Help mitigate Human Wildlife Conflict in Zimbabwe

Dear Friends and supporters,

Our project to help Mitigate Human-Wildlife conflict in areas adjacent to the 1,910km² Chizarira National Park took place after we had met with the Chief and elders of the area as well as having public meetings. Through the chief we called public meetings and at that time expressed the need to conserve the wildlife and habitat of the Park which is essentially their natural heritage.

We put in place mobile predator-proof livestock holding pens (kraals), as well as sharing ideas of how to improve on the traditional kraals to make them more predator-proof.  We have also shared with the community non-lethal methods to keep elephants away from crops with good results.  There are other NGO`s (non-government organizations) working in adjacent areas and together we support the communities that may suffer the depredations of wildlife from the park.

As lions and elephants are the main conflict animals, our lion and elephant research projects are able to greatly assist in dealing proactively with potential threats.  The GPS satellite collars that we have placed on an individual in different herds and prides have a Geofence function which alerts us of a collared animal that is moving towards the boundary of the park into the adjacent community land. We then alert the leaders in the area to be vigilant and take precautions.

Recently we noted that two of our lions were on the boundary of the park and subsequently heading into the communal land.  We alerted the community and together with the National Park staff, the team went into the area and was able to chase the lions back into the park.

As well as protecting the community and their livestock, this proactive mitigation method protects the lions which could be poisoned by farmers who have lost livestock to lions and hyenas.  Sadly, when poisoning takes place a whole pride of lions or clan of hyena may be killed.

We will continue to put in place more mobile kraals to assist farmers in protecting their livestock at night.  To date not one attack has been made on this type of kraal.  Once farmers in the surrounding communities realize that we are assisting them and understand their problems, we find that the community is a lot more tolerant of wildlife.

There has not been a lot of new activity during the period covered by this report due to logistical problems.  However the mitigation measure we have so far put in place continue to help the communities surrounding Chizarira National Park.

The mobile livestock holding pens that we have deployed in various villages continue to be very successful in deterring spotted hyaena and lions from attacking cattle and goats kept in this facility.  Where these structures are not in place, villages continue to suffer from livestock deaths by predators coming from the Park.

The holding pens are made of opaque plastic that wildlife cannot see through.  The plastic sheeting is strung between poles and the livestock contained within.  To date no attacks against livestock have taken place where villagers are supplied with the mobile pens.

We have managed to purchase another mobile pen and the deployment of this in a village chosen by the Chief has been delayed due to transport limitations.

We are able to keep human-wildlife conflict to a minimum through other work we are doing namely collaring lions and elephants.  Whilst these projects are looking at various research and monitoring aspects, we are able to pre-warn villagers of elephants or lions approaching their villages (by monitoring the GPS locations given by the collars) thus giving the villagers time to put in place traditional mitigation measures such as fires around holding pens and crops, banging pots and drums, having dogs nearby etc.

In the next period before our next report, we hope to have at least two more villages set up with the mobile pens.