Human-Wildlife Conflict

[Richprins]

Maybe they must stop managing us for a while indeed!

[Lisbeth]

First thing the baboons must not have any access to food and they will disappear by themselves....I think

[Lisbeth]

Watch where you walk — and other ways to shore up a little help for the vanishing plover

By Dian Spear• 1 June 2021


White-fronted plover siblings on Keurboomstrand beach, Plettenberg Bay, South Africa. (Photo: Selena Flores)

The cute sand-coloured shorebird is in decline in the Western Cape, with numbers dropping nearly 40% over the past 30 years. While dogs and beachgoers are partly to blame, there are things we can do to help.

Although we may not notice the small, well-camouflaged white-fronted plovers, or their tiny speckled eggs and chicks, the presence of humans and dogs in or near their dune and beach habitat reduces their breeding success.


A ringed white-fronted plover chick in the dunes at Lookout Beach, Plettenberg Bay. (Photo: Selena Flores)

Nests get trampled, causing parents to leave their eggs and chicks exposed to the elements — sometimes for long enough so that they perish.

Selena Flores has been working with shorebirds for about a decade and their camouflage still manages to fool her.

Her current PhD research, which is being conducted through the FitzPatrick Institute with support from the Nature’s Valley Trust, is on the white-fronted plover — a small, sand-coloured, ground-nesting shorebird.


#ShareTheShores project signage at Nature’s Valley beach in South Africa. These signs are placed at an about 30m radius around shorebird nests. (Photo: Selena Flores)

Sadly, however, she explains that “within the Western Cape their numbers have declined nearly 40% in the past 30 years and, more alarmingly, their reduction in density has gone down about 60%”.

“They have also disappeared from some heavily disturbed beaches in the Cape Town region, like Gordon’s Bay and Bloubergstrand.”

On the Garden Route, she has found breeding success of just below 10%, which “is very low”.


A two-day-old white-fronted plover chick in Selena Flores’ hand after ringing in Keurboomstrand, Plettenberg Bay. (Photo: Selena Flores)

Flores explains that the birds “generally choose to nest in low, sparsely vegetated hummocks — the little dune hills that you see going down to the beach — where they are going to have easy access to food sources, and they are also going to have good visibility of their surroundings. They want to be able to see where they can eat and what dangers are around.”

We won’t always know that the birds are there “as they are very small and very difficult to see. Being incredibly camouflaged, they disappear into the beach scene.”

The tiny eggs are laid in the sand and “they sort of get swallowed by this whole landscape of the speckling with the debris that occurs on the beaches”.


A chick crouches among driftwood debris on Nature’s Valley beach. (Photo: Selena Flores)

This means “there is a big risk of us or our dogs accidentally stepping on the birds and, in summer, when people flock to the beach, nests are trampled accidentally”.

In Plettenberg Bay, where Flores is conducting her research, she has found that white-fronted plovers will leave their nests when humans are about 26m away so that it isn’t obvious where the nest is.

“The birds fit in the palm of your hand so, at these distances, it is difficult for a beachgoer to be aware that a bird is there, let alone see the bird.”


A dog on lead walking through coastal dunes in Nature’s Valley. (Photo: Claudio Velasqez Rojas, Homebrew Films)

A recent study in Spain by Miguel Gómues Serrano showed that dogs that are not on a lead disturb shorebirds more than dogs that are on a lead. Humans with dogs disturb shorebirds much more than humans without dogs. The plovers are also more disturbed if people are walking in the dunes as opposed to at the sea edge or on a path.

Flores said the study showed that “walkers with dogs in the dunes, nearly every time disturbed a bird off a nest or from their area, and dogs off-lead disturbed them every single time in dunes”.

This study indicates that “if you are on paths with dogs, most of the time, birds will be scared away, but if you’re just on your own on a path, it is far less likely that the bird will respond to you”.


A white-fronted plover nest bordered by a ball of fishing line. (Photo: Selena Flores)

The research shows that “just because a dog isn’t chasing a bird, it is still seen as a threat by the birds. The birds don’t understand that the dogs are pets…

“It looks like the natural predators that go after plovers, so they’re not going to take any risks. They run away out of caution, leaving their eggs and chicks quite exposed and vulnerable.”

In South Africa, it is common for dogs to be walked freely on beaches. From observations in Plettenberg Bay, Flores found that “about 90% of the dogs were off the lead, so they were more likely to disturb birds than if they were on leads with their owners on a path or near the shore”.


White-fronted plovers hide in footprints on Lookout beach, Plettenberg Bay. (Photo: Selena Flores)

One of the reasons that disturbing plovers from their nests is a problem is that it leaves the nests exposed to the elements for the time that they are away, which she found is an average of 5.5 minutes after each disturbance.

When the birds are kept away from their eggs, they are “not able to effectively incubate their eggs to keep them warm, or, in hot weather, shade them to keep them cool”.

Flores has conducted research using model eggs fitted with tiny temperature loggers, and she found that, in December, after only five minutes, plover eggs can reach temperatures of 41°C, which is the upper limit an egg can survive for long periods. After two hours it can reach 50°C, which is definitely fatal if left for long.


A white-fronted plover nest with two eggs. (Photo: Selena Flores)

“This is quite concerning. If birds are being kept off the nest, they have a very, very small window of time to get back to their nest to make sure their eggs stay alive,” Flores explains.

“People lingering around nesting habitats will have a far more significant and far more negative impact of keeping the birds off the nest for much longer.

“Exposure of these nests and chicks to unfavourable weather conditions, whether that is heat, cold, wind or rain, might cause failure of the nest and, in general, when birds are being disturbed off their nest there is an increased likelihood that they will completely abandon their nesting attempt,” she says.

Beachgoers and dogs are not the only threat to plovers.


A white-fronted plover female and chick at Mussel beach in Scarborough, Cape Town. (Photo: Selena Flores)

“Gulls in Plett will sit on the top of dunes or sit on information signs, and they will survey the area and wait and look for a person or a dog to come through an area and scare the plover or the oystercatcher off the nest.

“They are watching where that bird ran away from, and they will immediately go nab the eggs or the chick.”

Some species are most successful when there is neither too much nor too little disturbance in a system, which is referred to as the “Goldilocks principle”. For plovers, undisturbed beaches provide habitats for lots of other species to thrive, including more predators.

Flores explains that with the secluded or more heavily vegetated beach sites, like those in Keurboomstrand area — the least-disturbed beach area in Plettenberg Bay — there is a higher incidence of predators.

Flores says plovers don’t do well in protected areas. “The birds aren’t able to effectively raise their chicks or hatch their chicks because [there are] too many predators and too much of a variety of predators. You’ve got snakes, caracals, baboons, kelp gulls and birds of prey.”

On the other hand, “in more disturbed areas, such as Robberg Beach, there may be fewer predators, but there is no way these birds can effectively sit on their nests. Robberg Beach is just so busy, covered with footprints and heavily disturbed by people and dogs pretty much all the time.”

Just like for Goldilocks, it has to be just right. Flores says there is a “sweet spot” at Lookout Beach and at Nature’s Valley Beach, two of the smaller beaches in the area.

At these beaches “just enough disturbance has been occurring; they have a moderate amount of visitors coming through, which keeps some predators at bay, and the birds are not so disturbed… they can still look after their chicks and nests in order to get them to learn to fly”.

Based on concern for shorebirds, the Nature’s Valley Trust started the #SharetheShores programme in 2016 and the Lower Breede River Conservancy Trust has also used the programme on the beaches of Witsand in the Overstrand area.

The Scarborough Eco-Group also started its own programme in 2019 and similar initiatives will be started on Noordhoek and Kommetjie beaches in Cape Town.

Flores outlines ways that beachgoers can play their part to conserve shorebirds: keeping dogs on leads or away from beaches where they are not allowed; walking near the water or on the wet sand on the shore; watching where you step; taking all your rubbish, especially fishing gear, with you; and picking up any rubbish that you see. DM168

[Richprins]

[Lisbeth]

I hope that more people read the newspapers......although I doubt it

[Lisbeth]

Dr Audrey Delsink, who was awarded her PhD in Biology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal virtual graduation ceremony this week, has worked extensively in the field with elephants and the management of the species. Picture: HSI/Waldo Swiegers

Problem planning, not problem elephants

BY TANYA WATERWORTH - 29TH MAY 2021

Durban – Dr Audrey Delsink was afraid of elephants when she started out in the field of natural sciences, but now has a real passion for them, as well as managing and conserving the iconic species which are now on the endangered list.

This week, Delsink, 46, was awarded a PhD in Biology for her research focusing on the African elephant (Loxodonta africana), in particular issues of spatial ecology, population control and human interactions, and the implications for management.

“It’s been a long journey and getting my doctorate this week has been a tremendous relief and absolute satisfaction,” said Delsink on Thursday.

She said she was afraid during her first encounters with elephants when she was a young field guide, but then she was put on a task force to identify elephants and it sparked her “real love and passion for elephants”.

With a Master’s degree focused on the costs and consequences of immunocontraception implementation in elephants and having worked in 40 reserves across the country on contraception programmes, Delsink said her doctoral research focused on how human interactions drove African savannah elephant movements and behaviours over space and time and how this understanding could lead to better management and planning.

This could relate to individual elephants, a particular herd or an elephant population, what elephants are doing, how and why.

“The elephant is one of the top three species killed as an assumed ‘problem animal’.

“All too often elephants are destroyed as the first line of defence which does not sort the root of the problem.

“We need to focus on co-existence rather than conflict, and we need innovative, practical and cost-effective solutions.

“If strategies fail, we think it is a ’problem elephant’, when it is normally a problem of bad planning,” she said.

As an example, Delsink said mature male bulls played a crucial role in the lives of younger male bulls, and research had shown young males could become delinquent without the guidance of a large, mature male.

The mature bulls play a major role in reproduction, as well as being a social repository of knowledge for the younger males.

But it is often these mature bulls which are deemed to be “problem animals” when fences are broken or similar issues arise in elephant/human conflict.

Delsink said that with the African savannah elephant on the endangered list and the forest elephant on the critically endangered list, the survival of the species was at a tipping point.

Even removing one mature bull could have a devastating ripple effect.

“We lose 35 000 to 45 000 elephants a year to poaching.

“Poaching of ivory is still rampant and these poor creatures are being decimated.

“There is no doubt that we are losing a significant amount to poaching and that is why, when elephants and humans come into contact, we need to mitigate lethal interventions,” she said.

Delsink said the matriarch elephant played an equally important role.

Female elephants never leave the herd they are born into and retain a huge amount of information of where to go and what to do, such as ancient paths and finding water holes.

She said simply removing an elephant, male or female, has far reaching effects, saying, “we need to do right by them and mitigate conflict as best we can”.

Her research proposes “novel, risk-based, practical solutions that incorporates elephant spatial ecology into management planning in a way that is adaptive but speaks to all stakeholders and reserve specific objectives”.

Her research supervisor ,UKZN’s Professor Rob Slotow said: “Audrey investigated approaches to management of endangered African elephants, using understanding gained from studying their movements and behaviour.

“She demonstrated that immunocontraception implementation has no social or behavioural consequences and showed the importance of considering the large home range of elephants when addressing localised problems.

“She also developed a novel, risk assessment approach for effective pre-emptive conflict mitigation,” said Slotow.

Delsink plans to continue research on human-wildlife co-existence and conflict mitigation.

“The change starts with each of us, but we need a global policy that sets this stage.

“I hope to make this change through structured engagements processes with key stakeholders,” she said.

Her advice to students: “The last year has been incredibly difficult on all of us as we adjust to a new ’normal’ in the wake of Covid-19.

“For those completing their studies while juggling life’s challenges, remember that small hops can take you far.

“Some days will be slower than others, but just keep moving.”

Original article: https://www.iol.co.za/ios/news/problem- ... a9d89278d0

[Lisbeth]

Sea change: Why the case for shark nets no longer holds water

By Dian Spear• 20 June 2021


An endangered scalloped hammerhead shark caught in a shark net at Palm beach, Sydney. (Photo: Nicole McLachlan)

Non-lethal alternatives are vital to ensuring the protection of endangered shark species and other marine life.

Beaches in Durban and Cape Town have suffered the traumatic aftermath of water-user deaths from shark bites, and the authorities have responded by implementing measures aimed at getting residents and tourists back in the water.

Durban adopted the Australian solution, which was the brainchild of the provincial fisheries department and had been used in Sydney since 1937: shark nets. These are effectively gill nets that catch and kill sharks and other marine life.


Deploying the shark nets near Durban. (Photo: KwaZulu Natal Sharks Board)

In 2019, research pointed to the ineffectiveness of the Shark Meshing Programme in New South Wales, Australia in protecting water users as well as its massive impact on marine biodiversity. More recently there has been a political response, with councillors from Sydney calling for a ban on shark nets and a shift to animal-friendly technology, such as drones and shark listening stations after seeing images of marine life that had been killed in shark nets.

In Cape Town, the approach to managing shark risk is animal friendly. It includes an exclusion net in a “sheltered corner of Fish Hoek that is a high-risk area and the most populated swimming area, so it is the area with the biggest spatial overlap between people and sharks in Fish Hoek”, according to Sarah Waries from the Shark Spotters programme, which has been funded by the Save Our Seas Foundation since 2009.


Blue shark in driftnet off California’s Channel Islands. (Photo: Howard Hall)

The Shark Spotters programme also includes a system of elevated mountain lookouts manned by staff with binoculars and flags indicating shark risk on six beaches around Cape Town — a red flag indicates high risk because of a recent shark sighting or high risk of shark activity. James Lea, CEO of the Save Our Seas Foundation, says “these non-lethal alternatives to shark nets are vital to ensuring the protection of endangered shark species and other marine life, and the [foundation] actively supports the use of these and other animal-friendly methods, such as drone surveillance, that can be used to reduce negative interactions between people and sharks.”

However, Waries says the mitigation measures used in Cape Town are not necessarily transferable to Durban. This is because of rough seas, the lack of mountains next to the beaches there, and the different types of sharks that occur there. She explains that “white sharks are big and swim near the surface, which makes them easier to spot, but bull sharks swim a lot deeper, so it is harder to see their shadow.”


Swimmers inside the area protected by the Fish Hoek exclusion net in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo: Shark Spotters)

In October 2019, Kate Sheridan from the FitzPatrick Institute at the University of Cape Town surveyed 575 water users to find out how they perceive sharks, shark risk and the management of shark risk.

The survey was conducted at Muizenberg beach in Cape Town, where the Shark Spotters programme operates, and North and Bay of Plenty beaches in Durban, where shark nets have been deployed since 1952 and drum lines with baited hooks have been deployed since 2007 by the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board.

Although the Sharks Board is aware of the environmental impact of its shark risk management, which kills whales, dolphins, turtles and rays in addition to about 20 different shark species, Waries explains that “it is very hard to change, because if they take out the shark nets and there is a shark bite tomorrow by chance, immediately it is the government’s fault for removing the shark nets.”


A general view of a Shark Spotter in Noordhoek, Cape Town. (Photo: Lars Jockumsen)

In her survey, Sheridan found that surfers in Durban felt safer than surfers in Cape Town. However, what many people may not realise is that the nets offer a false sense of security. Waries says a sign saying that a beach is protected from sharks is “a misrepresentation, it is not protected, your safety is not guaranteed, and you may still encounter a shark: the data show that one-third of the sharks are coming back from the beach on their way out when they get caught in the shark nets, as the sharks go around the nets”.

Sheridan also found that surfers perceived the risk of shark bite as low and “even if a shark had been seen in the last hour, surfers were going to go into the water”. These surfers weren’t concerned about spotting conditions or the presence of others in the water; they cared most about surf conditions and would stay out of the water if they knew a shark was there at the time.

According to Sheridan, “unless a shark is right there, if the surf conditions are good people will go in the water, and people aren’t actually scared of sharks: it is not something that they are consciously worrying about when they get in the water.” However, Waries emphasises the need for “people to buy into the responsibility of thinking about shark risk and considering factors that increase risk, such as a recent sighting and seeing a pod of dolphins feeding and birds diving”.


Kate Sheridan at Muizenberg beach in Cape Town, ready to survey surfers. (Photo: Ceci Cerrilla)

Sheridan found a huge disconnect between the sentiment of water users and their knowledge of what shark management entails — “most people were so strongly opposed to lethal management and in favour of nonlethal approaches, but only 8.3% of people knew that shark nets are lethal.”

Sheridan also found that most surfers did not think that killing sharks makes it safer. In Durban, only 11% of surfers knew that shark nets catch and kill sharks, and 15% of surfers thought that they form a barrier, whereas 37% of surfers knew that drum lines attract, catch and kill sharks.

More knowledge about drum lines is attributed to their more recent installation and media coverage. Those people who knew what drum lines were and didn’t have a good understanding of shark nets were angry about them. According to Sheridan, “people seem very angry, and I think people don’t like the idea of there being baits close to the beach. That seems to be something that people thought was crazy, which makes sense.” This was interesting to Sheridan, since drum lines are a preferred method in terms of their environmental impact, because they are more selective.

Sheridan argues that if water users are not that worried about shark risk, perceive the risk of shark bites as low, and do not want sharks to be killed, then perhaps the rationale for having shark nets no longer holds. Additionally, she emphasises the need for engaging stakeholders in the management of human-wildlife conflict, especially in this case, because the reason given for lethal management is to control fear and make people feel better. She also says water users should be aware of the risks they are taking — “what people think matters because they are being used as the reason for it happening”. DM

[Richprins]

What to do?

[Lisbeth]

Leave the sea to the ones calling it home, but I am afraid that it is not that easy The nets are killing too many inhabitants of the sea though

[Lisbeth]

Africans don’t cry for lions: The victims of human-wildlife conflict are more worthy of tears

By Ed Stoddard• 29 June 2021


A lion in the Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. (Photo: Flickr)

Jimmy Kimmel, you cried for Cecil the Lion: Any tears for a human named Rodwell Khomazana?

It has been almost six years since a lion named Cecil was killed by an American hunter in Zimbabwe. The big cat had strayed outside the boundary of Hwange National Park and was shot with an arrow by Walter Palmer, a dentist from Minnesota, on the night of 1 July 2015.

Cecil was popular with tourists who visited the park and was the subject of a study by Oxford University’s highly regarded Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WCRU), which had been tracking his movements by means of a radio collar since 2008. According to WCRU, Cecil was one of 65 lions, 45 of which were equipped with radio collars, killed by trophy hunters in the area from 1999 to 2015.

Still, Zimbabwean authorities launched a probe into the affair – lions are fair game in Zimbabwe, but there were questions over the legality of this particular hunt – and, well, Cecil had a name! So news of his demise slowly gained traction, and then took off on 27 July when Palmer was outed as his killer.

On 28 July, US talk show host Jimmy Kimmel made an impassioned comment on his show about the incident, choking back tears as he assured Africans that “not all Americans are like this jackhole” – Palmer being the jackhole, of course, whose practice was already being besieged by protesters.

Africans, it turned out, had a different view. Goodwell Nzou, a Zimbabwean doctoral student studying molecular medicine in the United States, wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times titled “In Zimbabwe, we don’t cry for lions”.

“Did all those Americans signing petitions understand that lions actually kill people? That all the talk about Cecil being ‘beloved’ or a ‘local favorite’ was media hype? Did Jimmy Kimmel choke up because Cecil was murdered or because he confused him with Simba from The Lion King?” Nzou asked.

The jarring contrast between the response from affluent Westerners – whose bubble-wrapped children as a rule do not live in fear of wild-animal attack – and that of Africans was brought into sharp relief recently by the heart-wrenching but also heart-warming case of Rodwell Khomazana.

Rodwell, aged nine, was the victim of a chilling nocturnal attack on 2 May during a nighttime church service outside Harare. Savaged by a hyena, he lost his left eye, nose and other parts of his face in the mauling. Through the kindness of strangers, he was brought to SA this past week for reconstructive surgery by a team led by renowned plastic surgeon Dr Ridwan Mia, one of the heroes in this drama. The first surgery on Saturday was successful.

Rodwell’s case – like the hunting of Cecil – is sadly not exceptional, but is surely far more worthy of tears.

In April, ZimParks said: “In the past five years, nearly 500 [human] lives have been lost while 582 cattle were lost to wildlife attacks. Thousands of hectares of crops have been destroyed. Over the same period, 153 people were injured by wildlife.”

So, in the six years since Cecil’s slaying, at least 500 Zimbabweans have been killed in human/wildlife conflict, and Rodwell has now been added to the list of those maimed and traumatised. Many no doubt suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. There can be few things more brutalising than being mangled by something that wants to eat you or being roughed up by something the size of an elephant.

In May this year, I spoke to ZimParks spokesperson Tinashe Farawo about some of these issues. (He could not be reached for comment this week.) He told me that, by that point in the year, 21 Zimbabweans had been killed in wild animal attacks, a dozen by crocodiles. Last year, he said, half of those killed had fallen victim to elephant attack, followed by lions, hippos and crocodiles.

I cannot independently verify this data but have asked some experts about it.

Keith Somerville of the Centre for Journalism at the University of Kent, who has written widely on wildlife issues, told me by email that the data “doesn’t look totally unbelievable” if one included snake bites, but still felt that “around 100 deaths a year looks a bit high”.

Another lion expert I spoke to did not feel he knew enough about the situation in Zimbabwe but did not think it inconceivable if snake incidents were included.

The bottom line is that a lot of people are almost certainly killed or maimed by big animals in Zimbabwe each year, even if there are question marks about the official figures. Across the continent the toll is far higher.

Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF-led government is hardly known for its transparency, and its record on human rights is appalling. The officially stated Zimbabwe data on the human, crop and livestock toll of human/wildlife conflict must be set against the backdrop of its attempts to revive its big game hunting industry, with plans to issue permits to shoot up to 500 elephants this year. With an economy in shambles, it needs cash anywhere it can get it.

Zimbabwe also sits on, according to official figures, stocks of more than 130 tonnes of ivory and more than five tonnes of rhino horn, which it would like to sell on global markets, but is stymied from doing so by Cites, the UN convention that regulates the worldwide trade in wild flora and fauna and the products derived from them.

Debate about such issues, such as “consumptive” versus “non-consumptive” use of wildlife, is perfectly legitimate. The “anti-trade” narrative tends to be driven by activists targeting a mostly affluent and white audience without any skin in the game. Plenty of wildlife NGOs and all governments support a regulated trade or consumptive use of wildlife in some form of another. That is one reason Cites exists.

Zimbabwe’s case is complicated by the fact that, although it claims to need money for wildlife conservation, the opaque and well-documented corrupt nature of the Zanu-PF regime offers little promise that such funds raised will be put to good use.

That does not take away from the brutal fact that many Zimbabweans, almost all poor, black and rural, fall victim to wildlife conflict by virtue of their poverty, even if the official figures are not verifiable and possibly inflated. The stats may also be understated because of the state’s lack of capacity and cultural issues such as the links made between wildlife attacks and witchcraft, which mean such incidents may go unreported. The victims fall below what I have termed the “faunal poverty line” – a truly terrifying space that was the prehistoric, never mind pre­-industrial, norm – to which no child should be subjected in the 21st century.

Zimbabwe also claims to have an elephant population of about 85,000 and growing, second only to Botswana’s. That is a recipe for growing human/wildlife conflict unless initiatives such as fencing, which are extremely costly and have ecological consequences, are rolled out.

Back to my question to Kimmel (a comedian I often find witty and entertaining, but on this issue is simply a product of his bubble-wrapped, above-the-faunal-poverty-line environment, which I share with him): Do you have any tears for Rodwell?

In his New York Times piece, Nzou noted: “We Zimbabweans are left shaking our heads, wondering why Americans care more about African animals than about African people.”

Africans don’t cry for lions. They cry for the victims of human/wildlife conflict. They cry for the Rodwells of Africa. And if the Jimmy Kimmels of this world want to protect the feline Cecils of this world, they had better pay heed. DM168