Mkhuze tracker wild about dogs
• Lurking in bushes before dawn may not appeal to all, but this WildlifeAct monitor lives for such moments
IT is 3.30am on a summer’s day and Cole du Plessis grabs a rusk and chugs down a cup of coffee before the searing heat of the sun lights up the Zululand bush. He climbs into his mobile office – a Toyota pick-up – to start tracking some of Africa’s most endangered and persecuted predator species.
This morning, he is searching for cheetahs and African wild dogs. There are only about 450 free-ranging adult wild dogs left in SA and less than 4,000 throughout Africa. Wild cheetahs have not fared much better, with only 7,000 left worldwide and about 1,200 in SA.
Du Plessis drives to an old radio beacon tower in the Mkhuze Game Reserve and clambers up the steps to reach a high vantage point that allows him to search the surrounding land using a very high frequency telemetry set.
To escape the sweltering weather, most predators get up very early to hunt and then find a shady spot to rest in during the heat of the day.
Holding a mobile antennae above his head, he scans the horizon and listens for sounds from his hand-held receiver. Several wild dogs, cheetahs and lions at Mkhuze have been fitted with radio tracking collars, allowing monitors from the WildlifeAct conservation group to follow their movements.
As he swivels the antennae westwards, a soft “pinging” noise is heard above the drone of radio static.
Du Plessis has a rough fix on a group of three cheetahs not far from the main Mantuma rest camp, which forms part of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park and World Heritage Site.
WildlifeAct monitors and paying volunteers from several parts of the world are helping cash-strapped government agencies track endangered or vulnerable wildlife species in the reserves of KwaZulu-Natal, Malawi and Botswana.
They are on duty around the clock, generally out in the field from about 3.30am to 10am and again from about 4pm to 8pm. Most try to grab a short nap around midday.
“Sometimes, if you are chasing wild dogs that have escaped from the reserve, you can be out all day and half the night,” says Du Plessis.
In the Zululand region, 10 permanent wildlife monitors work on a shift system (22 days on duty and eight days off).
WildlifeAct was set up eight years ago by researchers Simon Morgan and Chris Kelly, who offered to help nature conservation agency Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife to monitor priority species. Diminishing budgets for conservation and the overwhelming focus on tackling rhino horn poachers meant monitoring other endangered species often takes a back seat.
To finance the salaries and fuel costs of the monitors, WildlifeAct invites volunteers or gap-year students from other parts of the world to visit the African wilderness and become part of conservation projects. They pay up to R18,000 for a two-week stint.
Tamara Medsker, a teacher from Indiana in the US who volunteered last year, wrote afterwards: “If you had told me two months ago I would pay to get up before dawn, ride on bumpy roads in the back of an open truck in 50-degree weather, struggle through a water shortage, marinade in bug spray to avoid mozzie bites, drag dead aromatic carcasses around (all in the name of conservation), and live without TV, music, and a lot of times, internet, I would have called you crazy! If you asked me if I was ready to go back today — I would ask how soon could I leave?”
There is little glamour for Du Plessis and his monitors, who often spend hours sitting, waiting for an animal to break cover from thick vegetation before they can report a visual sighting to reserve managers. They also need to fit new tracking collars or remove wire snares from dead or wounded animals.
“Snaring is the biggest problem facing wild dogs in Mkhuze. We have lost nearly 30 dogs to snaring over the last few years,” Du Plessis says.
Born in Port Shepstone, Du Plessis studied environmental science at Rhodes University and had a brief stint as a tour guide around Kruger National Park before joining WildlifeAct. He then followed his family to Australia, where he continued his studies, but moved back to SA eight months ago to manage and oversee the Zululand monitoring operations.
“It was hard to leave the family, but I was really missing the bush,” he says.
“When I first arrived in Mkhuze there were only nine dogs and within the first two months, two were killed by snares. It seemed to me that I was just monitoring their decline and was on the point of resigning because I was taking it too personally.
“One evening, the dogs left their den and moved to the place where one of the pack had been killed by a snare the night before. They were ‘hoo-calling’, as if they were mourning the dead pack member. Two of the dogs were also walking around on three legs because of snare amputations. That was a turning point. I decided to stay.
“I wish more people could spend just a day following wild dogs to understand them better,” says Du Plessis.
Wild dogs have a reputation as “savage” killers because they disembowel their prey while still alive, but Du Plessis says the hunts are carefully planned by the pack leaders and hunted animals die swiftly.
“Some researchers argue that this is less barbaric than being strangled slowly to death by a lion. You only have to watch these dogs chirruping and playing during their morning bonding rituals to realise that they are the biggest softies of all.”
During his first stint at Mkhuze, he followed one of the packs for two years.
“Over time, they would come and sit next to my vehicle. There was a trust that developed. It got to the stage where the alpha female was bringing her pups to me and leaving them under the vehicle for safety while the pack went hunting. That is one of the reasons I have fallen in love with them,” he says.
“They have almost humanlike characteristics and there is strong unity and selflessness. When the adults have killed an antelope, they will stand back for the kids to eat.
“They will also take meat and regurgitate it to feed the sick and elderly before finally eating for themselves,” says Du Plessis.
Despite several setbacks, the Mkhuze pack has multiplied from six dogs in 2012 to about 40 today.
But Du Plessis says the wild dog conservation project has reached a precarious crossroad. “All they need is sufficient land to flourish – but the number of landowners willing to take them has been saturated.
“At one point, we had 57 dogs sitting in bomas around the country because there was nowhere they could go.”
Several private game reserves are resistant to hosting wild dogs. They can escape easily by digging underneath fences and then kill stock on neighbouring properties – so they need to be monitored intensively and this costs money.
A single pack of dogs can also kill and eat two nyala antelope each day and this can be expensive for reserves that sell surplus wild animals to fund conservation efforts.
“Some of the reserve owners say, ‘We have the Big Five already – why should we take wild dogs?’ So we have to find a way to make it more viable for people to protect wild dogs and to change mind-sets,” Du Plessis says.
“I have this silly dream that someone needs to make a Disney movie on wild dogs, something big like The Lion King, so that more tourists would start asking to see dogs when they come here on safari.”
DESPITE SEVERAL SETBACKS, THE MKHUZE PACK HAS MULTIPLIED FROM SIX DOGS IN 2012 TO ABOUT 40 TODAY