Prophylactic campaigns
The biggest threat to wildlife in Southern Africa is loss of habitat through encroachment by the ever expanding human population.
AWARE believes that by improving the livelihood of people living on the edge of conservation areas, this will reduce encroachment into the Parks for the purposes of subsistence poaching and harvesting wood by cutting down trees.
Most of the people living in these remote regions are extremely poor and use cattle as their main currency. Donkeys are used for draft power and dogs are mainly used for guarding goat kraals against wild predators. There are even cats to keep rodents away from stored grain. Therefore, providing a much needed health care service to these animals, with an emphasis on population control, can have a direct effect on the quality of both human and animal life.
Keeping a check on the disease status of domestic animals adjoining Parks is also important as diseases are often transmitted between domestic and wild animals and vice versa. This is particularly important for wild carnivore populations, which are vulnerable because of their relatively small sizes and susceptibility to fatal viral diseases like Distemper and Rabies. Whilst performing prophylactic campaigns, blood samples are taken from the animal population in an area so that exposure to disease pathogens can be detected.
Working in these marginal areas also provides good first hand knowledge of other threats to wildlife, which are mainly borne out of conflict with ‘problem animals’, e.g. poisoning of hyaenas.
Latest updates
Groundbreaking sterilisation campaign
AWARE, in conjunction with the Department of Veterinary Services, recently launched an unprecedented canine sterilisation and vaccination campaign in the Maramani Communal Land within the Limpopo Shashe Trans Frontier Conservation Area (LSTFCA). 44 bitches were spayed and 46 male dogs were castrated in a little over a week, making a total of 90 successful sterilisations. 165 dogs in total were Frontlined, de-wormed and vaccinated for Rabies and DA2PPL, and several others requiring medical attention were treated. The programme was very well received by the local community which lacks the resources to provide their animals with even basic health care. The bitches in these areas are extremely nutritionally stressed as continual pregnancies and lactations drain their bodies of scarce nutrition. Sterilising females improves body condition considerably. Castrating males decreases aggression and therefore the incidence of fight wounds (which are left untreated) and prevents them from spreading transmissible venereal tumour (TVT), a common sexually transmitted cancer of the genitals. This population control also prevents death of puppies born which seldom make it to 3 months of age. The Trust intends to run 3 or 4 such campaigns a year.
Read more in our May 2009 newsletter
SPANA funded donkey clinics well attended
AWARE has run the third of its SPANA funded donkey clinics in lower Gweru accompanied by Inspector under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, Nadia Marabini, and Robert of the Gweru SPCA. The clinics are now regularly attended by 65 donkeys belonging to 34 individuals. Cruelty is still being perpetrated on these animals when they try to eat vegetables planted by crop-growers within the confines of the township. Several donkeys have been treated for axe or burn wounds. Other predominant veterinary ailments include lameness and eye problems, and the donkeys are also routinely de-wormed, dipped and vaccinated. Read more in April, July and October newsletters.
