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Illegal bushmeat hunting using snares endangers Botswana’s wildlife.

Wire snares, a new threat in northern Botswana, are impacting endangered African wild dogs and other species around the Moremi Game Reserve.

A leopard apparently had taken up residence with its young cubs in an unused (pandemic times) staff tent. Rob was not available to help immediately, so we agreed to go take a look.

The world’s largest transboundary conservation area lies in southern Africa and covers 520,000 square kilometers spanning five countries. A study from the University of Zurich in collaboration with Botswana Predator Conservation now shows that the endangered African wild dog mostly remains within the boundaries of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) when dispersing, thus highlighting the relevance of such a large-scale conservation initiative for maintaining key wildlife corridors of threatened species.

Another report from our WE Coexist Program and the Habu Community Development pilot project:
Elephants can be a real problem for rural farmers in northern Botswana, especially during the late dry season when water becomes particularly scarce. And more to the point, elephants are exceptionally good at finding water even in a large plastic Jojo, and they will do almost anything to get to it. Add to that their size and strength, almost nothing is completely safe when it comes to their quest for water.

In my quest to learn about the collaboration between Wild Entrust (WE) and the Habu Elephant Development Trust (HEDT), I traveled 200 km from Maun to Habu village to meet with some of their Community Scouts. The village of Habu is off the beaten track, located in...

Goose is a leopard, or rather, was a leopard. I would prefer not to admit that he is probably dead, but I think it’s time to face the facts. The last time I saw him on a camera trap was nearly a year and a half ago. Goose was a very special leopard to all those that...

​Over the past few years, we have equipped dispersing African wild dogs with GPS/Satellite radio collars as part of a collaborative effort between the University of Zurich (Switzerland) and Botswana Predator Conservation (BPC) and supported by the Botswana Department...

Fatal human-wildlife conflict is a growing problem. Losses of livestock to predators severely impact rural livelihoods, and predators become the targets for lethal control when they kill valuable animals. Keeping carnivores away from domestic stock will protect both...

There’s no  way around  it: to investigate how African wild dogs use shared marking sites (what we call an SMS), we need to use continuous recording of activities at those remote sites. To do this we have set up 35 camera trap sat confirmed and potential marking sites...

My favourite thing to do is to sit and watch wild animals. I always wonder what they’re doing and why? - which, in a roundabout way, has led to my current collaboration with Botswana Predator Conservation.I’m investigating African wild dog social behaviour and...

The BioBoundary of artificial scent marks that the BotswanaPredator Conservation Trust is developing to keep endangered African wild dogs safely inside protected wildlife areas will mimic the scent signals that the wild dogs use to avoid trespassing on the core areas...

African wild dogs are great travellers; for the nine months of the year that they are not denning with pups, they range over hundreds or thousands of square kilometres, covering up to 50 kilometres in a day. Sadly, the distances they cover across their huge home...

Think of a pride of lions. Maybe its not the most obvious analogy, (brought on by the heat and an active imagination); but hear me out. The rocks are the breeding females, the sand their cubs. The males are the waves. Each new wave is a group of males descending on...

On Wednesday 22 May 2019 the government of Botswana announced an end to a five-year suspension of hunting on government land. The lifting of the suspension followed nationwide consultation, with emphasis on communities affected by human-wildlife conflict. The results...

New packs of wild dogs sometimes simply don’t last – potential packs dissolving within a few weeks. But others last for years. How to explain the different outcomes remains an interesting and possibly important question. African wild dog population stability and...

Research team members at BPCT’s field research camp called “Dog Camp” come and go and they all have different experiences and stories to tell about their experiences in the field. There are tales of the challenges to keep up with wild dogs on the hunt, finding their...

Let’s go back to 2013 when the Hat Pack, a newly formed African wild dog pack had just had pups. One of these pups was a female, Suzuka, one of 9 pups; 6 females and 3 males. The adults of the pack all hunt to feed their pups as their survival means the continuation...

The African wild dog is Africa’s most endangered large carnivore and is listed as endangered in the IUCN Red List. Less than 6’000 free-ranging individuals survive in the wild and the species has been given very high conservation priority. The African wild dog, like...

One of the challenges we have in monitoring a population of endangered African wild dogs is the huge home ranges they cover. An average pack ranges over more than 750km2 in our area, where roads are few and far between. This can result in our searching for a pack for...

Being a wildlife researcher in a camp in the middle of the bush takes lot of courage, passion and dedication to collect all the necessary data needed. As a research assistant the main job is to collect data in the field which means spending a couple of hours with the...

Old dogs die, sadly - and, with them, established packs extinguish. But in the intact African wild dog population that we monitor in Northern Botswana, young dogs take over with the passing of the old through the dynamic life history process of dispersal. New packs...

Knowing predator population sizes is of utmost importance to a diverse array of stakeholders, including government wildlife management agencies, concession area managers, local livestock farmers, and the tourism industry. Yet large carnivore populations all over the...

Africa’s large carnivores are elusive. Most of them are primarily active at night, and all of them regularly traverse large home ranges through dense bush. These characteristics make locating and staying with members of the predator guild very challenging, even to our...

Happy New Year from Wild Dog Camp and the rest of the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust! My wife Carli and I recently returned to the field after a wonderful holiday leave in the States. Back in Botswana, we were immediately hit by the humidity and relative...

The multitude of camp projects and fieldwork priorities have made for a busy last few months. But the gradually cooling weather is coinciding with a slow tapering off in visiting collaborators, which leaves more time for data analysis and writing (including our blog)!...

The winter months of June, July, and August mark the coldest period of the year in Northern Botswana. It is this cool period of the year that African wild dogs choose for whelping, as pup rearing is energetically costly for a pack. Typically, the dominant female looks...

Notes from the field, 05June2017: On my dutiful way to collect SD cards from camera traps a few kilometres into a mopane woodland, I was driving with my colleague, Megan, along a road that our team essentially created by driving to said camera traps. While she was...

When you spend your time studying wild dogs, you cannot help but come to know them as individuals. The pack I spent most of my time with was the local Apoka Pack,  -  in the area since 2013. Darius, an immigrant male of unknown origins and Seronera, a disperser from...

ELEPHANTS TRASHING OUR CAMERA TRAPS The big predators that BPCT works on are rare and elusive, and so we use camera traps to monitor their behaviour. Cameras traps set up at strategic locations automatically capture 30 second videos when an animal passes in front of...

The rain started on the 14th November. It was the first rain since April and was a blessed relief. October had been brutally hot as usual and the bush was crying out for rain. With the vegetation all died back sight lines extended far further than usual over the...

The whole structure of the tent began shaking strangely. Was anelephant pushing against one of the poles that support the deck onwhich the tent is situated, I wondered? Then birds began alarm callingout on the floodplain and as the shaking continued I recognised...

We now know that most of the world’s protected areas are too small to sustain healthy populations of large animals, which require a great deal of space in order to survive and breed. When these protected areas don’t offer enough space, animals will roam outside of...

My first experience studying African large carnivores was as a research assistant for the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust (BPCT) throughout 2012. It was during this period that I discovered both my desire to conduct focused research on spotted hyaenas, and the...

Although trophy hunting of African lions and leopards has been banned in Botswana for many years, still the killing of lions continues. Lions kill livestock and, in the absence of alternative methods of preventing these losses, farmers retaliate. Such lethal control...

As a field research assistant, I am responsible for primary data collection and database maintenance. On a normal day I wake up just before first light to check for signals of collared animals. I wander through the camp in the half-light towards the mast, a tall metal...

Northern Botswana has an abundance of wildlife and one of the most diverse carnivore guilds in Africa.  Hearing lions (Panthera leo) roar, leopards (Panthera pardus) saw, and spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta) whoop as you drift to sleep is one of the many pleasures and...

“Kubu” is a lone African wild dog. On first thought, such a strange state of affairs clearly exonerates her - and any research data collected on her – from contributing usefully to our understanding of wild dog social behaviour. But on reflection, second thoughts are...

The Botswana Predator Conservation Trust (BPCT) has been studying African wild dogs in Northern Botswana since 1989. Wild dogs are wide-ranging and commonly come into contact with livestock, being persecuted as a result. However, wild dogs are also territorial and...

Despite observing large carnivores on a daily basis, it’s still quite rare to see the entire process of a kill. Thick brush, fast-moving prey, and darkness are just a few of the common struggles we must overcome in order to witness a predator earning its name. Every...

After getting the coordinates for Mankwe Pack, obtained by Tico by aerial tracking, I made my first attempt at sleeping out in the bush. Some dog packs are so far way that it's just not economic to drive back and forth to camp, so in order to get as much data as we...

A white tail flashes out of the shade, momentarily painting an “S” shape on the dry grass canvas before falling abruptly back to earth. Back to the dust. Invisible again.The world is still. No hint of a breeze. The carpet of crispy brown leaves and long dry grass...

I was lucky enough to join the BPCT as a research assistant at an ideal time, just as several of the female lions gave birth to their cubs. Once a female lion gives birth, she will leave the pride and remain on her own whilst the cubs are small, for the first three...