In August last year the Wildlife ACT Fund and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife fitted a Wild Dog SAT collar onto a male African Wild Dog nicknamed ‘Ian’. Ian is one of the adult African Wild Dogs in Hluhluwe's Crosroads Pack in South Africa. The Wild Dog SAT collar unfortunately got damaged and a section of it (the battery section and VHF unit) fell off. As luck would have it, the back-up VHF collar also stopped working! So, Megan Lategan and the conservation volunteers had no way of tracking the wild dog pack via VHF.Megan and the team eventually found the pack after a few days of searching in the areas where they are often found (looking at previous data from the Wild Dog SAT collar). The vet was called in and Ian was darted again. The old SAT collar was removed and new anti-snare VHF collar was fitted. We are now refurbishing the collar and are planning to fit it to another member in the pack. Ian's Wild Dog SAT collar was sponsored by Sure Travel.
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Ian, sedated with his new anti-snare collar fitted.[/caption][caption id="attachment_6509" align="aligncenter" width="1280"]
Wildlife ACT's Megan Lategan helped fit Ian's new collar.[/caption]
To track endangered species like Cheetah, African Wild Dog, Rhino and Leopard, various forms of tracking collars are used. These include radio, GPS and satellite collars. This equipment makes it possible for Wildlife ACT monitors to track these animals daily, which means that if they are injured, sick, trapped in a poacher’s snare, or have escaped out of a reserve, help is not far away. Important research can also be conducted including animal movement patterns, population demographics and inter-species interactions – all to help with the future conservation of these species.Wildlife ACT is also helping to develop and test anti-poaching collars with reinforced plates and special rivets to prevent animals like Cheetah, Leopards or Wild Dogs from choking when caught in a poacher’s snare. This means that a collar can literally save an animal’s life! Find out more about wildlife tracking and monitoring
