Help mitigate Human Wildlife Conflict in Zimbabwe

Helping Communities who live on the boundaries with Protected Areas with human-wildlife conflicts is a major aspect of ALERT’s Community program.  This report concentrates on the communities to the north, west and east of Chizarira National Park.  The Park is nearly 2,000km² in extent and the Community we are actively involved with is the Mucheni Community.

 Living next to an unfenced National Park such as Chizarira makes the villagers vulnerabkle to wildlife incidents.  Our role is to mitigate these incidents as far as possible using none-lethal methods and forewarning villagers of possible raids by elephants, lions and spotted hyaena.

 As a means of forewarning Communities of a possible raid by elephants or lions we (together with the management of the park) are collaring lions and elephants in the park so that we are able to track their movements and identify hot spots that will need special attention.  As the animals move towards the villages, we are able to alert the villagers to take precautions such as building fires around fields and ensuring that the livestock is kept secure and guarded.

 During the period covered by this report we managed to collar a bull elephant and were able to warn villagers of a possible raid.  The bull was photographed using a trail camera on the edge of the Park which makes the project very real to us and the villagers.  

 In addition we attempted to collar a male lion that was a potential problem but we failed in this endeavor.  Two University attachment students joined us and we built a hide from which to dart the lion.  A big leopard came up to the meat we had hung from a tree and later a spotted hyaena came up and ripped the meat off the tree.  A lion was roaring nearby and we could tell by the volume of the roar that he was coming closer but he did not come up to that bait.  When we left, the lion came up to smell the tree that the bait was on and he was captured on a trail camera.

 We will continue our mitigation work this next period by putting in predator-proof holding pens for wildlife and will continue to attempt to collar more lions and elephants so that we can work out movements and potential hot spots that will need our attention.

January is at the heart of the rainy season in Zimbabwe and whilst rain is always gratefully received, the change in season from hot and dry to warm and wet does often mean that wildlife will more readily leave the Protected Areas (PA’s) and move into the surrounding Communal Lands.

Lions in the PA’s are easily able to hunt their wildlife prey around dwindling water supplies in the dry season but when the rains come, the wildlife disperses making hunting difficult.  At this time lions may move into the Communal Lands and prey on livestock. 

At this time of the year villagers are planting their maize and other crops, taking advantage of the rain.  This is the time that elephant (mainly bulls) may come into the crops to feed on succulent new maize, pumpkin, sorghum and other cops.

It is often difficult to deal with all of the problems caused by wildlife in the Communal Lands immediately but our staff reacts as quickly as possible and meets with villagers to agree on best non-lethal control measures. Our activities during the period covered by this report have been limited due to COVID but we have been able to maintain the project, assure the villagers that they have our support and that we are available to help.   The pictures below will show you some of the activities that we have put in place.  The purchase of materials has in some cases been supplemented by the donations received from you.  We have not yet reached our financial target for this project but we are making steady progress.

Interestingly our other two projects (lion and elephant research) feed directly in to Human-Wildlife conflict as the GPS/satellite collared animals show us and the Community where we need to chase off potential threats.

Thank you for your support.

Conflict frequently occurs between wildlife and people and when the livelihoods and safety of communities are threatened.  Similarly the lives of wildlife can be threatened when they leave Protected Areas and predate on livestock or, in the case of elephants, destroy crops.

The Communities we are assisting are impoverished and are unable to put in place costly livestock protection measures to protect their cattle, goats and donkeys.  As an NGO African Lion and Environmental Research Trust (ALERT) is reaching out to two communities: one around Victoria Falls and the other around Chizarira National park in the Zambezi Valley.  We are assisting them with measures that will reduce (mitigate) conflict, while at the same time ensuring that they are accountable for the mitigation measures and identify with the help projects.

To date we have used LED lights around livestock pens where livestock is kept at night, and also put in place predator-proof mobile pens where, similarly the livestock is kept at night.  To date no predator attacks have taken place on livestock kept in these facilities but a lot of further assistance is needed.

It would be easier to build large livestock holding pens and pen in livestock from multiple homesteads.  Unfortunately cultural beliefs will not allow one homestead to keep their livestock with livestock of another homestead, which means we have to assist individual homesteads.

While our aim is to support the communities against predation, we are equally committed to protecting the predators that may predate on livestock not kept safe.  If livestock is killed villagers carry out revenge killings often through poisoning whereby whole prides of lion can be killed.  The more protection we can give to villagers, the less chance predators will have of killing cattle or goats and the need for revenge killings is reduced or totally stopped.

Due to Covid-19 restrictions no progress has been made during the period covered by this report, however we have kept in touch with Community leaders and have assured them that we will continue to assist as soon as we can move about freely again.  

Communities surrounding the larger unfenced Zimbabwean National Parks are frequently affected by lions and spotted hyena that come from the park and kill livestock in the villages.  Some villagers will take retaliatory action and poison or set snares to kill the predator killing livestock.

ALERT recently received reports of lions killing cattle in the Binga area in the north of Zimbabwe.  Because ALERT is carrying out research on lions and elephants in Chizarira National Park (2,000km2) nearby the affected area, the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZPWMA) and the Binga Rural District Council (RDC) contacted us to help mitigate the situation.  Despite the Covid-19 restrictions, a small meeting was called by ALERT, ZPWMA and RDC with the affected Community.

Our ALERT researcher and an attachment, spoke at the meeting and called upon villagers to take responsibility for their livestock.  Good husbandry and the building of proper predator-proof holding pens and ensuring that livestock is safely inside at night, goes a long way to ensuring that predators do not kill the livestock.  Most holding pens are constructed of flimsy poles that are low and with large spaces between uprights so that predator see the livestock and can easily enter. In some cases the cattle are not put in pens at night.

After the meeting ALERT donated a US$750 mobile enclosure that is made of opaque plastic sheeting.  This enclosure is erected on an old field site near a homestead.  The confined cattle cannot be seen by predators as they perceive the facility as a solid obstacle.  We have had great success with this type of holding pen with no livestock losses when confined at night. Added to this protection is the fact that the confined cattle produce natural nutrients that are trampled into the soil and just before the next rainy season, the holding pen is taken down and crops planted in the nutrient rich soils. Crops grown in this site produce much higher yields than with artificial fertilizes - and it is all organic. 

This is an excellent mitigation method where villagers see that their livestock are protected AND they do not have to purchase costly and often harmful fertilizers to get bumper, healthy organically-grown crops.

ALERT is still using the flashing light method on locally built pens and this has also been very successful in deterring predators at night. We are still raising funds for this mitigation method since it is far cheaper than the mobile pens. Research is being carried out on best mitigation methods, but our main purpose is to help the impoverished Communities that face wildlife threats daily. By so doing we also ensure that there is no reason to kill the predators that come from the parks for an easy meal.

A big thank you must go out to our donors, we have raised enough money for one set of LED lights. We will be purchasing these lights from South Africa.

Recently there have been no livestock depredation cases recorded in the Matetsi Ward. 4, in Victoria Falls. There were 4 livestock (cattle) losses to lions recorded in October in the area. All four of the attacks took place during the day in the rangeland. Which is showing the usefulness and need of the LED lights as no livestock have been attacked in their pens as these are protected with the LED flashing lights.

Thank you again to our donors we can now protect one more livestock holding pen.