Rosemary Groom searching for signal from collared wild dogs in Gonarezhou

Gonarezhou is a beautiful 5,000 km2 wilderness in Zimbabwe’s South East Lowveld. Gonarezhou has long been the forgotten son of the Zim parks network receiving little attention from tourists and inadequate funding for conservation. This is despite Gonarezhou forming part of the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area and lying close to Kruger National Park, one of the most visited parks in Africa. Wildlife populations in Gonarezhou were devastated by a drought in 1991-1992 and then suffered from many years of under-funding. Wildlife populations remained at very low levels for many years due to ongoing poaching for bushmeat and other human threats.

In 2007, however, prospects for conservation improved dramatically. Frankfurt Zoological Society and the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority signed an MOU for co-management of the park. This provided a much needed injection of funding and technical capacity to assist ZPWMA’s efforts in the park. FZS’s support includes (among many other things) providing rigorous scout training, introducing an improved radio network, providing vehicles and fuel, improving maintenance of vehicles and roads, and establishing partial fencing to reduce human encroachment in the park. Since then there has been a sustained recovery in wildlife populations in the park, including for large predators.

African Wildlife Conservation Fund works to understand and conserve the populations of large carnivores in the park and adjacent areas. Led by Dr Rosemary Groom, and her trusted side-kick Rueben Bote, the AWCF team conducts annual spoor counts to determine population trends in the park, and has fitted some collars onto carefully selected wild dog packs and lion groups in order to investigate transboundary movements by these species.

The latest census indicated that predator numbers in the park are recovering steadily. Wild dog numbers are up to 105 individuals from 24 in 2009. Cheetahs increased from 16 to 82 in the same period, lions from 24 to 59, leopards from 194 to 344 and spotted hyaenas from 311 to 580. In addition to monitoring predators, the AWCF team conducts conservation education and community outreach, and is working to address threats to predators. Please take a look at their Facebook page and learn more about the great work they are doing.

https://www.facebook.com/AfricanWildlifeConservationFund?ref=hl

Gonarezhou is an incredible place. The park has a special wilderness feel that is so rare these days. The Chilojo cliffs form a spectacular centre-piece to the park and increasingly, visitors can expect to see impressive quantities and diversity of wildlife, including species that are not common in many other parts of the region, including bat eared foxes, suni, nyala, and pangolins. And elephants. Lots of elephants. In the context of the poaching crisis of today, it is reassuring to know that Gonarezhou, the Place of Elephants, truly lives up to its name.

The success of Gonarezhou is particularly impressive given the troubled political and economic context of Zimbabwe in recent years. Congrats to FZS and ZPWMA, and to the AWCF team for the hard work done in one of Zimbabwe’s most beautiful corners..