Lion Rangers and Radio Collars

Friday 16 March 2018

Lion Ranger Training

A comprehensive training programme was held at the Wereldsend Environmental Centre. Cliff Tjikundi, the Rapid Response Team leader, and John Heidinger of IRDNC, have been working with 12 selected Lion Rangers from the Purros, Sesfontein and Anabeb Conservancies. They were brought to Wereldsend where the Desert Lion Project presented tailor-made training courses on the biology, behaviour and ecology of lions.

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Vehicle Breakdown

The gravel roads in and around the Skeleton Coat Park are currently in an exceedingly poor condition following the holiday season. The research vehicle developed a problem with the rear differential that could fortunately be repaired in the field.

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Fitting GPS radio collars

A total of 4 days (96 hours) was devoted to searching for and fitting Early Warning / GPS collars to lions and brown hyaenas. These efforts formed part of Skeleton Coast Brown Hyaena Programme and the implementation of the NW Human-lion Conflict Management Plan. Despite an exhausting effort, no lions could be located, but three brown hyaenas were captured during the last 24-hour period. A dominant male brown hyaena, whose collar was damaged during a territorial clash six months ago, was located and immobilised. His faulty collar was replaced with a new GPS collar. Two additional brown hyaenas (from a new clan) were captured and fitted with new GPS collars.

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^{Thermal Images of the darting of a brown hyaena at 04:09 on 11 Mar 2018}