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.