HYENA RELEASE UPDATE – KARIBA ANIMAL WELFARE FUND TRUST 3/3/17
MR BONES RELEASED 1 MARCH 2017
REMEMBER: When Driving or walking, Animals always have the right of way !!!!

On 7/2/17 we put out an ALERT update regarding a snared Lion and a wounded Hyena.
On 11/2/17 we put out an update on both of the above, up to day 3 of Mr. Bones confinement whilst he received vital care.

HYENA –  MR BONES – 3 WEEKS of confinement, care and fattening up !!
See the KAWFT face book for video updates – the last few days videos still to be posted.

DAY 5 - 12/2/17
Skinny bean. Ate a kg of liver during the night ON HIS OWN, drank a litre of milk and water and was sitting FOR THE FIRST TIME on his haunches in the morning and early evening when it is normal wake up time – STANDING and moving on wobbly legs, drinking plenty of water/mild mix and carefully eating his way through his chopped up meat. Battles to chew if the pieces of meat are not cut into slithers due to the weeks of the large wire cable in and across the back of his jaws. So, a delicate eater at the moment but the daily improvements to his health and strength are momentous.

   
DAY 7 & 8 - 14&15 /2/17
Smelly shredded fun foam out and grass in. Not so much fun but cleaner and comfy. Improvement continues. Copious amounts of water drinking all the time, good re-hydration and eating well.
DAY 8 - 15/2/17
Improving in leaps and bounds but has a long way to go before fit for release.  Does not want to wake up. Cool afternoon and nice and soooooo comfy.    
 DAY 10 - 17/2/17
Back, pelvis wound where all the maggots were !!! healing very well despite the way it looks. 
DAY 17- 24/2/17
Fat belly and amassing weight. Large chunks of meat now, that he rips apart himself
DAY - 18 & 19
Photos taken of main wounds and sent to Dr’s Keith Dutlow and Lisa Maribini Aware Trust – to ascertain if all well enough to take this boy back home !!

DAY 22  1/3/17– HOMEWARD BOUND !! patient discharge day.
Cage with Mr Bones loaded onto the trailer.  Parks Rangers No.2’s -  Nicholas Chinembiri and Edward on site.
Cage covered with old sheets to avoid too much stress for him whilst travelling out of the Kariba area. Mr Bones – as Hyenas do – shreds the sheets in no time and then manages to get under the steel sheet on the floor of the cage. Convoy comes to a halt whilst everyone assists to lift the steel sheet up and secure it up with wire, keeping fingers outside of the cage !!! Cage lifted off ..... every ones fingers still intact !   The door to freedom opens and he just sits !! Another vehicle arrives and whilst we are trying to halt the vehicle so it does not drive into Mr Bones when he walks out the cage ...............................He makes a high-speed dash for it and this is the only photo we luckily managed t o get  !! A FLASH IN THE DARK and he is gone. First run he has had in 3 weeks.. !!

Please keep a look out for Mr Bones, his scars will be a sure ID of him and we would appreciate any feedback and photos if possible. (see contact details bottom of email)   Next year we may even see his progeny – little bones. 

When we all work together we can make things happen. Every voice raised in support of wildlife makes a difference…..

Thank you to :
- Parks Area Manager and Rangers,
- Aware Trust Vets
- Kariba Residents – reporting and help
- KAWFT team

and all those that assisted with the rehabilitation of this boy.

DONATIONS & assistance very kindly received and much appreciated - THANK YOU

Amazing response to our plea for assistance – from within Kariba, Zimbabwe and afar. We will be putting in place, first a critical rehabilitation unit – where the likes of Mr Bones would “get well” and then another for the likes of the snared young Lion for a few days recuperation to make sure all is well before heading back into the wild. This is only due to the amazing support received and that we are still receiving.

For any donations, help offer, more info, or information on injured animals or incidents with Wildlife please contact: [email protected] or DONATE

Courtesy - L J Campbell / By Don Pinnock.

Synecdoce is an interesting but seldom used word of Greek origin which means a part of some object or action which represents the whole. An example is the application by the Timbavati reserve to hunt a super tusker and its approval by Kruger National Park. There are only about 25 to 30 such elephants left in the world. That single request, in a long list of other animals to be hunted, embodies a much bigger story.
By DON PINNOCK.

The private reserves of the Lowveld alongside Kruger Park are redolent of ancient Africa: spectacular unfenced vistas of bushveld and wild animals with minimal human interference. In the early 1990s the Kruger National Park and the Associated Private Nature Reserves (APNR) – which consists of Timbavati, Klaserie, Balule and Umbabat – began the process of dismantling the fences between each other, allowing animals to retrace their ancient east/west migration routes.

Within these reserves are many privately owned luxury lodges which cater for tourists who pay high rates to experience some of the most exciting wild animal sightings in the world. What’s not well known, especially by guests attracted by beautiful marketing websites, is that a reserve like Timbavati is, in terms of its income, primarily a hunting destination, this accounting for 61% of the reserve’s income against tourism’s 17%.

There are reasons. Many of the APNR blocks that were not bought as peaceful bushveld refuges were originally prime hunting areas. As lodge development became increasingly profitable, association between owners and with Kruger Park became a rational move. But to support reserve integration and the widening of tourist experience, SanParks allowed them hunting rights, even though some of the animals would undoubtedly be from the national park.

So hunting is perfectly legal: the reserve applies to Mpumalanga or Limpopo’s conservation agencies and, after Kruger Park oversight, its allocation generally gets approved with just a few amendments.

Of course, tourism and hunting are not good bedfellows, so over the years the reserves have managed to keep them apart, with almost zero public visual crossover. Tourists, who pay top prices to stay at Timbavati’s lodges plus a R215 a person a day conservation fee (which nets many millions of rand), would not know that many of the animals they come to see and photograph fall to hunters’ guns when they are out of sight.

For those unaware of this arrangement, the latest hunting quota application by Timbavati, Klaserie, Balule and Umbabat might come as a shock. It includes 193 buffalo (including 76 classic bulls), 34 elephants (including a super tusker), two white rhinos, two lions, two leopards (despite a national moratorium on hunting leopards), 29 kudu, 5,162 impala, 25 waterbuck, 10 hippos and a hyena, a giraffe, a zebra and a wildebeest. It also requests the capture of 30 white rhino and eight hippos. As in the past, many of the carcasses will probably go to Tibavati’s abattoir, which presently sells impala and buffalo meat.

Photo: Timbavati reserve alongside the Kruger Park has applied to hunt an iconic elephant despite their rarity. Hunting iconic animals in the private reserves alongside Kruger Park may have repercussions in the tourist industry.

Game counts for the APNR show that, apart from blue wildebeest, zebra and giraffe, all other animal numbers went down between 2016 and 2017 – elephants by 142 and buffalo by 1,797. Apart from deferring the rhino quota and a warning that there is a moratorium on leopard hunting, Kruger signed off on the quota, but appears to have become uneasy with APNR’s non-compliance with hunting protocols.

In correspondence with the APNR in January and again in March, Kruger conservation management complained that the APNR hunting protocol had not been signed and warned that no further requests would be considered until this is done. Its officials sounded irritated:

“The fact that hunting and live-animal off-take is the major income for APNR should have ensured the highest due diligence to get any protocols concluded and formally signed within and between entity structure, but this is still not the case. This simply demonstrates ineffective governance and decision-making between entities within the APNR system.

“KNP… will not support future off-takes unless the necessary co-operative agreements and the associated hunting/animal off-take protocols have been formalised.”

If quotas are an indication, Timbavati – which is congruent with Kruger – is the prime hunting area. And while shooting animals to raise money is accepted by APNR owners in general – they have high anti-poaching overheads – its scale now sits uncomfortably with a number of them who see hunting an iconic trophy bull elephant and rhino as a bridge too far. This may explain why some of them have not signed the hunting protocol called for by Kruger.

Information about why Timbavati wished to hunt an iconic tusker – over 50 years old with tusks in excess of 100 pounds – proved elusive. Lodge owners within the reserve said they didn’t want to be named or quoted because it would make their association difficult. One of the country’s top elephant specialists said he “is well known for his objection to hunting trophy bulls” but couldn’t be named because he still does work for Timbavati.

Timbavati Warden Bryan Havemann said approval to hunt the bull had not yet been obtained from the provincial authorities. He said “the ability to find such a bull that will fit all the criteria could take many years and even though it may be put on the quota, the chance of finding such an elephant remains remote”.

Dr Michelle Henley, a long-term elephant researcher in the APNR, said that between 2004 and 2014, 40 different large tuskers (80 pounds or more tusk weight) had been seen to enter and leave the APNR, though many of them had only been sighted once and never again. That’s an average of four trophy tuskers a year.

APNR chairman, James Campbell, said hunting quotas were up to individual reserves within the association, but that hunting took place “within the context of an environment of high quality ecotourism and sustainable coexistence”. He noted that “the overwhelming numbers of the proposed off-take are for impala [5,162] with the majority of the meat going to the employees of the reserves as an important source of protein with no financial gain to the landowners”. A number of lodge owners, however, said they served impala (among other wild animals) to guests.

The issue, according to some conservationists, is not so much about hunting Kruger animals that may wander across the fenceless boundary – or hunting at all – but going for a super tusker. Elephant numbers in Africa are crashing, with around 30,000 poached a year. It’s only a matter of time before the tsunami hits Kruger Park. It may, indeed, have begun; since September 2015, more than 80 have been poached in the park – the highest in its history.

According to a source who asked not to be named, by targeting a trophy bull Timbavati is pushing towards an ethically flawed hunting economy. This is causing uneasiness between it and other reserves within the APNR:

“Timbavati is risking the co-operative strength of the APNR. Neighbouring reserves don’t follow the same line of thinking; they’re more tourist oriented. If they push this, they’ll be undoing a valuable history and risk alienating tourists. This could rebound on the many people in the APNR who rely on camera safaris and tourist goodwill. Landowners need to become more proactive about decisions like this,” the source said.

According to Dr Lucy Bates, an elephant researcher at Sussex University in the UK, poaching numbers in Kruger may be relatively low now, but a serious threat is imminent.

“South Africa cannot act in isolation, claiming that its elephant populations are not at risk,” she said. “They are at risk. Kruger is one of the last bastions of large-tusked bull elephants in the whole of Africa. South Africa should be duty-bound to protect and preserve these super tuskers and their genes for the benefit of the entire continent.

“Arguments that trophy hunting removes old males that are ‘past their prime’ and ‘no longer breeding’ are entirely false and deceptive in the case of elephant hunting. We know from long-term studies and genetic paternity tests that male elephants show a different pattern of reproductive output to most mammals. Large, older bulls are the most reproductively active. Bulls aged between 40 and 54 years are the most likely to sire calves.

“In my opinion, the very argument on which elephant trophy hunting is based is scientifically proven to be false. Carefully collected long-term scientific data clearly shows it cannot be justified. Hunting ‘trophy’ bull elephants absolutely does interfere with natural mating strategies and absolutely willreduce the biological fitness of the remaining population.”

According to Dr Vicki Fishlock, a scientist at Amboseli Trust for Elephants, a research and conservation organisation in Kenya, “Old and experienced individuals are crucial. They’re so much more than ‘a breeder’. By the time these animals reach this size, they’ve been part of social networks for five or six decades and have accumulated social and ecological experience that younger animals learn from.”

A comment by Lucy Bates underlines the problem these lodges could face if hunting of Kruger’s iconic animals becomes widely known:

“I first visited Timbavati on a family holiday that I arranged some 15 years ago. I had no idea then they hunted in the APNR, and if I had, I certainly wouldn’t have spent my or my parents’ money on staying in a lodge there.

“Since I learned they hunt, I’ve not paid to go back to Timbavati. I am sure I'm not the only tourist who would feel like this. Is hunting really that much more profitable than photo tourism that they continually risk alienating photo tourists? Or do they rely on the ignorance of these tourists? Both would be unwise.” DM

Main photo: There are only about 25 to 30 super tuskers in the world and all in Africa. (Don Pinnock)

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Cave Squeaker Frog found, previously thought extinct

The Artholeptis troglodytes, also known as the “cave squeaker” because of its preferred habitat, was discovered in 1962 but there were no reported sightings of the elusive amphibian after that. An international red list of threatened species tagged them as critically endangered and possibly extinct.Robert Hopkins, a researcher at the natural history museum in Zimbabwe’s Bulawayo city, said his team had found four specimens of the frog in its known habitat of Chimanimani, a mountainous area in the easst.The team found the first male specimen on 3 December after following an animal call that they had not heard before, Hopkins said. They then discovered another two males and a female. Hopkins said he been looking for the cave squeaker for eight years.

Robert Hopkins, a researcher at the natural history museum in Zimbabwe’s Bulawayo city, said his team had found four specimens of the frog in its known habitat of Chimanimani, a mountainous area in the east.

The team found the first male specimen on 3 December after following an animal call that they had not heard before, Hopkins said. They then discovered another two males and a female. Hopkins said he been looking for the cave squeaker for eight years.

“I was not with my team when they were found. I was at the base. I can no longer climb the mountains as I am 75,” Hopkins said. Researchers plan to breed more frogs with the ones taken from their habitat and then reintroduce them to the mountain summit. The frog is tiny and light brown with dark spots. Now authorities fear for the frogs’ security, especially from “the scientific world” whose huge interest could result in the frog being captured and illegally exported. Hopkins said 16 specimens are on display at various museums, including the British Museum.

“We are expecting an influx of scientists looking for it. We will do everything in our power to protect and conserve the frog,” said Caroline Washaya-Moyo, spokeswoman for the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority. She said a park management plan will be devised to protect the cave squeaker.

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Mana Pools: Never for the faint hearted

Isdore Guvamombe Tourism Matrix

After angrily gushing out of the wrath of the cruel turbines in its escape from Lake Kariba, the Zambezi River water appears a bit fatigued as it disappears into a narrow gorge that looks like an abyss.

Surprisingly, the river thereafter, emerges from the deep gorge reinvigorated and spreading into a flattened, fertile and vast expanse of floodplain that geomorphology condemned into twists and turns that systematically formed four (mana in Shona) pools, and ox-bow lakes.

The mighty Zambezi River flows through the Lower Zambezi Valley bordering Zimbabwe and Zambia, as a huge rift in the earth’s crust. Over the millennia the Zambezi has rushed through this valley creating islands, channels and sandbanks. Old river meanders, left in the mineral-rich volcanic soils, have formed into small ox-bow lakes surrounded by lush vegetation and tall old stands of mahogany and ebony.

This abundance of water and luxuriant greenery accounts for the valley’s wealth of big game. The pools are forever bursting with a profusion of birds and animals, especially during dry season from June to October. Welcome to Mana Pools, Zimbabwe’s second World Heritage Site and latter-day tourist attraction of choice. Here the visitor is treated to a perfect theatre of the jungle. Within the stunted bush shrubbery and lush vegetation surrounding the four huge pools, buffalo graze hurriedly conscious of stalking lions and appear always restless while on the trees, chirping birds somersault from one branch to another. Under the canopy of whipping riverine trees, a spitting distance away, elegant eland mix with shaggy water buck, radiant butterflies flutter gently between flowering shrubs while dragon flies hover above lily flowers.

For those who have fallen in love with nature, the effortless aerial displays of dragonflies on the lily-studded water ponds are a spectacle to watch. There are also flycatchers, white-collared pratincole, banded snake eagle and yellow spotted nicator birds. It is common spectacle to see a huge elephant bull, stand on its hind legs, its trunk attempting to reach for its lunch from a sausage tree. This is Mana Pools, where Zambezi River changed its course a long time ago due to massive siltation, forming four distinct ox-bow lakes. The national park is home to magnificent and enormous elephants that return year after year to the same places and are well known to the locals in the area.

Big, beefy and stocky black buffalo are always about and predators like leopards, lions and cheetah are seen regularly. The pools are also a haven for crocodiles and large hippo pods. To the south, far distant blue hills of the Zambezi Escarpment, give a good background for the human eye. But it is the four main pools and several smaller pools scattered along the river course and the cliffs hanging over the river and floodplains that provide shelter to a large and varied wildlife population.

The Long Pool is the largest and extends some 6km in a west to east direction. Lovely big old trees, provide a shady canopy with sparse undergrowth. This makes for easy walking and is one of the reasons why this area is perfect for walking safaris.