January Newsletter 2018

Happy New year to all our fans, and we sincerely hope you have a very prosperous year so that you can get your butts back to Tuningi for more safari fun times !!

Ok, so… this month we did not have too many busy days at the lodge, as everyone returned from the crazy festive season, but there were a few nice things that happened… lets have a look…..

Tsala and her handsome son made a couple of appearances, and it seems as if he is really responding well to the habituation process with the safari vehicles, and is taking the highlight of your safari to an all new level !!He is growing nicely, and was even seen on a young impala kill, which could have been his own, and that would prove that his mother and his massive instinct is driving him to become a real player here in the savannas of Madikwe.

The local lion pride, The Mica Pride…. Well… they are just going from strength to strength, and the cubs are growing fast. The 2 Chimbro males have been spending a huge amount of time here around the lodge, protecting the land from raid by the males from the north, which has resulted in some seriously loud screaming matches which reverberate deep within your body as you just sit down to a glass of wine at dinner time !!

The other interesting sighting we had this month, was the unfortunate death of a male giraffe which we think got struck by lightning not far from the lodge.

He did however give us some awesome sightings of lions and hyenas that came in to feed on the bounty.

But I want to concentrate on the scavengers, and the role that they play once the bigger predators have left the carcass….

What Are Vultures?

A vulture is a bird of prey that scavenges for its food, meaning that it searches the ground for animal carcasses to eat. Typically, these carcasses are what is left uneaten from other predators. This bird species is divided into two distinct groups: New World vultures and Old World vultures. New World vultures are native throughout North and South America while Old World vultures can be found in Asia, Europe, and Africa. Despite their differences in origin, most vultures share a similar appearance. Vulture heads are typically bald or covered in much shorter feathers than those found on the body. Additionally, vultures have a large, hooked beak, which makes tearing and eating flesh easier.

Cultural Significance of Vultures

In many cultures around the world, particularly in Western societies, vultures are viewed with disdain. Commonly, people tend to look down on these birds as dirty, ugly, and unhygienic, failing to recognize their importance. People of other cultures, however, hold the vulture in high regard. This is true with the inhabitants of the Tibetan plateau, where vultures are part of traditional funerary customs. In this culture, people are not buried after death as a means of controlling preventable infectious diseases. Instead, the dead are laid to rest in the sky. Monks prepare the bodies of the deceased and set them on platforms to draw the attention of nearby vultures. The vultures discover these human bodies, ingesting them and carrying them off into the sky. Many people view this as one final good deed as the deceased is able to offer something to another living creature before going off to rest in the sky. This practice is not unique to Tibet, however. Historical evidence suggests it has been practiced by cultures around the world for over 11,000 years.

Role of Vultures in the Ecosystem

Vultures are often overlooked as lowly scavengers. However, they are a key component to maintaining healthy ecosystems. Because of their role as nature’s garbage disposers, vultures are able to keep the environment clean and free of contagious diseases. These birds have an extremely corrosive stomach acid that allows them to consume rotting animal corpses. These scavenged leftovers are often infected with anthrax, botulinum toxins, rabies, and hog cholera that would otherwise kill other scavengers. By ridding the ground of dead animals, vultures prevent diseases from spreading to humans and animals.

Vultures and Poaching

Because vultures are attracted to carrion (dead animals), they have played an indirect role in helping authorities identify illegal poaching activity. This is particularly true of elephant and rhinoceros poachers, who leave the animals’ bodies after removing their tusks and horns. Vultures are attracted to the remains and fly in circles around the ground where it has been left behind. Authorities are able to track recent instances of illegal hunting by following these scavenger birds and taking note of where they are circling.

Poisoning Vultures

Because vultures attract attention to illegal poaching activities, they have become the number one enemy of poachers. A common practice of many poachers is to poison the carcasses left behind after removing tusks and horns from elephants and rhinos. The poachers do this to kill off the vultures so that they can continue their illegal work undetected. One example of this occurred in Namibia in July of 2013, when over 500 scavenger birds (including vultures) were poisoned from a single elephant carcass. It is important to remember that in addition to these direct deaths, many others were killed indirectly. This is because many of these birds quite likely left behind offspring which were relying on their parents to bring food back to the nest. Experts claim that this poisoning case is one of the worst in the history of Southern Africa.

Vultures are also indirectly poisoned by local farmers and hunters. In African countries, for example, farmers often leave poisoned meat or carcasses on their farmlands. They do this to distract predatory animals, like lions and cheetahs, from killing villagers and their livestock, like cows and goats. Unfortunately, vultures are also attracted to this poisoned carrion and many have died as a result of ingesting the poison. Something similar happens in the United States, where many hunters use lead ammunition to kill target specie, like coyotes. Once shot, the animals typically run off into the wilderness and die. Vultures then find these animals and set about consuming them. These birds end up eating some of the lead ammunition as well and are slowly poisoned. California condors are most likely to suffer this unfortunate fate.

Effect of Smaller Vulture Populations

As a result of direct and indirect killing, many vulture species are now endangered. Of the 23 vulture species (16 Old World and 7 New World) 16 are considered vulnerable, threatened, or endangered. The population of several of these species has declined by over 90% in some areas of the world. When vultures are unable to clean up the carrion in an area, other scavenger animals increase in population. The scavengers that tend to move in where vulture populations are low include: feral dogs, rats, and blowfly larvae. While these animals do help to remove carcasses from the landscape, they are also more likely to spread disease to human populations and other animals as well. In India, for example, the feral dog population increased significantly after vultures consumed cow carcasses poisoned with diclofenac, a painkiller. These feral dogs carried rabies and went on to infect other dogs and local people. Between 1993 and 2006, the government of India spent an additional $34 billion to fight the spread of rabies. India continues to have the highest rate of rabies in the world.

What Can Be Done to Save Vultures?

In order to save the vulture species from extinction and protect the complex ecosystems from becoming overrun with carrion and disease, the current number of vulture deaths must be reduced. Around the world, but mainly focused in Asia and Africa, nonprofit organizations are working with local governments to implement conservation plans. These plans typically include public educational campaigns in order to target local populations, farmers and poachers. Because vultures are also used for traditional medicine in some places, these organizations and governments are working to create regulations that control the killing and selling of vultures. Additionally, many organizations are dedicated to increasing research of vultures and their roles in the ecosystem.

It is important to remember that even though the vulture species lacks the cute cuddly appearance of some endangered species, it is still a critical piece to a much larger, complex ecosystem. The world needs vultures to help control the spread of disease.

We also had some awesome sightings of the male cheetahs taking down a zebra, which was quite I big one I might add, and the news of the females is that they are doing extremely well, and have seemed to have split into 2 and 1, and they have already had some interaction with the males, resulting in one of the females getting slightly injured, which we fixed up. They have been making some kills, and we hope that they are learning how to deal with the bigger predators like hyenas and lions, as this would be their biggest victory for survival here in Madikwe.

With all the rain we have had this month, the bush is really starting to turn green, and the animals are loving it !!Not as much as the amphibians though, and I just want to share some info on the FOAM NEST FROG, which I am sure you have all seen at some point….

Sometimes animals do the strangest things. Like building a nest out of foam. It just seems like a strange choice of places to lay your eggs, but hey, if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. Anyway, today’s animal, the grey foam-nest frog, chooses this method to reproduce. I guess that makes sense, given the frog’s name.

Foam-nest frogs are found in Africa, pretty much everywhere south of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They live in tropical and subtropical forests in the north, and in drier savanna in the south. Dry areas are not the best habitats for frogs, who lose moisture through their skins, but the foam-nest frog has some key adaptations to deal with this.

One of the ways the frog conserves moisture is by tucking its legs under itself, keeping its surface area low. It also has impermeable skin, unlike most amphibians, which lose water freely though their skin. This allows the foam-nest frog to produce uric acid as excrement instead of urine, which saves a ton of water. Finally, the frog is able to secrete a waterproof cocoon in the dry season to further minimize the amount of water lost.

When these frogs mate, however, all attempts at conserving moisture are thrown out the window. Defenestrated, even. The female secretes some nasty fluid from her cloaca, on a branch or structure overhanging some water. Males then join the female, and whip up the secretion into a foam. Many males can join the party, and sometimes multiple females will also show up. The females have to return to the water multiple times during this process to get enough liquid to build a suitable nest.

Once the nest is prepared, which can take up to seven hours, the female lays her eggs in the foam. Anywhere from 500 to 1300 eggs can be laid in a single nest. The eggs hatch in the nest and in three to five days the tadpoles drop out of the nest and into the pond.

Why these frogs choose to build nests out of foam I do not know, but my guess is that the frogs want to keep the eggs moist, but out of pond where predators might have their way with them. That may not be why, but at least the foam nest thing makes these frogs super cool!

Ok… well.. that’s it ….

See you all soon ….

Regards,

Gavin and the T-Team