siololo (also known as Big John). I looked around in suspicion, nope – I was the only passenger going with him in his vehicle. And yes, the vehicle was modified for photography – with the back doors removed and an extended floor on both sides. Brilliant!
Before long, we encountered our first giraffes and wildebeests, and I breathed in deeply. I was home…
The following ten days would take me to a new level of photography, thanks to Big John’s deep understanding of animal behaviour, and the ability to get us in the right position time after time. I was falling in love with the Maasai Mara, again.
Our daily routine was pretty standard while on safari. We would leave camp at 05h45 and be well inside the Maasai Mara and enjoying our first sightings by 06h00, and the ‘golden hour’ of early morning light soon after. Then we would head back to camp around 11h00, lunch by 13h00, downtime and then back out at 16h00 until sunset at about 18h30. Then back to camp, download the images, dinner at 20h00, shower, etc. and hit the pillow by 22h00!
And speaking about the camp, I found that it was perfectly suited for all my needs: a huge tent all to myself, a flushing toilet, a shower with hot and cold water, and a solar energy battery charger.
How was it then, to be back in the Maasai Mara? Amazing, magnificent, relaxing, fun and all the other superlatives. You never know what’s going to happen next, or what is around the corner – a giant prehistoric-looking crocodile calmly basking in the sun, or perhaps a pride of lions feasting on a zebra carcass. Rather than attempt to explain all in writing, I hope that my photos tell the story.
My favourite moment? On one occasion we were cruising along when Big John suddenly hits the brakes, turns the wheel and we come to a halt. I look around expectantly. Nothing.
“Why are we here?” I ask.
“Wait, wait and get ready,” he responds.
Without another word I crawl onto the floor, lie prone and direct my camera into the green unknown and wait… and then suddenly movement… and there she is!
A leopardess known as ‘Fig’ appears through the dense vegetation carrying her kill, and she has a cub with her – I cannot believe my luck! Next thing they settle down right in front of us – just me and Big John. Nobody else in the entire world is having this moment. The cub is all over his mom as they play, and my camera is getting red hot as I fire off image after image – hundreds and hundreds of images.
Soon we are joined by other vehicles, but nobody else shares my front-row view. On my right is the BBC, with the famous Canon Ambassador Jonathan Scott! He looks at me, smiles and gives the thumbs up! I have the best seat in the house, and I am in heaven, on top of the world.
Then Fig is done playing with her cub, so she gets up and starts walking towards me with her cub in tow. I’m about 75cm off the ground, and this exquisite killing machine is walking directly towards me, those molten eyes looking straight through the lens and into my brain. Clackety-clack goes my camera. She is now so close that I could, if I had a death wish, reach out and scratch her behind the ears!
My camera is now useless, as she is beyond the focusing limit – just a blur. She walks under me and the vehicle and disappears from view. But the awesomeness of this moment of exclusivity is not over yet. Her cub has decided that he’s going to follow his mom! Repeat performance. Clackity-clackity-clack, then blur, and he’s gone. I’m no longer on top of the world; I’m on top of the universe.
Classic safari moment? On one morning, we were headed south to locate the Five Musketeers, a famous coalition of five cheetah brothers from two different mothers. It was an early start, so we stopped for breakfast under a tree. Suddenly a snake falls out of the tree and hits the ground just next to Big John, before slithering into the vehicle!
Big John radioed for help – the snake had disappeared, and we were not sure whether it was harmless, or dangerous – like a black mamba. Before long, three other vehicles packed with tourists of various nationalities pitched up to help. The advice came from all directions, even from some non-English speaking French people, and some of the advice was pretty exotic. But nobody wanted to search for the snake! After a while we extracted ourselves from the impromptu gathering of snake experts and drove away, me joining Big John at the front and leaving the rest of the vehicle to the snake. We never found the snake. But we did find the Five Musketeers. And plenty more, as my photos will show you.
My final observation is that the more time you spend out there on the plains, the ‘luckier’ you will be. The great location of Oltepesi Tented Safari Camp helps of course, as does having an expert guide and good equipment. But also, patience is the key ingredient to good wildlife photography. And passion.
I was born in New York, grew up in Sweden, and am currently living in the Balkans, using it as the base for my travels around the globe.
While growing up, I became fascinated by the glamour magazines of the 70s and 80s, which ignited my passion for photography, paired with great love and respect for wildlife. After spending time in the army, I returned to my passion for photography, moving to Kenya on a work assignment.
Today, I work as a professional photographer and business consultant with a speciality in strategy and tactics in eastern Europe, which I can pair with my photography business.
The highlight in my photographic career was when I was nominated by the editors of National Geographic for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards in 2017.
It has long been recognised that older female elephants are pivotal to elephant ecology and herd survival (McComb et al. 2011; Foley et al. 2008; Moss et al. 2011), but what of older males? Longevity in males is associated with size (the older the bull, the taller he is), dominance, prolonged musth periods and reproductive success (Hollister-Smith et al. 2007). Until recently, the social life of bulls has drawn less interest from researchers and tourists alike, being viewed as solitary when not having random associations with other bulls or joining female herds for mating opportunities.
The realisation of the importance of the social ecology of male elephants and the role of older males in their society came at a considerable cost when wildlife areas in South Africa, that had introduced young Kruger cull orphans without the social structure of older individuals, lost an incredible amount of rhino due to male adolescent elephant attacks. These young males were hitting puberty and immediately going into musth (a condition not generally experienced until a male elephant is in this mid to late twenties) as there were no older bulls to suppress it.
Coming into premature musth, they sought out reproduction opportunities, and when the young female elephants showed no interest they turned their attention to rhinos; these unusual interactions turned aggressive which often resulted in the death of the rhino. The introduction of older bulls into these areas soon put a stop to most of this ‘delinquent’ behaviour (Slotow et al. 2000; Slotow & van Dyk 2001).
This period of adolescence is one of enormous change for young males, hitting puberty at the average age of 14 years (Short, Mann & Hay 1967; Lee 1986) and becoming independent of their herd by their early twenties (Poole 1989). It is a time of transition for bulls from leaving their herd to joining bull society.
Not only are they leaving their natal herd, but they are also leaving their natal area (Moss 1988), and so the knowledge of where to go for food and water – which they will have learned during their time with their herd – will be of limited use to them as they explore new areas.
How best do you learn where resources are in these new areas? Perhaps the easiest way to learn is from those that have thrived there – the larger, and therefore older, bulls that show by their physical presence that they know where good resources are.
Image source: Dr Kate Evans, Elephants for Africa
Our studies on male elephants in the Okavango Delta and subsequently the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park in Botswana has shown that male elephants are selective of who they spend time with, choosing to be in groups with males of a similar age (Evans & Harris 2008) which, when you are trying to assert yourself in your new social network, would be the best place to be as these are the individuals with whom you want to establish the social hierarchy.
Not only do they choose which age groups to hang out with they are also selective of the individual they spend time with, forming bonds with particular individuals (Pitfield 2017). However, when we looked at who their nearest neighbours were when in all-male groups, we found that males of all ages prefer to be closest to those in the older age classification (>36 years of age) – those that are often referred to as past their reproductive prime and surplus to the biological needs of the population.
Our research in the Okavango Delta was focused in a bull area, with the majority of sightings being of males and a healthy population of older individuals. However, this changed over time with the western Delta becoming wetter from 2008 onwards, with more permanent water resources becoming available and an increase in females. We then started seeing less of the older males and wondered where they were going.
Males are often referred to as higher risk-takers and more exploratory, and thus it is no surprise that it is the males that are leading the way of the expansion of the Botswana elephants into historical rangelands.
At the same time, we noticed the large bulls were frequenting our study area in the western Delta less, and reports were coming to us about large aggregations of males in the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, south of the Delta.
In 2012 we moved to this area to retain our focus on bull elephant ecology in a bull area – to further our understanding of bull social ecology and the role of bull areas and to address the increasing issue of human-elephant competition in the area.
In 2009, the Boteti River started to flow again after a hiatus of some 18 years, this vital resource of water drew in elephants and other wildlife, alongside the human population. While an obvious valuable physical resource for elephants, it soon became apparent that it serves as an important social resource, with male elephants spending a lot of time here interacting with other males (not just drinking and bathing), with aggregations of 100 males not an uncommon sighting.
Here the majority of our sightings are of male elephants (98% of all sightings), and again we are seeing that the older bulls are playing an essential role in bull society. It may well be that these large numbers at the river allow them to select who to hang out with. Given the close proximity to community lands, and the predominance of older bulls raiding the crops (Stevens 2018), it may also be that younger bulls are learning the value of human habitation to their dietary requirements by spending time with these older males.
The management and conservation of elephants is always a hot topic of debate, from the effects of large offtake due to poaching and or management strategies, which individuals to hunt and who to translocate. Historically these decisions have been based purely on numbers with herd integrity being taken into account in later years.
As we learn more about the social requirements of male elephants, we must consider these in the management and conservation decisions we make; the importance of the older individual to ‘normal’ society and the importance of bonds in the stability of populations.
Referenes
• Evans, K. & Harris, S. (2008). Adolescence in male African elephants, Loxodonta africana, and the importance of sociality. 76, 779-787
• Foley, C., Pettorelli, N, & Foley, L. (2008) Severe drought and calf survival in elephants. Biology Letters 4(5) 541-544
• Hollister-Smith, J., Poole, J.H., Archie, E.A., Vance, E.A., Georgiadis, N.J., Moss, C.J. & Alberts, S.C. (2007). Age, musth and paternity success in wild male elephants, Loxodonta africana. Animal Behaviour, 74, 287-296
• Lee, P.C. (1986) Early social development among African elephant calves. National Geographic Research, 2, 388-401.
• McComb, K., Moss, C., Durant, S.M., Baker, L. & Sayialel, S. (2001) Matriarchs as repositories of social knowledge in African elephants. Science,292, 491-494.
• Moss, C. (1988) Elephant Memories. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, USA.
• Moss, C. J., Harvey C., & Lee, P.C. eds. (2011) The Amboseli elephants: a long-term perspective on a long-lived mammal. University of Chicago Press
• Pitfield, A.R. (2017) The social and environmental factors affecting the life of bull African elephants (Loxodonta africana) in a ‘bull area’ – a social network analysis. MSc Thesis. University of Bristol. pp87
• Poole, J.H. (1989) Announcing intent: the aggressive state of musth in African elephants. Animal Behaviour, 37, 140-152.
• Short, R.V., Mann, T. & Hay, M.F. (1967) Male reproductive organs of the African elephant. Journal of Reproductive Fertility, 13, 517-536.
• Slotow, R. & Van Dyk, G. (2001) Role of delinquent young “orphan” male elephants in high mortality of white rhinoceros in Pilanesberg National Park, South Africa. Koedoe,44, 85-94.
• Slotow, R., Balfour, D. & Howison, O. (2001) Killing of black and white rhinoceroses by African elephants in Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Park, South Africa. Pachyderm, 31, 14-20.
• Stevens, J. (2018) Understanding human-elephant interactions in and around Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, Botswana. PhD Thesis, University of Bristol. pp243
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 competition is now in full swing and there is only a month left to go before entries close!
There are four galleries showcasing this week’s Weekly Selection. To see the other three galleries for this week’s selection, click here:Weekly Selection Gallery 2, Weekly Selection Gallery 3 and Weekly Selection Gallery 4.
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 competition is now in full swing and there is only a month left to go before entries close!
There are four galleries showcasing this week’s Weekly Selection. To see the other three galleries for this week’s selection click here:Weekly Selection Gallery 1, Weekly Selection Gallery 2 and Weekly Selection Gallery 4.
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 is now in full swing and there is only a month left to go before entries close!
There are four galleries showcasing this week’s Weekly Selection. To see the other three galleries for this week’s selection click here:Weekly Selection Gallery 1, Weekly Selection Gallery 3 and Weekly Selection Gallery 4.
Our Photographer of the Year 2019 is now in full swing and there is only a month left to go before entries close!
There are four galleries showcasing this week’s Weekly Selection. To see the other three galleries for this week’s selection click here:Weekly Selection Gallery 1, Weekly Selection Gallery 2 and Weekly Selection Gallery 3.
Animal campaigners in South Africa were in court on Tuesday fighting to save the life of a collared bull elephant called Riff Raff who faces being shot for being considered a “nuisance”. Riff Raff’s habit of trampling fences to gain access to land that has been in his territory for more than half his life, led neighbours to his reserve to apply to have him killed, despite the fact that campaigners from Humane Society International/Africa and Global Supplies had already found him a new home approximately 450 km away.
However, when permission to relocate Riff Raff was turned down by the Limpopo government, the destruction order would likely have gone ahead, but at the last-minute Acting Deputy Judge President Mr Justice M.G. Phatudi intervened and granted Riff Raff a temporary stay of execution. The decision by the Limpopo Department of Economic Development, Environment and Tourism to reject the plan to relocate the elephant must now be reviewed by the court.
HSI/Africa and its partners have been trying to save Riff Raff for two years, including relocating him to a new reserve last year when neighbouring landowners threatened to apply for his destruction. Despite successfully transporting Riff Raff to the new reserve, he turned around and walked the 40-mile journey back to his original territory, and back in the line of fire.
Audrey Delsink, Wildlife Director of HSI/Africa, and an elephant behaviourist who has studied Riff Raff and elephants for more than 20 years, said: “Riff Raff is a magnificent bull elephant who symbolises the growing problem here in South Africa of lethal solutions being sought to solve human-elephant conflict. These are extremely tense times for all of us fighting to save Riff Raff, so we welcome Acting Deputy Judge President Mr Phatudi’s interdict and look forward to the review process.
“Many elephants who are labelled a ‘problem’ are simply bull elephants following what they are biologically hard-wired to do – leave their herd to find their own new range with unrelated females so that they can move up in the bull hierarchy and sire offspring. With crops and human settlements common in and around elephant protection areas, they often encounter fences, and then all too often land-owners seek to solve fence-breaking behaviour with a rifle. In Riff Raff’s case, a fence was erected in the middle of his home range during one of the region’s worst droughts, cutting him off from a water source and land that he had used unhindered for 13 years.
“We very much hope that the review process will assess the exceptional circumstances of Riff Raff’s case, address the ill-judged historical decisions that have led to this conflict, and set an important precedent by overturning Limpopo’s refusal to let us relocate Riff Raff again.”
An independent study facilitated through the Elephant Specialist Advisory Group revealed that up to 50 destruction permits were issued between 2016-2017 to kill so-called problem elephants. Conservationists in South Africa are concerned that destruction orders are being used by landowners as a quick fix to get rid of elephants rather than be inconvenienced by having to implement elephant-friendly management plans for their land.
HSI/Africa’s Delsink added: “If the decision is upheld and Riff Raff is killed through a destruction permit, it will be a tragedy not only for this amazing animal but for all so-called ‘problem’ elephants across South Africa who face a similar fate. While we have no guarantee that Riff Raff’s relocation to the new reserve would be successful, as caretakers of the natural world, all stakeholders have a moral obligation to find non-lethal solutions to these human-wildlife conflict challenges. We share this land with these magnificent giants, it should be utterly unthinkable to kill them simply because it’s easier than managing the land in a way that considers their biological drivers. The travesty is compounded by the fact that the body mandated to protect these animals is the same one issuing these destruction permits.”
HSI/Africa is extremely grateful to have been represented in court by Hogan Lovells.
Marrakech is beautifully chaotic with a rich history dating back over 1,000 years to the days when mighty sultans ruled over the walled city. Today it is home to an incredibly pulsating energy that invites you to wander aimlessly in search of stunning architecture, a cup of sweet mint tea and maybe a spicy Tagine.
The best way to experience it is to get lost in the claustrophobic labyrinth of streets that comprises the medina – the old historic part of town with high stone walls.
It was night by the time we arrived in the city. We grabbed our bags and shouldered our way through the Saturday evening crowds in search our riad (a type of traditional Moroccan house). Over the next two days we headed out to explore all that Marrakech had to offer. Some of the experiences that stuck out were:
Jemaa El Fnaa
There is no missing this famous square which represents the beating heart of the city. Littered with stalls trying to sell you everything from a fresh fruit juice to a mouthwatering traditional dish. By night the square really comes to life and it makes for brilliant people watching from above as the muezzins call the faithful to prayer.
Constructed in the 12th Century the Koutoubia Mosque with its imposing minaret is the most iconic feature in the city. In fact, it is said it can be seen from 30 km away. Local laws prevent any new building projects from exceeding the height of the minaret.
It is a striking piece of architecture and though only Muslims are permitted to enter it is a breathtaking place to sit and enjoy the warm sunshine on your back.
The mighty gate of Bab Agnaou is one of 19 gates that are found in the Medina. Constructed in the 12th Century by the Almohad Dynasty, this giant horse-shoe shaped archway points south towards sub-saharan Africa. Today the gate is falling into a somewhat poor state of disrepair because of the poor building materials used during its construction but it is definitely worth a peek.
Take a deep breath, then plunge into the exotic maze of streets and passages lined with souks. It’s an explosion of sound, colour and smell. From carpets to spices to antiques – it’s a complete sensory overload.
You will inevitably get lost but don’t panic, you will come out one side or the other, probably with a purchase or two wondering what made you buy them in the first place.
A graveyard of dynasties past that reigned over the golden age of Marrakech. It is an unashamedly opulent tribute to the rule of Sultan Ahmed el Mansour whose life was defined by war, murder and profit.
His rule shaped the city. It became a place forgotten after his death in 1603 only to be rediscovered in 1917 and gradually restored. Today it’s extremely popular with visitors hoping to catch of glimpse into history.
Moroccan leather is famous across the world and there is so much on offer for purchase in the souks. Yet the finished product is a far cry from how it is produced, a process that involves huge amount of pigeon droppings. The only way to find out is to visit one of the traditional tanneries.
Marrakech is a pulsating city. Its busy and chaotic, sometimes charming, sometimes a bit rough around the edges. It is a city like no other, and we thoroughly enjoyed our time spent exploring this vibrant medieval city.
Become an ‘Eco-warrior’ and help the Southern African Conservation Trust (SACT) to educate the less privileged children of Africa by making a small donation towards our Educational Conservation Comics.
The Southern African Conservation Trust has produced various educational comics for rural primary schools located adjacent to national parks or other wildlife protected areas in Southern Africa. The primary function of our conservation comics is to educate our young children on the value of their natural heritage in the area and the value of creating awareness around the species of animals and birds under threat.
The contents of the comics have been carefully researched to provide the children with a range of valuable resources, including:
• cultural value of the individual species of animal for future generations;
A donation of US$1.00 / R10.00 buys one comic book and includes printing and delivery expenses. As an ‘Eco-warrior’ you are helping us to educate the conservationists of tomorrow! All comics are delivered free of charge to the schools within Southern Africa by our business partners DHL EXPRESS.
We value and are grateful for whatever donation you can afford!
Please support our conservation and education program by donating here, and for more information on this project please contact mela@sactrust.org.
What matters to local communities in the Greater Kruger?
In preparing the 10-year management plan for the Kruger National Park last year, SANParks conducted 54 stakeholder engagement workshops, involving over 5,700 participants, with communities neighbouring the reserve and other stakeholders across the country. It is notable that the primary concern of the community members neighbouring Kruger Park was firstly jobs, followed by damage-causing animals.Human-wildlife conflict around the reserve is a concern and involves impacts from species such as elephants and hippos damaging crops and infrastructure, lions and other predators killing livestock, the transmission of diseases like foot-and-mouth disease by buffalo, and threats to human life associated with all of these species.
It is also notable that the stakeholder engagement workshops held in Johannesburg (21 people), Durban (24 people) and Cape Town (11 people) were poorly attended. In contrast, following the hunting of a lion in Umbabat, which is part of the Associated Private Nature Reserves (APNR) and is open to the Kruger Park, last year, there was a huge uproar akin to the controversy that followed the hunting of Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe several years ago. This led to a major meeting held in Johannesburg, attended by SANParks, provincial conservation officials and a significant number of members of the public.
Some questions this raises are: where were these predominantly privileged, middle class people when the management plan workshops were being held? Why is the hunting of a single animal so disproportionately more important than the conservation management of the entire reserve?
The evolving story of hunting and sustainable use in the Greater Kruger
Hunting has emerged as an increasingly contentious issue in the APNR, which is open to the Kruger National Park. This against the backdrop of some severe missteps in the wildlife industry, such as some unethical hunting practices and the recent financial bubble associated with the intensive breeding of rare and colour variant species. Such incidents have tarnished the reputation of South Africa’s wildlife industry and have exposed the extreme profit-driven motives of some.
Nevertheless, it is important that we make a clear distinction between responsible and sustainable hunting practices that are properly regulated and policed; and hunting practices that are irresponsible and unsustainable.
Responsible hunting should be considered in its proper perspective and many of the conservation gains made in recent decades in South Africa should not be jeopardised by its exclusion due to the malpractice of some. Sustainable utilisation is central to the philosophy of conservation in South Africa and southern Africa and is a primary driver of its success. It is the reason that 30% of the planet’s white rhino exist on private property in South Africa and it was central to hugely successful initiatives such as the CAMPFIRE programme in Zimbabwe and the massive gains that have been made in recent years in the conservation sector in Namibia through its Community-based Natural Resource Management Programmes.
All of these initiatives enable landowners and communities to gain economic and financial value from their wildlife through sustainable utilisation, which includes all forms of hunting. This contrasts with the recent hunting ban imposed by the Botswana government. In a study undertaken by Mbaiwa (2017) published in the South African Geographical Journal, it was found that following the hunting ban, there was a reduction of benefits to local communities such as “income, employment opportunities, social services, scholarships and income required to make provision of housing for the needy and elderly”. The study also found that the hunting ban “led to the development of negative attitudes by rural residents towards wildlife conservation and the increase of incidents of poaching in Northern Botswana”.
The newly elected Masisi government in Botswana is considering reversing this hunting ban and it is noteworthy that this is being considered in light of restoring accountable democracy and respect for human rights. The inability of rural communities in Botswana to benefit from wildlife and the daily risks they face to their survival and livelihoods from wildlife impacts have been acknowledged, together with an acknowledgement that the provision of rights to rural communities in this regard is to the benefit of wildlife conservation.
In an analysis of this by Madzwamuse and Rihoy (2019), they highlighted that “Addressing the conservation problems in Botswana must start by building understanding and common ground between stakeholders with varying perspectives. At the heart of this must lie recognition of the rights of rural people and from this, alignment can be reached between rural communities, governments and the global conservation community. Recognising these rights would ensure that the benefits and the risks of protecting wildlife are collectively shared, reversing the current situation, which places the burden on marginalised communities and provides benefits to a small elite”.
Recent incidents and the APNR Hunting Protocol
Following several hunting-related incidents in the APNR in 2018, questions have been put to SANParks about hunting in what is perceived as the Kruger National Park. This issue came to a head in a colloquium in parliament, earlier this year, in which SANParks was heavily criticised for hunting in the open system of the Greater Kruger Area and the legitimacy of the cooperative agreement for the Greater Kruger Area, that had been signed at the end of 2018, was questioned.
The incidents highlighted relate to the hunting of the lion in Umbabat and two incidents related to the hunting of elephant in Balule. In the first incident, an elephant bull was shot and was subsequently found to have a tracking collar on. In addition, the APNR Hunting Protocol was breached when it was found that the elephant had been shot in the Mpumalanga section of Balule when the permit had been issued by the Limpopo authorities, meaning that the elephant should have been shot in the Limpopo section of the reserve. Subsequent to this event, the Mpumalanga authorities prosecuted the reserve representative, he pled guilty, and was fined an amount of R100,000 of which R40,000 was paid to Elephants Alive – the research organisation that had collared the elephant, to compensate for the costs of having to replace the collar.
In the second incident, a group of hunters were charged by an elephant, in close proximity to a tourist lodge, and shot and killed the elephant. The incident, which occurred about 800 metres from the lodge was witnessed by visitors at the lodge and was particularly traumatic, as multiple shots were fired at the charging elephant. In this case, although the incident was unfortunate, the hunting party had complied with the APNR Hunting Protocol and were in possession of the correct permits. The incident arose because the hunters felt that the elephant had made a life-threatening charge and they were compelled to shoot it. Following this incident, it was agreed that the hunting protocol needed to be reviewed to avoid a repeat of such incidents in the future.
It must be noted that the reserve management and authorities responded to these incidents by either prosecuting offenders or updating protocols, which underpins efforts to ensure responsible hunting and continual improvement in hunting practices in the APNR.
The APNR as part of the Greater Kruger Area
It is important to put the APNR into context. Although open to the Kruger Park, it encompasses Balule, Thornybush, Timbavati, Umbabat and Klaserie Private Nature Reserves, which collectively make up an area of approximately 250,000 hectares. The APNR is thus equivalent in size to Addo Elephant National Park and Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park combined.
Claims that the animals being hunted in the APNR are Kruger Park animals are thus disingenuous. The size of the APNR means that it is perfectly capable of maintaining large viable populations of species typical to the Lowveld region, including the Big 5. The APNR adds considerably to the area of the open system of the Greater Kruger and contributes significantly to a large landscape-scale conservation initiative that can justifiably be considered among South Africa’s most significant conservation success stories.
In December 2018 a cooperative agreement, under the auspices of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park Treaty, was signed between all protected areas that make up the open system of the Greater Kruger Area, adding another 360,000 hectares to be consistently managed. The Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park encompasses protected areas in Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa and is one of the most important conservation initiatives in southern Africa.
The cooperative agreement is ground-breaking as it establishes a framework for cooperative management and collaboration between state, privately-owned and communally-owned protected areas. This massively exciting initiative will enable landscape-scale ecosystem management issues to be undertaken in an integrated fashion and it will enable the huge socio-economic value of the Greater Kruger Area to be unlocked.
Importantly, in terms of hunting, the existing APNR hunting protocol will form the basis for a Greater Kruger Area hunting protocol, which will ensure that any hunting that takes place outside of the Kruger Park but in the open system of the Greater Kruger Area, is based on scientifically-determined offtakes, that consider demographics and avoid a focus on large-gene animals (big tuskers for example).
The APNR protocol sets stringent ethical standards for hunting (including sanctions against transgressors) and requires transparency in the expenditure of funds and the flows of income from hunting in the APNR. This sets an industry benchmark for good practice that will have to be followed by all reserves that are open to the Kruger National Park in which hunting may be undertaken.
How can we deliver of the promises of the wildlife economy?
South Africa has set hugely ambitious targets for the development of a national biodiversity and wildlife economy. At a six-week Phakisa known as the Biodiversity Economy Lab, hosted by the Department of Environmental Affairs and the Department of Tourism, the following targets for 2030 emerged: the transfer of 10 million hectares of land to previously disadvantaged individuals, the creation of 60,000 jobs across the value chain, and the development of 4,000 SMMEs (small businesses), owned and operated by previously disadvantaged individuals.
Although the targets are perhaps optimistic, it is commendable that South Africa has acknowledged the role that the wildlife industry can play in the national economy. The wildlife economy has the potential to re-shape our thinking and approach to rural development and land reform in South Africa and it is important to understand how central the Greater Kruger Area already is and will be to this process in the future. Tourism, including hunting, in South Africa, is one of the few economic success stories over the last decade in the face of national and global recessions, and the most iconic tourism destinations in the country are Table Mountain and the Kruger National Park. Kruger Park’s new management plan and the cooperative agreement provide the basis to expand the protected area footprint and drive the wildlife economy in a strategic, integrated and responsible fashion. It must be understood that hunting is an important component of this framework.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN – the international umbrella organisation that represents almost all conservation authorities and NGOs worldwide) supports hunting, stating in its Guiding Principles of Trophy Hunting, “IUCN has long recognised that the wise and sustainable use of wildlife can be consistent with and contribute to conservation, because the social and economic benefits derived from use of species can provide incentives for people to conserve them and their habitats”.
Properly managed, responsible, ethical and sustainable hunting is supported by many conservation NGOs and conservation professionals in South Africa. Opposition to hunting in the APNR does not seem to be considering the broad conservation sector and the rural communities living in the Greater Kruger Area. Because many of the groups opposing hunting are well funded and have strong voices, particularly in social media, their opinions in this debate appear to be disproportionately represented.
This has real consequences for the communities that are affected each day by the impacts of wildlife and it has real consequences for South Africa’s wildlife economy programme and others related to community-based natural resource management. This must be viewed within the context of the major challenges that conservation in South Africa, and Africa generally, face. Most government conservation authorities are massively under-funded but the costs of conservation continue to escalate, particularly associated with priority issues such as rhino security.
The real threats to conservation: habitat loss and fragmentation
Conservation needs to effectively harness every resource that it can to be viable, whether this is ecotourism, hunting, the live sale of wildlife or the production of game meat. We need to understand that hunting is not a threat to conservation, it is one of the solutions, as it provides much needed revenue and the ability to compensate those whose lives and livelihoods are at threat from the presence of large and dangerous wildlife.
The real threats are habitat destruction and fragmentation, ecological degradation from inappropriate land-use practices, invasive alien plant species, climate change and a myriad of other issues. An integrated approach to conservation that incorporates hunting is required to tackle these challenges and secure South Africa’s biodiversity, its species and the ecosystem functions and processes that underpin all life on earth, including our own.
The potential that the hunting controversy around the APNR has to derail the further development of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park and the implementation of its associated cooperative agreement is significant.We cannot afford the fracturing and fragmentation of the open system of the Greater Kruger Area that may result from this. It will set conservation in South Africa back 30 years and may irreparably damage the biodiversity and wildlife economy. Sustainable utilisation is enshrined in South Africa’s Constitution and Protected Areas Act and is central to our conservation philosophy. It is a vital component of our wildlife industry and must be defended if we are to properly unlock its benefits.
In preparation for the 18th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties taking place in May in Sri Lanka (CoP18), an analysis by IUCN and TRAFFIC for each of the proposed amendments to the CITES Appendices has been made available.
The CITES CoP meetings occur roughly every three years and changes to trade rules, through amendments to the Convention’s Appendices, can have profound conservation implications for affected species.
The listing of a species in Appendix I includes species threatened with extinction that are or may be affected by trade, and effectively prevents all commercial international trade.
Species listed in Appendix II are not necessarily threatened with extinction but may become so unless trade in specimens of such species is subject to strict regulation in order to avoid utilisation incompatible with their survival. They can be traded under special permit conditions.
Appendix III is for species which any Party identifies as being subject to regulation within its jurisdiction for the purpose of preventing or restricting exploitation, and as needing the co-operation of other Parties in the control of trade.
Below is the list of proposals that affect species occurring in Africa and along the continent’s coastal waters.
MAMMALS
Wild populations of giraffe have declined by up to 40% in the last 30 years due to habitat loss and poaching
Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis)
• Countries: Central African Republic, Chad, Kenya, Mali, Niger, and Senegal
• Recommended proposal in CITES appendices: Include in Appendix II
The proposal seeks to place all seven species and subspecies of giraffes (currently unprotected) under the protection of Appendix II. Wild populations of giraffes have declined by up to 40% in the last 30 years due to habitat loss, poaching, and use in trade. While exploitation for trade may not be the primary cause of decline in wild giraffe populations, it nevertheless has an additive effect when combined with the main causes of habitat loss, civil unrest, and poaching for bushmeat.
Listing giraffes under Appendix II will not prohibit trade in the species, but it will require exporting countries to prove that giraffe specimens were legally obtained and that the export is not detrimental to the survival of the species. Additionally, the listing would provide researchers and governments with important data to track the trade in giraffes throughout the world.
If left unprotected and no regulations on trade remains, then the giraffe population will continue to plummet due to over utilisation of their use in the wildlife trade.
Namibia has proposed to transfer its population of white rhino from Appendix I to II, and Eswatini has proposed a measure that would allow international trade in rhino horns for commercial purposes.
Southern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum)
• Country: Eswatini (Swaziland)
• Recommended proposal in CITES appendices: Remove the existing annotation for the population of Eswatini
Eswatini has proposed the removal of the existing annotation on the Appendix II listing of its white rhino population, which would allow international trade in rhinos and their products – including horn and derivatives.
The proposal seeks to allow Eswatini to sell rhino horn from existing stock to licensed retailers in the Far East, plus up to 20 kg per annum, including harvested horn, to those retailers. There is no trophy hunting of white rhino in Eswatini as the rhinos live in Big Game Parks reserves where sport and trophy hunting is not permitted. In addition, Eswatini does not not believe in burning or otherwise destroying valuable resources including rhino horn.
Proceeds from the sale of horn will be utilised by Eswatini’s rhino parks in order to protect the country’s rhino populations against criminal poaching syndicates, as well as provide remuneration of park employees, fund much-needed additional infrastructure and equipment, and provide for sustainable long-term developments. (For further information read here)
Southern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum)
• Country: Namibia
• Recommended proposal in CITES appendices: Transfer the population of Namibia from Appendix I to Appendix II
Namibia has proposed to change the CITES status of their white rhino population from Appendix I to Appendix II , which would allow international trade in live animals and in trophy hunting trophies.
The proposal notes the following rationale behind the request to change to Appendix II:
1) Namibia has an increasing population of white rhinos. The population is secure, with a steady growth rate of 6.7% per annum noted between 2002-2018 (including imports from South Africa). There has been no impact to the growth rate with the current low levels of exports of hunting trophies and live animals. As such, the population does not meet the criteria for inclusion in Appendix I.
2) The transfer will, according to the proposal, not threaten the survival of the species as there are already the necessary control and enforcement measures in place, which have shown to be relatively successful in curbing illegal killing and illegal trade. Trade in live animals will only take place to appropriate and acceptable destinations, therefore allowing Namibia to verify the destination. With the transfer to Appendix II, Namibia will be able to export live animals and hunting trophies to more countries and will increase revenue through sustainable use, and therefore generate much-needed funding for rhino conservation and protection.
With the rhinos currently under Appendix I, Namibia’s ability to generate revenues for conservation has been severely limited. Transferring the population to Appendix II will create access to a far larger market for the animals. (For further information read here)
The elephant has come under the spotlight by a number of African countries in the latest CITES proposals
African elephant (Loxodonta africana)
• Country: Zambia
• Recommended proposal in CITES appendices: Transfer the population of Zambia from Appendix I to Appendix II
Zambia has proposed to transfer the population of African elephants from Appendix I to Appendix II so that it will be allowed to trade in registered, government-owned raw ivory (tusks and pieces) for commercial purposes only to CITES approved trading partners who will not re-export; trade in hunting trophies for non-commercial purposes; and trade in hides and leather goods.
According to TRAFFIC’s assessment, the elephant population in Zambia is not small, does not have a restricted distribution, and appears to have been relatively stable in the last decade. Therefore the population appears not to meet the biological criteria for inclusion in Appendix I. However, they do say that there is a lack of clarity over the intention of the proposal with regard to trade in ivory. Little detail is given on proposed management to ensure that Article IV requirements would be met or of any appropriate enforcement controls in place.
This would be the third time that Zambia has submitted this proposal, after being rejected at CoP12 in 2002 and at CoP15 in 2010.
African elephant (Loxodonta africana)
• Countries: Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe
• Recommended proposal in CITES appendices: Amend annotation 2 for the populations of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe
Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe, whose populations of elephants are already on Appendix II, want to weaken existing restrictions on their ability, and that of South Africa whose elephant population is also on Appendix II, to export registered raw ivory to consumer countries.
This raw ivory will be obtained from government-owned stocks excluding seized ivory and ivory of unknown origin.
The proposal to amend annotation 2 also includes allowing the trade in elephant hides, hair and trade in leather goods for commercial or non-commercial purposes for Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, and for non-commercial purposes for Zimbabwe.
If accepted, the proposal’s main effect would be to allow exports of registered raw ivory, but without the oversight by the Standing Committee and the Conference of the Parties. Parties would need to be satisfied that Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe are implementing the requirements of the Convention, particularly Article IV, and that the appropriate enforcement controls and compliance with the requirements of the Convention are in place.
CITES has rejected past proposals by Zimbabwe and Namibia to allow ivory trade with looser controls.
African elephant (Loxodonta africana)
• Countries: Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Kenya, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, and Togo
• Recommended proposal in CITES appendices: Transfer the populations of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe from Appendix II to Appendix I
In what could be considered in opposition to the two proposals submitted by Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe in regards to relaxing restrictions on the international trade in raw ivory, this proposal looks for tighter controls in order to offer maximum protection under CITES.
However, TRAFFIC has pointed out that the elephant population of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe is not small, nor does it have a restricted range and it is not undergoing a marked decline. Therefore, the elephant population does not meet the biological criteria for inclusion in Appendix I.
If the proposal is accepted, then this would make any future ‘one-off’ ivory sales by the Southern Africa nations extremely difficult.
• Countries: Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, and Senegal
• Recommended proposal in CITES appendices: Transfer from Appendix II to Appendix I
Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal are proposing to transfer the black-crowned crane from Appendix II to I, to prohibit international trade in the species. The black-crowned crane has been on Appendix II since 1985, but severe declines in certain populations due to live trappings for local domestication and international trade has raised the concerns for future populations.
There is an estimated population of 43,000–70,000 individuals. In 2010, the population was estimated to have declined by 30–49% over three generations (45 years).
Black-crowned cranes are legally protected in Africa but some countries lack resources to control illegal hunters.
• Recommended proposal in CITES appendices: Include in Appendix II
Grandidier’s Madagascar ground gecko is one of 21 species of Malagasy ground geckos in the genus Paroedura, and is endemic to southern Madagascar. This species is listed as ‘Vulnerable’ and deforestation has caused fragmentation of its habitat. It is widely sought after in the international pet trade, with Madagascar reporting exports of more than 6,000 individuals (wild) between 2013 and 2017. The gecko is protected as a category III species under Madagascar Law 2006-400, which allows for hunting and capture with a license during the hunting season and subsequent export.
The proposal seeks to list the gecko under Appendix II in order to have more control over its trade.
There is no quantitative information on its population size, so it is not possible to determine how the international trade is affecting the current population. TRAFFIC states that with the lack of information available, it cannot say if the species meets the requirements of Appendix II criteria.
• Recommended proposal in CITES appendices: Transfer from Appendix II to Appendix I
Found in the rocky outcrops in Kenya, Tanzania and northern Zambia, the pancake tortoise comes in high demand in the international pet trade – the largest markets being Asia and the USA. The population size in 2001/2002 was estimated at between 4,000–32,000. According to TRAFFIC, recent assessment accepted for publication in the March 2019 Red List update categorises the species as ‘Critically Endangered’ due to observed, estimated and projected population reductions of about 80% over three generations (45 years in total) that will be reached in the next 15 years.
The decline in population is mainly due to the overexploitation in the international pet trade, but also habitation degradation and loss from farming.
• Recommended proposal in CITES appendices: Include in Appendix II
Both species of Mako sharks (Isurus oxyrinchus and I. paucus) are widely distributed, occurring in tropical ocean waters. Their primary threat is directed and incidental catch in multi-specific fisheries. Their meat and fins are highly valued on both national and international markets. It is hard to identify between the species in the form in which they are traded (ie, meat), so while it is believed that the majority of meat comes from the Isurus oxyrinchus, both species are listed under the CITES proposal.
Research suggests that there is a concern for the decrease in population, based off historical and recent population data. By including the sharks under Appendix II, their regulation of trade will ensure that the harvest of specimens from the wild is not reducing the wild population to a level at which its survival might be threatened by continued harvesting.
• Countries: Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, European Union, Gabon, Gambia, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Monaco, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Palau, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Syrian Arab Republic, Togo, and Ukraine
• Recommended proposal in CITES appendices: Include in Appendix II
The guitarfish species are shark-like batoid species occurring in the coastal waters of the Mediterranean and Black Sea, Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Global population sizes are unknown, but all six species in the family have recently been assessed by IUCN as ‘Critically Endangered’ (to be published July 2019) with estimated declines of greater than 80% over the last three generations having occurred mainly due to over-harvesting.
Their primary threat is unmanaged and unregulated fishing practices. Their meat is mainly utilised locally, however fins from the species have been observed in international trade.
Placing the species under Appendix II will mean a regulation of trade that will ensure that harvest from the wild is not reducing population levels to a point where the species is under threat from continued harvesting.
• Countries: Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, European Union, Fiji, Gabon, Gambia, India, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Maldives, Mali, Mexico, Monaco, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Palau, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Togo, and Ukraine
• Recommended proposal in CITES appendices: Include in Appendix II
The wedgefish species inhabit shallow, inshore continental waters of the east Atlantic, Indian and western Pacific Oceans, often occurring in muddy enclosed bays, in estuaries and on coral reefs. Like the guitarfish species, the wedgefish species are facing similar threats to their population in the form of unsustainable and unregulated fishing throughout their range. Their meat is mainly utilised locally, however fins from the species have been observed in international trade.
Their population size is unknown, but eight out of the ten species were recently assessed by the IUCN as ‘Critically Endangered’ (declines of greater than 80% over the last three generations), with one additional species assessed as ‘Critically Endangered’ (Possibly Extinct) and one as ‘Near Threatened’ (with declines of 20–30% over the last three generations).
Placing the species under Appendix II will mean a regulation of trade that will ensure that harvest from the wild is not reducing population levels to a point where the species is under threat from continued harvesting.
• Countries: European Union, Kenya, Senegal, Seychelles, and United States of America
• Recommended proposal in CITES appendices: Include in Appendix II
In general, sea cucumbers (of which there are 1,743 species) are targeted by fisheries for international trade, mainly to the Asian markets. Their traded form is known as beche-de-mer, a delicacy prepared from the dried body wall thought to have supposed medicinal properties. The three species listed in the proposal are the Holothuria fuscogilva, H. nobilis and H. whitmaei – commonly referred to as teatfish due to their lateral protrusions. The presence of teats differentiate this group from other sea cucumbers, even in dried form.
Sea cucumber fisheries are not regulated in several countries, although some have employed various measures. Population declines in these three species have been observed from studies in limited areas of their ranges, however fishing pressure is likely over much of their range. According to TRAFFIC, the IUCN Red List assessments have estimated the overall declines as: H. fuscogilva 30–50% since the 1960s, H. nobilis 60–70% in at least 80% of its range, and H. whitmaei 60–90% in the majority of its range.
Regulation of trade is required to ensure that harvest from the wild is not reducing population to a level where survival might be threatened by continued harvest or other influences, hence the proposal to place the species in Appendix II.
• Recommended proposal in CITES appendices: Include in Appendix II
Malawi has proposed that its national tree, the Mulanje cedar, be listed under Appendix II. The species faces numerous threats, the most serious of which are changing fire regimes, fuelwood collection, illegal logging, invasive tree species and conifer aphids. The IUCN has classified it as ‘Critically Endangered’ on the basis that these threats will cause a decline of more than 80% by 2030.
According to TRAFFIC, this species is considered commercially extinct and there are no mature trees remaining in their natural habitat – the last of them felled by 2018. Seedlings have been planted, but will not mature for many years, which means that trade will not be likely in the near future and therefore listing it under Appendix II will unlikely have any significant conservation impact.
• Recommended proposal in CITES appendices: Amend annotation #5 for Pericopsis elata
Afromosia is a highly valued timber native to Central and West Africa. It is currently listed under Appendix II with the annotation #5 which restricts the listing to “logs, sawn wood and veneer sheets”. However, loop holes have been discovered where traders from range States have been exporting sawn wood with minor, superficial transformations in order to circumvent CITES controls.
The proposal now wants the annotation to be changed so that it includes transformed wood (and plywood), as follows:
“Logs, sawn wood, veneer sheets, plywood, and transformed wood.”
According to TRAFFIC, the intention to include transformed wood (and plywood) to close the observed loophole seems an appropriate amendment and has been supported by the Standing Committee Working Group on Annotations.
• Recommended proposal in CITES appendices: Include in Appendix II
The African padauk is a native African species that is currently listed as ‘Least Concern’ under the IUCN. Its timber is used in the international trade and it has been evidence of an increase in export of timber from some range States. The species population is thought to be declining, though the species is widespread and locally common.
Placing the species under Appendix II would help in the trade and harvest regulations. The current level of harvest for timber is likely to be unsustainable and TRAFFIC believes that this almost certainly exceeds the rate at which harvestable-sized trees are being replenished in the population.
• Recommended proposal in CITES appendices: Amend annotation #4 for Aloe ferox
The bitter aloe is a medicinal plant native to South Africa and Lesotho. It has been listed under Appendix II since 1975. The proposal seeks to amend part f) of annotation #4, so that it includes Aloe ferox as part of the finished product. The current annotation says the following:
All parts and derivatives, except:
a) seeds (including seedpods of Orchidaceae), spores and pollen (including pollinia). The exemption does not apply to seeds from Cactaceae species exported from Mexico, and to seeds from Beccariophoenix madagascariensis and Dypsis decaryi exported from Madagascar;
b) seedling or tissue cultures obtained in vitro, in solid or liquid media, transported in sterile containers;
c) cut flowers of artificially propagated plants;
d) fruits, and parts and derivatives thereof, of naturalized or artificially propagated plants of the genus Vanilla (Orchidaceae) and of the family Cactaceae;
e) stems, flowers, and parts and derivatives thereof, of naturalized or artificially propagated plants of the genera Opuntia subgenus Opuntia and Selenicereus (Cactaceae); and
f) finished products of Euphorbia antisyphilitica packaged and ready for retail trade.
The proposed amendment would say the following:
f) finished products of Aloe ferox and Euphorbia antisyphilitica packaged and ready for retail trade.
This term, as used in the CITES Appendices, refers to product, shipped singly or in bulk, requiring no further processing, packaged, labelled for final use or the retail trade in a state fit for being sold to or used by the general public.
According to TRAFFIC, “South Africa exports large quantities of wild sourced Aloe ferox extract and derivatives, the latter having increased proportionately in recent years apparently due to increased processing of finished products in South Africa. South Africa has said that most of the derivatives they have reported are finished products packaged and ready for retail trade and propose that they be excluded from CITES controls by the proposed amendment to the annotation.”
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Travel in Africa is about knowing when and where to go, and with whom. A few weeks too early/late or a few kilometres off course, and you could miss the greatest show on Earth. And wouldn’t that be a pity?
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I was born in New York, grew up in Sweden, and am currently living in the Balkans, using it as the base for my travels around the globe.
