Africa Wild

Let's shut all these lion parks, because people might think that the lions are not wild if they go for a walk with the owner

Tragic.

After the death of a woman and a female elephant, Dinokeng Reserve has a lot to answer for


BY LOUZEL LOMBARD STEYN - 5 MARCH 2018 - ETURBONEWS -

All is not well at the Dinokeng Game Reserve in Gauteng. As the reserve weathers the furious storm of criticism after a lion belonging to local owner Kevin Richardson killed a young woman, accusations have been levelled at the reserve over its handling of elephants.

The Elephant Specialist Advisory Group (ESAG) have criticized Dinokeng management for administering a controversial vaccine, typically used to suppress musth, to one of its young elephant bulls. This after elephant management specialists serving on the Dinokeng Steering Committee (DSC) were never consulted on the use of the GnRH vaccine, or the elephant’s alleged state of musth, in the first place.

The recent death of an elephant cow, misidentified as a bull elephant during a collaring operation, has further baffled specialists working with the reserve. The cow was darted by a local vet who thought the elephant to be male. Because of the weight and size, elephant bulls generally receive a higher dosage of immobilising agent than cows of the same age.

In January this year, the NGO Elephants, Rhinos & People (ERP) also withdrew from the reserve and no longer provides it with a monthly grant of over R100 000 in elephant monitoring services.

According to Dr Marion Garaï, ESAG chairperson and member of the DSC, the committee was never consulted over the use of the GnRH vaccine, as there was no mention of the bull being in musth during the previous DSC meeting in November 2017. News of the GnRH treatment came via other specialists in the field, who were consulted despite having no previous involvement with Dinokeng. In response, ESAG directed a letter directly to Dinokeng management advising against the use of GnRH vaccine, as it would not have effect on the ‘problem behaviour’ the elephant had been accused of.

Despite this, an elephant named Hot Stuff, described as a problem elephant, was vaccinated.

GnRH suppresses the testosterone levels and therefore suppresses musth. Garaï said the main issues in terms of managing the young bulls at Dinokeng had always been about the improperly maintained fences – not musth-induced aggression. ‘It appears the musth excuse was used following my letter of explanation what GnRH is used for, namely to supress musth related aggression,’ said Garaï.

In a follow-up letter addressed to Dinokeng landowners, management claimed Hot Stuff had been ‘permanently in musth over the past three months.’ However experts say it’s highly unlikely for a young bull to be in a state of musth for such an extended period.

When questioned on this, official Dinokeng veterinarian Dr Jacques O’Dell said he could not comment on the matter, as it would ‘break client-patient confidentiality’.

This is not the first time controversial decisions have been made regarding elephant management at the reserve. In November last year, Dinokeng applied for two Damage-Causing Animal (DCA) permits to have Hot Stuff and Tiny Tim, another young elephant bull, killed. In motivating the permits, there had not been any mention of the Hot Stuff’s ‘permanent state of musth’.

ERP director Dereck Milburn said the decision to apply for the permits had been made without ERP’s knowledge and was in stark contrast to the organisation’s main objective which is to save elephants from culling. He stated at the time that ERP would have no choice but to reconsider its position at the reserve if the permits were used.

In January, despite the DCA permits being unused, ERP distanced itself from Dinokeng. According to Milburn, difficult relations between his employees and the landowners on Dinokeng were hindering proper elephant management by the NGO.

ERP wildlife monitors, along with all funding, were subsequently withdrawn.

Dinokeng then decided to collar three elephant bulls, including Hot Stuff. According to Garaï, the reason that Dinokeng opted to dart and collar a bull in musth was strange. ‘This again questions whether the elephant was, in fact, really in musth for three months.’

Shortly after the collaring operation, one of the two other collared elephants, identified at the time as J Junior, was found dead. Preliminary findings by the vet, O’Dell, indicated that the animal might have been shot two weeks earlier.

Major confusion

The thorough examination of the carcass revealed a bombshell: the dead elephant was, in fact, an elephant cow and not the bull J Junior, who was supposed to receive the collar. The wrong elephant had been darted, collared, and declared dead.

The two vets at the collaring operation, O’Dell and veterinary assistant Katja Koeppel, were unable recognise the elephant was female. According to Millburn, who had been present at the collaring operation, they could also not see a bullet entry wound “because of the way the elephant was lying down”. However no wounds were reported when the animal recovered and stood up after anaesthesia.

In an official letter directed at the Dinokeng landowners shortly after the elephant’s death, O’Dell stated that severe septicaemia was detected inside the elephant’s carcass when it was found dead. Post mortem results are still pending, but without the recovery of the bullet there is no conclusive evidence. The elephant carcass was buried on the day.No explanation was offered as to why the two vets who darted and collared the elephant were unable to distinguish its sex. The confusion was added to when Dinokeng management sent a letter to landowners triumphantly stating that ‘J Junior is still alive and well’, despite ‘a number of assumptions made by all parties throughout the exercise.’

An insult to advisors

‘It is totally incomprehensible,’ said Garaï, ‘how so many people and two wildlife veterinaries could not differentiate a bull from a cow.’

Dinokeng Game Enterprises Chairman Etienne Toerien insisted that ‘the elephants at Dinokeng are well-managed and ‘not in danger’. Yet he confirmed that much of the fencing within the property was not up to standard, leaving elephants to break through properties inside Dinokeng as they please.

He also confirmed that, since January, the monitoring of the animals had been stopped and that ‘poachers can be in the park at any given time’. He said the cow could have been shot by either poachers or farmers on the property, but that it ‘is anybody’s guess what happened’.

According to Garaï, ‘It is offensive to the steering committee and all other scientific advisors that have been consulted in the past but not listened to, and further people asked for their opinion on the GnRH that had not been part of the past advisors or steering committee, to read all the excuses brought forward.’

In November 2016, Dinokeng hit the news when a young elephant bull was illegally shot by a farmer after breaking through the reserve’s fences. The farmer had killed the elephant without warning and only phoned the reserve to say they should collect the carcass.

A full investigation by the stock theft unit of the police and officials of Gauteng department of rural and agricultural development was launched, but the case was later dropped.

Read original article: https://www.eturbonews.com/179359/fter- ... lot-answer

Maybe it is about time to have a look into all these smaller reserves?

What kind of vets were those!

DINOKENG’S CHEETAHS: A CONSERVATION SUCCESS STORY

Vincent van der Merwe, EWT Carnivore Conservation Programme, Cheetah Metapopulation Coordinator, vincentv@ewt.org.za, and Stephan Prins, Dinokeng Game Reserve Conservation Manager

If you told me fifteen years ago that there would be a 19,000 hectare Big Five game reserve 30 minutes from Pretoria, supporting a wild Cheetah population of 25 individuals, I would have laughed at you. However, it is now May 2021, and exactly that has happened. Although Dinokeng Game Reserve management has reintroduced several historically occurring large mammals, its Cheetah reintroduction has been particularly successful. This must-tell story documents Dinokeng’s contribution to the conservation of Africa’s most endangered cat species.

first heard of Dinokeng Game Reserve (DGR) in 2007 whilst working as a schoolteacher in Maputo, Mozambique. I was also doing some part-time environmental consultancy work and was contracted to conduct an Invertebrate Assessment for a proposed Big Five game reserve adjacent to Hammanskraal, a large township outside Pretoria. The idea was to have a Big Five game reserve in Gauteng for the 2010 World Cup football fans to visit. I conducted the assessment in 2008 and recall walking through the veld, hopping fences every few hundred meters. The place was riddled with old farm infrastructure, a rusted drum here, an old tyre there, and fences poles everywhere. I laughed off the idea of Lion, elephant, rhino, Leopard, and Cheetahs roaming an area largely transformed by 150 years of agriculture. The idea of reintroducing wildlife adjacent to one of the largest human settlements in South Africa just seemed a little far out, a little pie-in-the-sky.

Fast-forward four years and an MSc later, I found myself employed by the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) as Cheetah Range Expansion Project Coordinator. I got a phone call from a gentleman called Ètienne Toerien: ‘Vince, we’re interested in reintroducing Cheetah’. Initially, sceptic, I mentioned that I was familiar with the area and would be sure to visit for a reintroduction feasibility assessment. I was dumbstruck by the fact that someone had actually managed to convince 126 landowners to drop fences and combine properties to form a sizeable conservation area. Dinokeng Game Reserve (DGR) is a fine example of what can be achieved when government and private initiatives join hands.

Regardless, there was plenty of scepticism. Many people imagine the bush as a place far away from home, at least Kruger Park distance away. The notion that the bush can be visited within Gauteng, thirty minutes away from Pretoria, appears to be a psychological barrier to many nature lovers. I recall a former colleague snubbing Dinokeng Game Reserve, saying, “How can you have a game reserve close to a densely populated area?”. People forget that just 150 years ago, one of the largest wildlife migrations in southern Africa took place in the vicinity of the DGR. The reserve lies on the Springbokvlakte (Springbok flats). The first colonial farmers that settled there reported massive herds of Springbok that took two days to pass by farmsteads. Whilst conducting the initial site visit, I drove through some absolutely beautiful parts of the DGR, rolling grasslands interspersed with Silver Cluster Leaf trees. The DGR represents a remarkable effort to restore the former ecological glory of the Springbokvlakte, and it was perfect for Cheetahs.

The next step was to set about finding a founder population of Cheetahs for the DGR. At that time, in early 2012, the metapopulation on fenced reserves had declined considerably. Forty-eight wild Cheetahs had just been sold to captivity to recover costs from a tourism industry struggling to cope with the after-effects of the global financial crisis. Although a nice lion-savvy female was sourced from Karongwe Game Reserve in the Lowveld, the only male available was an Eastern Cape runaway, the infamous Darlington male. He was not an ideal candidate for the DGR, having just escaped from Gondwana Game Reserve near Mossel Bay, whereafter he proceeded with a six-month trek over the Outeniqua Mountains, across the Karoo, and right through Addo Elephant National Park. After killing 34 goats, he was caught in a gin trap on a farm near Darlington.

I phoned Etienne and mentioned that I had managed to source a male, albeit a well-known problem animal. The founders were released onto the Dinokeng Game Reserve in late 2012, and by August 2013, the first litter of three was born. The reintroduction got off to a great start, but soon things started going pear-shaped. The Dinokeng Cheetahs started to escape repeatedly. On one occasion, the adult female and her three cubs were seen running northwards across the N1 highway, treating N1 traffic to what must have been a most amusing sighting. The helicopter costs associated with their recapture were starting to add up, and finally, after repeated stressful recaptures, we lost the Darlington male to immobilisation complications. It was a major setback, but the Darlington male had blessed us with some extraordinary genetics that persist in the metapopulation to this day. His daughter was relocated to Welgevonden in the Waterberg, and his two sons went to Madikwe to prevent inbreeding. After a few years on Madikwe, one of his sons was eventually relocated to Malawi, where he survives to this day. It is hard to imagine the young cub that crossed the N1 highway all those years back, now roaming the Miombo woodlands of Malawi.

To prevent a similar fate as the Darlington male, the Karongwe female was relocated to Mountain Zebra National Park in the Eastern Cape. We were back to zero on Dinokeng reserve. Wildlife reintroductions are a roller coaster ride with highs and lows! Regardless, Cheetah conservation had benefited from the initial reintroduction attempt. Four animals had come from two founders, suggesting that Dinokeng reserve was suitable for Cheetahs. We then moved to identify a new male coalition from Lalibela in the Eastern Cape for relocation to the DGR. These guys were a perfect fit. Although rarely seen by tourists, they lived for five years on the reserve. For some reason, they preferred the low prey density sourveld regions on the eastern side of the reserve Dinokeng. Shortly after their arrival, we sourced a female Cheetah from Rietvlei. Rietvlei is what we refer to as a soft reserve for Cheetah. Soft reserves have low densities of competing predators, including Lion, Leopard, Hyaena and Wild Dog. Rietvlei does not have any competing predators at all! Although the prospects of successful reintroduction were small, this was the only female available at the time. I remember following her post-release on Dinokeng. She persistently got herself cornered on the fenceline. I thought to myself that it was only a matter of time before a lion cornered her and finished her off.

Fortunately, we were completely wrong about the Rietvlei female…