#EndangeredSpeciesDay

Today is #EndangeredSpeciesDay, an opportunity for people of all ages to learn about the importance of protecting endangered species and everyday actions they can take to help protect them.

Painted dogs are one of the most endangered species in the whole of Africa. They are native to Africa and are not found in the wild anywhere else on the planet. Fewer than 7,000 painted dogs are left across the entire continent. There are roughly 700 painted dogs in Zimbabwe, and we work with local populations of both humans and dogs—via conservation, education, and outreach programs—to help them not only survive here, but thrive.

To learn more and get updates about painted dogs, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

To support our work, you can donate via our Wildlife Conservation Network partner:
https://donate.wildnet.org/…
OR
Support our #SponsorAChild #SaveThePaintedDog campaign for the Iganyana Children's Bush Camp here:
https://www.bonfire.com/pdc-bush-camp-15th-anniversary/

📷@Nick Dyer

Broken Rifle's Simon snared.

Deep into the Hwange National Park (HNP), the Broken Rifle pack thrives with nine fully fledged hunters and four pups led by Cusp, the alpha female, and Kisser the alpha male.

Inevitably trouble struck, Peter received an email from Tinashe who works with Wilderness Safaris’ Davison Camp. A painted dog has been seen with a snare wire around its neck at Back pans. Given the location we knew it was one of the 13-member Broken Rifle pack. Without wasting time, the team organised and took off to assess and act accordingly to the urgent situation.

It didn’t take time for our team to locate the pack when they drove south of the Mani Camp. Cusp is collared; Jealous picked the signal after Linkwasha on the Back pan between Davison Camp and Linkwasha Camp. Indeed Simon, one of the males of the pack had a visible copper wire snare around his neck. Every time we see a painted dog with a snare wire around it but walking freely we thank the higher powers and regard the individual as strong and a hero. Certainly a struggle occurred and it paid up, surviving the jaws of an excruciating death but leaving wounds and pain. Sadly we know we will be called out again.

After taking all necessary considerations, Paul successfully darted Simon and the life saving ritual began. The wire was removed, breathing another chance to Simon in the HNP. Our Anti-poaching team has also since been deployed in the area where the pack ranges to scan for more snare wires and remove them.

The grass is currently tall in HNP; it’s not easy to see the pups from any angle now.  The kudus and impalas are fit as ever in this time of plenty food and water, it only takes good hunters like the rare and unique painted dogs to take one down.

The K9 Patrol Dogs Roadshow Press Statement

Painted Dog Conservation (PDC), Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Authority (ZNPWA) , Forestry Commission (FC)and Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) Dete  conducted a series of K9 patrol dog awareness roadshows in communities neighboring Hwange National Park from the 20th to the 24th of March 2018, running under the theme “connecting people to conservation”.  The objective of this strategic joint operation was to bring together wildlife conservation sector players in the area to speak in one voice against poaching and show the communities what we as sector players are doing to secure the wildlife heritage this region is endowed with.

 The exercise which saw dogs performing formation drills, sniffing contraband, obedience, crawling, weaving, tracking and attacking techniques, covered the following communities, Chimwara, Gwaai, Mabale, Lupote, Chezhou, Makwandara, Mambanje, Dete and Cross-Dete. The community responded well in attendance.

The collaboration with government entities encouraged and helped to bring the best out of both parties. We are excited about the potential these collaborations have in spreading information to communities and one can not deny the benefits of economies of scale this entails, four organisations sharing a platform and driving important messages, especially zero tolerance to wildlife crime to communities surrounding Hwange National Parks

Our conservation model in anchored on working with communities in an effort to retard the rate at which the endangered species is moving towards extinction. They are involved in anti-poaching work in forestry, state, communal land and joint patrols with national parks. We have a children’s Bushcamp that brings 19 local primary school kids attending grade 6 for a four-day camp where they are taught pertinent conservation concepts that leave them better citizens and community members.

Head man, village heads, councilors and community dignitaries are among those who attended in solidarity with the cause as we showed our commitment, preparedness and zero tolerance to wildlife crimes stance in fighting the ill of poaching. This was a platform we used to connect people to conservation. Communities are critical stakeholders in natural resource management and more often than not they feel neglected in decision-making and progress in the management of the natural resources that are so close to them. The road show sought to involve these communities as partners in wildlife protection. It is through these communities that we can gather intelligence on poachers movements and people in possession of chemicals such as cyanide that have killed massive numbers of animals in the park in recent years.

Over 50 t-shirts bearing the theme and K9 dogs were distributed in the communities, 16 game drives were awarded to the roadshow environment and wildlife quiz winners and community volunteers identified by community members (courtesy of Zim Parks and PDC), fruit seedlings (courtesy of Forestry Commission) among other many more prizes.

For more pictures and further questions please get in touch with us on: info@painteddog.org

Good news from Sichelesile Ndlovu, the first female Assistant Tracker we have had.

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Here is her account of how she, and Jealous, found the Destiny pack after weeks of searching and amid fears of rabies spreading:

When you begin to confuse the tweets of birds to a beep signal from the head phones and when you halt the car for almost every animal track you see on the road then you know you haven’t really been seeing dogs for a long time. It had been nearly 2 weeks without any sightings of the Destiny pack which is being monitored for rabies as its home range was overlapping with the Mabuyamabhema Pack, which got wiped out by the disease last month.

Undeterred by setbacks of past days, we began our tracking with so much enthusiasm that we were going to see the dogs. Jealous was behind the wheel and I was wearing the headphones attentively listening to every sound that comes out of them. A few kilometres into the Hwange National Park, just by the Nyamandlovu turnoff Jealous had a glimpse of some spoors, he stopped the vehicle, we had a look around and YES there were dog spoors but their direction was  opposite  to where our vehicle was heading.  We followed the track of the spoors but a few meters from the turnoff we lost the them. Jealous made a U-turn and moved towards Nyamandlovu pan loop road, he spotted dog spoors again. As we climbed off the  Landrover, before us stood a jackal and on our right hand side there was a hyena standing still and you could see it sniffing. Just as I suspected but not confindent enough to mention before my senior does, Jealous said the dogs must have killed something around the area. Now with these clues, worryingly enough there was still no beep on my head phones. After taking a few pics of the hyena we proceeded. Am sure Jealous drove about 100m and I burst out saying STOP, he turned and looked at me and said ‘signal’ I just nodded with a smile and he took over. We have found the Destiny pack! He manoeuvred off road with the directional antenna on his hand and about 500m from the Main Camp’s Sinamatela road all the seven dogs were lying with noticeable very full bellies. They all looked healthy and strong. Careful not to disturb their peace, we took a few pictures and left them to rest.

And to conclude the morning we were blessed with rains after really hot dry days.

Banyayi Appears: strong and healthy

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On Sunday morning Jealous took it into the Hwange National searching for the dogs. Since the Mabuyemabehma incident we have been making extra efforts to locate and see each and every pack and see how they are doing. Banyayi pack is one of the packs that we don’t see more often but Jealous managed to see the nine strong pack (6 males and 3 females) at Kennedy 1, deep into the park. To our relief, the good news was that the pack is looking healthy, strong and, as usual, they had full stomachs.

All painted dogs are good hunters but Jealous says the Banyayi pack is exceptionally good in their league. He says whenever he sees them (or hear from sightings by other people) their stomachs are full or they are eating from a fresh kill. Impressive!! However, the alpha male of Banyayi pack, Will, is still with no soul-mate. The last alpha female of Banyayi pack was Khaya, who disappeared from the pack sometime in November last year, reducing the pack number from 10 to 9. Will is now left with his brother, Beetle, and children forming the pack but no mating partner.

Drawing from years of experience and observation of the painted dogs, Jealous fears the pack will disintegrate if no any other female joins them to fill the alpha female post between now and the next mating season in March. Even though there are adult females in the pack currently, they are all Will’s daughters and painted dogs don’t inbreed. We will continue to monitor how the pack holds up together as they approach the mating season and update you.

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