News

The Ruaha Carnivore Project team visits Zimbabwe

This week the team from WildCRU’s Ruaha Carnivore Project (RCP), based in Tanzania, are excited to share news all the way from Zimbabwe. Three of the RCP staff are currently in Zimbabwe for the week to visit one of WILDCRU’s other long-term projects, the Hwange Lion Research Project, part of the Trans Kalahari Predator Programme, in order to learn more about their canvas mobile enclosures and other programmes.

Canvas mobile bomas (livestock enclosures) are assembled to kraal cattle overnight. The owner will wait 21 days until the area is sufficiently fertilized from the dung and urine of the cows and then moves the boma to another patch of farmland. The Hwange Lion Research Project has shown significant increase of crop growth and significant drop in depredation of livestock.

The RCP team are hoping to learn from the Long Shield Lion Guardians and bring the knowledge back to the Ruaha landscape to adapt and trial in their communities. It is wonderful to see this exchange of knowledge between WildCRU projects, and we hope it will lead to the expansion of this successful technique into another key landscape for African lions.