African Wildlife Conservation Fund






		African Wildlife Conservation Fund Most of our projects are on-going -- they are not single scientific studies seeking a narrow result that is finite. Instead, our work is dynamic and responsive to the needs of the animals. Their lives are intricately involved with and affected by their human neighbors and competitors so continuous, daily observation, data gathering and reporting is important to the animals’ long-term survival. Life in the Lowveld is ever-changing. Pressures on endangered and threatened species are affected as much by policy as by ecology. This is why we work with local communities, land planners and policy-makers, providing up-to-date information that can be used in real time to support the sustainability of species populations. Of course, we invite you to join us but we also invite you to return often to see updates on life in the Lowveld of Zimbabwe.




	GPS Radio Collars Save Wild Dog Lives African Wild Dogs in the Save Valley Conservancy (SVC) have been monitored intensively since 1996. Experienced professional trackers have provided accurate information on the animals’ behavior. Wild dogs are wide-ranging predators that often move more than 25 miles in a single day. The dogs have nearly 1,400 square miles of open range in SVC. Much of SVC is made up of broken, hilly country so locating wild dogs is a daunting task. To locate and document the lives of wild dogs in the Lowveld, we use radio collars. The collars let us find the dogs faster and more frequently so we can build better data sets of wild dog movements and behaviors. In June 2007, we radio-collared three wild dogs in two packs. We’ve learned the packs tend to range outside of SVC into areas difficult for us to access so even with radio collars, the dogs can be nearly impossible to track on foot. But GPS technology has made it possible to locate the animals anywhere, any time. We can log the exact locations of the wild dogs to determine how close they get to humans and other threats. This information allows our teams to intervene when necessary to protect this highly-endangered species. Further, we are better able to develop species management plans based on real-world, real-time information. Collars also help us determine how far wild dogs travel inside and outside SVC. We learn about SVC dogs connecting with other populations in, for example, Kruger National Park in South Africa. More importantly, we are far better able to monitor conflict between humans and wild dogs — for instance, when wild dogs kill livestock or when poachers kill wild dogs with snares — and develop plans to reduce the conflict. The collars are so important to wild dog survival we are making a special effort to raise funds to purchase six GPS radio collars.