Hyaena introduction
"TRACKING LARGE CARNIVORES IN REHABILITATION. . . July 2008 saw the release of 3 captive SPOTTED HYAENA into the 4 500ha Rehabilitation Park."
Tracking large carnivores in (the) OKONJIMA REHABILITATION PARK
The AfriCat Foundation is well-known for its cheetah and leopard projects, but we are also involved in the conservation and protection of a large variety of other carnivores.
The results of research done on Okonjima over the past 7 years, has indicated that many large carnivores, despite being born in captivity, can successfully adapt to hunting in the wild, but that the presence of other large carnivores within a small (in Namibian terms) 4 500 ha Park poses a threat to the survival of the cheetah – which is the more submissive large predator.
July 2008 saw the release of 3 captive SPOTTED HYAENA into the 4 500ha Rehabilitation Park. Two of them were born in captivity. The older male was born in Etosha, and in 1989 sold at a game auction and has been in captivity ever since. He is 20 yrs old this year. In 2002 they were all rescued by The AfriCat Foundation.
The 4 500ha Okonjima Rehab-Park is now natural habitat to 3 different large carnivore species i.e. leopard, cheetah and spotted hyaena. Despite the large number of prey species within this Park, natural competition between these carnivores is rife and interestingly, the spotted hyaena soon found the cheetah to be their 'easy prey', killing the last resident cheetah a month ago.
The fact that Cheetah now have difficulty surviving the onslaught of spotted hyaena as well as the leopard, exacerbates the problem in that releasing new cheetah into the Rehab-area would mean removing the competition!
Strangely enough, NO rehabilitated Cheetah were killed by the dominant carnivore (leopard), during the first 5 years in the same Park, but as our research continues, we have learnt that the territorial leopard have also been killing the cheetah.
It seems that 10 000 acres (4 500 ha) may be too small for so many predators, although the predator-prey base ratio is correct - cheetahs being at the bottom of the predator hierarchy are the ones that are being killed.
The number of prey species however (browsers & grazers) has almost doubled in 7 years (we stock approx.1 antelope per 5ha).
As legislation rules against the breeding of large carnivores in captivity, our Cheetah that form part of Welfare do not breed; but we have decided to keep the rehabilitated cheetahs on contraception as well – keeping the park available for more adult cheetahs that need a second chance in the wild thus, their numbers in the Rehab-Park remain relatively stable and do not increase unless we release another group.
At this point, it would be unethical for AfriCat to continue releasing Cheetah into this Park, where our monitoring has shown that together with leopard and spotted hyaena, they don’t stand a chance!
NEWSBRIEF!
Okonjima will now market "tracking large carnivores in rehabilitation", rather than focusing on Cheetah alone.
Guests who track carnivores on foot are able to see the spotted hyaena and have a 90% success rate! This is remarkable, considering that the spotted hyaena were released into the rehab area, only 5 weeks ago.
Guests still have the opportunity to see Cheetah during the Welfare trail.
At the moment, only 40% of Bush Camp guests and less than 25% of Main Camp guests do the tracking trail, as this is only offered to guests staying more than one night.
'One-nighters' get to do the Welfare and Leopard viewing. The guests really enjoy the leopard viewing as Okonjima is the only place where they are able to see wild leopards close-up, hunting for themselves.
The fencing of the new rehab area has started, so we are looking at a maximum of a year until we can put new groups of rehabilitated cheetah into the new 19 000ha area. The leopards and the hyaenas that are currently in the 4 500ha area will then have more space together with the rehabilitated cheetahs (and hopefully the wild dogs) once in the new, larger area.
Up until now we have only had 2 to 4 radio-collared cheetahs in the rehab area at any one time. In the new larger area there should be 4 to 5 GROUPS of radio-collared Cheetah.