Pula! Pula!

At last the rains have started! After weeks of searingly hot temperatures (well over 40 celsius) the clouds thickened and delivered huge great drops of water this week. The word pula in Setswana means rain but it is also the name of the Botswana currency, so the importance of rain in this arid region is underlined. Although the rainfall is very localised, with some areas getting a great deal and others only a few millimetres, it has already transformed the landscape. The brown, dusty bush is starting to turn green as the trees burst into leaf and the grass emerges in the most unlikely places.
The rain, and how much you got, is the subject of everyone's conversation and the wildlife is already starting to move away from the guaranteed water sources of the dry season.
Although the rain can cause problems for doing research, especially looking for spoor, it is very welcome and I hope there is plenty more to come.

Looking for tracks

I have just completed my first week of driving transects looking for spoor of predators and prey. This involves getting up at a ridiculously early hour so that I can pick up my tracker and get to the start of my first transect by the time the sun comes up. We then drive along the transect (they are around 15 km long) at a speed of 13 kmh with my tracker sitting on the bonnet of the vehicle and look for the tracks of any predators that have used the road in the past 24 hours.
The roads are all sand tracks so it is easy to see the tracks. When we see some we stop and examine the track to decide what species of animal made it, how many there were, whether they were adults or juveniles, what sex they were and if possible what they were doing. My tracker is a Bushman and is very good at identifying spoor. Once I have driven enough kilometres on my transects I will be able to get an estimate of the numbers of each species in the area.

I am also doing transects to look for prey once a month to see what prey animals there are for the predators to eat and how many. This is very important as if prey numbers are low it is more likely that the predators will be forced to take livestock. This is pretty much the same as the predator spoor survey except that the transects are shorter and I also count all prey I see from the vehicle while driving.

What is a caracal?

Some of you out there may be unfamiliar with the caracal. So for you - and please forgive me if I am telling you what you already know - here is a brief description.
The caracal is the largest of the small cats in Africa (the small cats are a group made up of 30 species of the genus Felis). It can range in size from 6-19 kg with the males being larger and more heavily built than the females. Different populations also vary in size and colour is also variable ranging from tawny to reddish brown. Its most distinctive feature though is its large black ears (the word caracal comes from the Turkish karakulak or 'black ear') which are topped with dark tufts resembling those of the lynx. Despite appearances though it is not closely related to the lynx. It has long legs and a tail which is about one third of its body length. It is a solitary cat, except for females with kittens and mating encounters, and litter sizes range from one to four kittens. It is also mainly nocturnal, although in areas where there is less human disturbance it may sometimes be active during daylight hours. The caracal's natural prey species are small to medium-sized antelope, small carnivores, rabbits and hares, rodents and birds.
In southern Africa the caracal is also known to take livestock (mainly sheep and goats) and as a result is heavily persecuted by small stock farmers.

Hello and welcome

Hello and welcome to this new blog from Botswana in the wild and beautiful Kalahari.
Firstly, let me introduce myself. I am a PhD researcher from Durham University in the UK and am doing my fieldwork in the Ghanzi District of Botswana.
I am researching human-predator conflict in the Ghanzi farmlands, with particular focus on the caracal (Caracal caracal) and its relationship with the black-backed jackal (Canis mesomelas), although I am interested in all the predators that occur in this area.
Predator species that live alongside people and their domestic livestock here include lion (Panthera leo), leopard (Panthera pardus), cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), brown hyaena (Hyaena brunnea), caracal and black-backed jackal.
I shall be carrying out spoor surveys and camera trapping to get estimates of abundance and relative density of predators on farms of different usage. I shall also be doing line transects to establish the abundance of natural prey species and scat analysis to try to determine what caracal and jackal are eating.
On the human side I shall be conducting informal and semi-structured interviews and doing a questionnaire survey with farmers, farm workers, wildlife officials and other stakeholders to try to establish the attitudes and perceptions of people in the area to the predators.