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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.
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