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Dambari Wildlife Trust, Zimbabwe

Inserting transmitter CreditVerityBowman.JPG
Location: Based in Bulawayo, working in Hwange National Park, Matobos National Park, Kyle National Park, Chivero National Park and Nyamaneche National Park
Project leader: Verity Bowman
Project partner: Dambari Wildlife Trust
Rhino species: Black rhino (Diceros bicornis minor) and white rhino (Ceratotherium simum simum)
Rhino numbers: Approximately > 46% of Zimbabwe’s population of Southern white rhino, and at least 10% of the total population of black rhino
Activities: Training and employing rhino monitors, rhino monitoring and operations
Support: We focus our support on rhino management operations
Funding partners: US Fish and Wildlife Service

The rhino populations in most of Zimbabwe’s National Parks, although significant at the national level, are relatively small, which favours individual identification of animals that can be audited and monitored on a regular basis. Addition of telemetry instruments provides a means of finding those animals in difficult terrain or high risk areas more rapidly and facilitates the use of targeted patrols.

Dambari Wildlife Trust (DWT) amongst other organisations has been assisting with rhino conservation in Zimbabwe for over ten years, spanning a very difficult period in Zimbabwe’s history. In essence, each NGO operates in an assigned region of the country. Historically, MZT has focused on working in two western Intensive Protection Zones (IPZs) for rhinos, Matobo and Hwange (Sinamatella and Main Camp), in an agreed arrangement with Zimbabwe’s Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZPWMA). DWT has recently become involved with two other National Parks, Kyle and Chivero.

DWT’s initiatives for rhino conservation have included training and employing rhino monitors, training Parks’ ecologists in rhino conservation and database management, and providing technical and practical advice and equipment. This work has been carried out against a background of the gradual reorganisation of ZPWMA staffing structures and station management plans. With stabilization of the organisation in 2008 and the relaxation of restrictions on the fate of the ZPWMA income by Reserve bank in 2009, ZPWMA has begun to implement material changes to the operations of the organisation. This has included making provision for staff working in rhino areas to be trained to ensure compliance with regional recommendations for the monitoring and management of rhino.
In September 2009, IUCN SSC African Rhino Specialist Group (AfRSG) in conjunction with other international sponsors, conducted a course entitled “Monitoring African rhino” for targeted ZPWMA staff and NGOs working with rhino in Zimbabwe. This course highlighted that three National Parks (Chivero, Nyamaneche and Kyle) with rhino populations had very few notched or otherwise clearly identifiable rhino amongst them.

Group for Identification Credit Verity Bowman

Due to DWT’s history of conducting successful rhino projects, it has been requested by ZPWMA to assist in 2010 with the identification and ear notching of unidentifiable or “clean” animals in these three National Parks in addition to the work carried out annually by MZT in Matobo and Hwange National Parks. The fulfilment of this exercise will ensure that all Zimbabwean National Parks that hold populations of black and white rhino will have standardized monitoring and reporting processes in place in compliance with IUCN SSC AfRSG recommendations.