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How Namibia protects wild animals + IoT collars


A fur seal puppy that is almost not afraid of people. The country is amazing in that you can scratch the nose even of a lion cub, but it is better to do it from the car.

Given: you have a country in which all sorts of cool inhabitants live: rhinos, elephants, leopards, cheetahs and other much less dangerous animals. It’s somehow customary for us to think that if there is a wild beast, it should sit in the forest. Forest - it’s like a draw. And in Namibia, almost all of the land is either farms, or collective farms, or a desert. That is, there are simply no "no" places for wild animals.

The problem is that the same elephants who visited the farm do not distinguish between wild grass and bush from what farmers grow. And they eat like pumps. And elephants are not the easiest and most elegant animals, so they leave behind a strip of destruction. True, in return they offer litter, and also a lot. But farmers do not really like such an exchange.

Leopards are even more fun. They grunt sheep and goats, plus at some point they can glitch and guess that a person is a fairly simple catch.


A female leopard Elektra with a radio beacon on her neck near the border of Okonzhima territory (you can walk without this car in this area)

And in these conditions you need to preserve nature and agriculture.

Pros of the situation


Fortunately, people in Namibia, plus or minus, understand that animals and natural monuments are a national treasure. And not abstract, but very concrete: there will be no animals - there will be no tourists. Therefore, the leopard usually just do not shoot, but only when they see. I mean, most likely, they will not specially follow him, but if he kills a sheep, they will pay a courtesy call.

This is how the country looks from above (sorry for the wing of the aircraft, with drones there are difficulties):


By the way, the restrictions on flying drones in the country are largely due to the fact that poachers look for the same rhinos from the air in national parks, and then penetrate the territory to to kill them. Nobody cuts off their nose here, although I came across hornless people in South Africa: this is just for protection from poachers.

The country is almost all smooth - plus a couple of deserts and elevations on the border with them. Therefore, cattle graze on farms. Unlike Australia, with approximately the same situation in the center of the continent, there are large predators that are difficult to defend against (in Australia, a bull is grazed, and it can give a cage a three-meter, four-meter or five-meter crocodile).

Here are the maps:


The main part of the country.


Each farm is marked - this is the most important map for ecologists

Yes, there are national parks - for example, Etosha, a huge fenced area of ​​beautiful steppes and bush, where a giraffe almost crashed into us, suddenly deciding that he would manage to cross the road in front of the car. There are a lot of animals, food for them, too, and generally cool. They work great. But the problem is that, again, the animals do not sit still. And the fence itself is rather a border than a real barrier. Because the same elephant doesn’t care.

Plus, the reserve often works as a refuge: for example, many wild boars were killed in Astrakhan from year to year, leaning outside the biosphere reserve in the lower Volga, but the population as a whole was not at risk, because there was a huge territory where they could breed. That is, Etosha State Nature Reserve is an excellent solution to protect some animals. But it is not enough.

There is also a private Game Reserve. Game is usually translated as "safari". The classic English meaning is hunting. The prize, respectively - is a game (well, or a ship, if we are talking about the activities of a pirate). Today, a game is called a trip in an attempt to see rare animals, and a prize is considered rather a selfie from a car with this very beast in the background. That is, Game Reserve is the opposite of a zoo. Animals in nature, and you are either in a cage (most often we are talking about a well-fenced camp and something similar inside with an observation deck at a watering hole), or in a car. The owners of these most private reserves are seriously concerned about the benefits. And this benefit directly depends on the completeness of the assortment matrix of animals and their quantity in stock. If several groups of tourists in a row do not meet a giraffe, a zebra and some dangerous cat,they may be upset and leave for another such private facility. Therefore, believe me, on their territory, all large animals owners cherish much better than any environmentalists. And small ones are usually included in the chain with important ones, therefore they are also taken care of.

?


There is a law that establishes liability for killing an animal. For example, you have dumped an elephant - and we are again waiting for you in a civilized society after 25 years, after serving. But there is a nuance. The fact is that with herbivores everything is more or less clear, and they themselves attack extremely rarely. But with predators - you can shoot if he attacks you or your cattle. And then everything is at the discretion of the farmer. Of course, the farmer just walked through the bush with a gun - and then the beast pops out, howls! I had to shoot. There was simply no choice.

Moreover, the readings are always the same. He walked with a gun, met by chance, hit the back of the head, innocent.

And in these interesting circumstances, ecologists began to try to stir up the protection of leopards and cheetahs. Mostly, of course, leopards. For 2019, according to a research station inN / aankuse them in the country of about 1000 individuals. There are more cheetahs, about 8-9 thousand individuals, but their number is just decreasing. Perhaps they are now being wetted by protected leopards. Because for a leopard it is a direct competitor. And when the cheetah catches up with its prey, it is so exhausted that it lies and rests for about 20 minutes. If a leopard is pulled up at that time, then the cheetah is with a rather high probability of a khan. Kenya has a similar situation with leopards: they say they hide there from the lions. But in Nambia, lions are not so atrocious.

That is, let's say it again: dangerous predators roam the country, which cause economic damage to farmers. Farmers can shoot them with almost no restrictions. You need to convince farmers not to do this.

I think in Germany it would be enough to say that this cannot be done. But here is a slightly different mentality.

We must convince.

Just imagine this scene. The ecologist comes to the farmer and says:
“Listen, Mr. Hansen, this sheep that the leopard slaughtered yesterday helped a lot in protecting the wildlife!”
- Man, do you understand that cattle can be sold for 25 thousand Namibian dollars for a healthy large animal?
“Yes, but I did come to testify that the leopard did it, and you are entitled to compensation from the state ... 3 thousand!” Please do not kill the leopard. I can tell you how to minimize possible damage ...
- Yeah, of course, I will not kill him. Now I’ll just take the gun and go for a walk in the bush.
But only in the case of Hansen suddenly as many as one killed leopard came. What could not be overlooked. The fact is that leopards have their own territories, and then, like with stray dogs, you take one out of the system, and two or three weaker ones replace it. The cycle repeated several times. Previously, the farmer lost 3 animals per cycle, and began to lose up to 20-30. A man consulted with other farmers, and it turned out that this happens with annoying regularity. He grumbled, but returned to the ecologist to listen to what he could come up with to minimize possible damage.

The ecologist said something like this: a leopard does not distinguish between impals, goats and sheep - in general, he does not care who to eat. But cats hunt at night (or early in the morning, when it comes to the cheetah), so the surest way to save your cattle is to build a stable and drive it there overnight. The logic is that then the leopard will either gobble up something wild, or go to the neighbor to get its goats. Perhaps it was the last words that made Mr. Hansen try this innovative new approach in animal husbandry.

And it worked!

And then what happened. If no one listened to ecologists, because after the question: “How many years have you been farming?” they were lost. But Mr. Hansen was quite understandable authority. The old stubborn farmer who began to delve into the ground before the revolution is a very distinct and convincing character. Which speaks in simple and convincing words. Years later, Mr. Hansen became a true expert on wild animals, and half the country consulted with him. I suspect that this turned out to be a very honorable role, and he gladly did everything to maintain his authority.

Today, cats are protected from cats as follows:

  1. Building cattle pens for the night - just as Mr. Hansen bequeathed.
  2. . - , — . , , , . : , , . . . . , .
  3. — GPS- . () , . , : «, , ». , , — - « , ». Internet of Cats.


There is a battery for two years, a collar disconnector (as I understand it, it is set to 5-10% of the battery charge), a GPS receiver, a transmitter (SMS modem with a SIM card or generally VHF radio). The old collars were without GPS, they just squealed once a second on the air, and the farms had receivers on a cat's wave.

You can join the club if you have an animal caught on a farm. Environmentalists came up with the idea of ​​making feline special forces when their team goes to the calls "they killed my sheep." Then they hunt down the cat and shoot him with a dart with sleeping pills. Catch the collar and let go.


Tanya (a normal African name, though, rather, Tania) shows another camera trap. They are often placed at watering places, and there is a newsletter to those who donated to environmentalists, with the best photos.


Station in N / aankuse. The last two tests of this station are whether hydrogen sulfide deodorant can scare away leopards from the area around the farmer’s house, and whether it is possible to make a cheap deodorant with the smell of a lion to scare away other predators. The answer to both questions is no.


Different types of collars in Okonzhim



Often, "cat special forces" delivers animals to the clinic with fractures after traps - many farmers no longer finish off the cats, but also do not take care of finding them.




Clinic for cats

As a result, now such a scheme works (Afrikat Okogima center):



To make you understand, the cat behind the fence belongs to the care group. And the most important thing here, all of a sudden, is education - it suddenly turned out that if you can negotiate with farmers, then it is almost impossible with collective farms. People there see something spotty and immediately shoot. Words about the future of the country, the ecosystem and possible coexistence do not roll. Now Namibia has already been able to raise a generation of farmers' children who understand that if everyone is wet, something in the environment will be violated and the whole country will feel bad. Works. I sincerely do not understand why, but it works.

What to do with elephants?


A completely different story with them. Model of their behavior - they follow conditionally random trajectories and eat everything in a row. You can’t kill them under any circumstances, and for this it is really very severely punished. Elephants break down fences (that is, cattle run away), immediately eat away the fields of useful plants and, worst of all, destroy drinking points. The drinking point here is exactly the same as we did in Kalmykia in the USSR - a shallow well up to conditionally fresh water (salty-bitter, but suitable for drinking) and a weak pump that feeds it.

Elephants love to drink. The first problem with them is that they do not fit on a point and break the structure around (usually it’s something like a mud hut with a circular wall). The second feature is that they drink all the water in the system. And the third - they are very smart. Therefore, they understand that water does not come here just like that, but through pipes from somewhere else, they feel that there is more tasty water in these pipes, and begin to dig them out. Especially stubborn damage as much as six meters (do not dig, but pull out). Naturally, the point after this must be redone, which does not add much joy to farmers.

Actually, environmentalists came up with the following: since the elephants are smart, you need to use this and negotiate with them. Specifically, make large points for them at the borders of farms (away from valuable plants, which are usually grouped near the farmer's house). It is assumed that the elephants will drink from there and not go deep into the territory, that is, they will wander from one point to another on the outskirts. The device of such a point will be different - you need to stretch the water supply and install the mechanism, like a tank in the toilet.

As far as I understand, a couple of test points have now been run in and collect money for the implementation of the program.

Other animals


The main feature of tourism in Namibia is just the consideration of animals, here there are very strict rules for non-interference on Wednesday. For example, in Etosha you can only ride on roads, you can not get out of the car except for rare specially fenced toilets. Be sure to arrive at one of the large base camps with the wall exactly at sunset, otherwise the gates will then be locked, and rangers will fine you for being in the park at night. There is a GPS tracker on lease on cars, and since being on the road in the reserve is, in fact, the lot of the local traffic police, and this also motivates. True, there is no network there either, so the track comes to be rented after leaving the reserve.

Not everything is as joyful as it may seem. The fact is that the economic interest is in the conservation of animals, and not their complete protection. Here is a fur seal colony at Cape Cross:









And once again our hero from the picture above:



There is a twofold situation with him. On the one hand, the colony is located in a protected area outside the gate, the gate is opened at dawn and locked at sunset. To get to the territory, you need to come from far away (that is, by a bus with a guide, on a ranger’s transport or by car with tracking), and to the heap there is even a fenced ecotropic built that reliably protects tourists from contacts with cats. True, the colony has already grown beyond the boundaries of the trail, and the area by eye is three times larger than the territory that was originally intended for them. And, since it is believed that seals can damage the fishing industry, they kill extra ones (they killed). Here are the details from NG .

For the rest of the animals, the general policy is to observe, study, draw conclusions, take care of those about whom it is possible.



Pick up the wounded (usually after an accident), nursing, releasing in a safe place. Here is the damanha (the closest surviving relative of an elephant, by the way), who gave birth at a research station and will be relocated to the dam near Windhoek and the cubs in a month:



Monkeys and environmental volunteers: The



Ranger teaches a monkey to open a bottle, so far to no avail. But he walks the group every day, and in a couple of days the skill will develop.



Africanet can distinguish cheetahs only by pattern. But in N / aankuz they added a database of traces and cheetahs, and then received a FIT cheetah- Something like the Bertillon system for determining the identity of the cheetah by the print of two paws, which helps a lot in the evidence that on the territory of the farmer not everything is teeming with cheetahs. Because one cheetah usually goes to 3-5 farms, and each farmer thinks that he is personally his.


The stand "they are wanted by the police." In fact, the data from the camera traps, where they recognized already familiar cats.

The short result of N / aankuse is this: they work with 820 farmers around their research station (in their group there are 3 more stations around the country, plus there are other independent environmental funds like Okonzhima based on the Hansen family). In 80% of cases of slaughtering cattle, they manage to find and save the cat (in the remaining 20%, the farmer kills the animal). Currently, 50 cheetahs, 65 leopards, 3 hyenas, 2 lions walk with collars. 90% of farmers come back for advice after the first call - this indicator is wildly proud here. Ethological material is collected on animals in order to better understand how to control their movements. Money is a donation. In the case of Okogima, Hansen gave the whole farm and almost all the savings in the will, they sold the house and founded the fund. International companies (mainly industrial) and private individuals help. What is characteristicI did not see either Greenpeace or WWF on the list of sponsors. Schools send volunteers.


Marlisa van Wuren, head of the N / aankuse wildlife sanctuary

Examples of expenses of N / aankuse in rubles: about 800-900 thousand are spent on gas for “cat special forces” a year, about 800 thousand more to put on collars and receive traffic for two years from two elephants (but these were test elephants, the following should be slightly cheaper, here they shot darts from helicopters, and elephants dodged). One cat collar costs about 150 thousand rubles (apparently with donning and traffic for a year, but without gasoline), a camera trap about 10 thousand rubles. The main tasks to be solved are attempts to reduce the cost of traps and reduce collars (they are either heavy or the battery quickly runs out). It is clear that there is still a lot of work there both in technology and in organization.

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/undefined/

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