Photograph: Marcus Westberg/African Parks But preventing the need for them in the first place is certainly preferable.”Įlephants being prepared for transit as part of a translocation programme in Malawi this year. All these interventions are costly, and sometimes it’s not known whether a translocation will work until you try it. People can provide food and shelter for newly released animals, give them opportunities to learn the immediate area by releasing them into a safe enclosure first, or provide various forms of prerelease training. “Good planning can help improve outcomes. We hope, as a result of that, the prospects of the animals’ survival is greater.”ĭaniel Blumstein, professor of biology at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California Los Angeles, who co-authored a paper on translocations, says: “Unfortunately, many translocations fail, often because animals find themselves in unfamiliar habitat and have to figure out where shelter, food and safe locations are, or because of predation. “There are things we’ve learned from the previous translocation where we can do things differently, including the time of year of the reintroduction. “We’ve got to be prepared to face further losses, as that’s an inherent risk with any translocation,” says Fearnhead. In 2023, African Parks expects to transport four more black rhino to Zakouma in phase two of creating a breeding population. nature has lost the ability to recover on its own Sebastian Di Martino, Rewilding Argentina Translocations are a fundamental tool in the current situation. “The plants in Zakouma had a lower nutrient load, so the animals lost condition and became susceptible to diseases,” Fearnhead says. Four of the animals died after being released. In 2018, six black rhino were moved from South Africa to Zakouma national park in Chad. But animal fatalities are a possibility in many translocations. Such “extremely unlucky” events are difficult to plan for. Wild dogs are safely released after translocation from South Africa and Mozambique to Majete wildlife reserve in Malawi. “When you have had such a big effort to undertake a complex reintroduction of a key species, one that’s highly endangered, it’s a huge blow to the whole team,” says Fearnhead. But in Liwonde, 18 wild dogs, including all the new arrivals, were killed in November after hunters poisoned a small watering hole to collect dead birds or small mammals, which the wild dogs then drank from. Majete received six wild dogs, which gave birth to eight pups this year. In 2021, 14 African wild dogs completed a 27-hour journey from South Africa and Mozambique to Liwonde national park and Majete wildlife reserve. Translocations have helped revive Malawi’s national parks. “Any fatality that results from a translocation or ongoing management of a protected area is always one person too many,” says Fearnhead. But it was later reported that two local people were killed by elephants during the translocation, and a third was killed by an elephant in September. In July 2022, African Parks completed the ambitious move of 263 elephants, 80 buffalo, 128 impala, 33 sable, 81 warthog and 109 waterbuck from Malawi’s Liwonde national park to the country’s Kasungu national park. The process is challenging, expensive and often dangerous. “Something right happening today to fix a wrong of yesterday,” as Fearnhead puts it. Wildlife translocations are used to reintroduce a species to a location where they have gone locally extinct, to strengthen an existing population, or, as with Akagera’s white rhinos, to create a new population in a place they never existed before, often as part of wider rewilding efforts to restore an ecosystem. A tranquilised white rhino is led to a crate in Phinda game reserve in South Africa to be taken to its new home in Akagera, Rwanda.
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