The Ongava Research Centre (ORC) is part of one of the largest private reserves in Namibia, covering 125 miles and sharing its northern boundary with Etosha National Park. The Zoo’s partnership with ORC began in 2010 in support of the conservation research project “Pride Dynamics and Dispersal in the Lion Population of Ongava Game Reserve.”
Population estimates of African lions (Panthera leo), both in Namibia and throughout the continent, have demonstrated a 30-50% decline in population numbers over the past 20 years. While lions are not typically thought of as being at risk, this recent shift in status has led to an
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listing of threatened /vulnerable. In order to help prevent the situation from getting worse, the Ongava project is working to gather data that will help effectively manage lion populations living on reserves.
Tracking the movements of sub-adult male lions as they begin to separate from their “natal pride” is critical to understanding their natural behaviors and whether their habitat suits their needs. Like most carnivores, lions have range territories they claim as their own. Since 2010, Ongava Research Centre staff has radio collared five male lions as they approach the age of three in order to track them using GPS technology and learn more about how they begin to establish range territories. Two senior adult males were also collared.
Daily land use patterns that are mapped this way not only show where the lions are going, but also reveal where they are in relation to each other and in relation to senior males. This information provides crucial details that allow researchers to study lion population dynamics, their impact on the reserve and, most importantly, examine the issues causing sub-adults to move into areas where they are at risk of being killed.
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Photo credit: Stuart Crawford |
The Ongava Research Centre has been using camera traps to record images of animals drinking at waterholes for several years. This data is useful in monitoring and surveying a range of species using the Reserve, including lions. Philadelphia Zoo staff traveled to Namibia to assist with a recent short-term camera trap survey of carnivores carried out for a period of three weeks. A total of 22 camera traps were deployed at waterholes across the reserve, providing comprehensive image coverage of eight of the eleven waterholes, and partial coverage of two of the remaining three waterholes.
As expected, a large number of images of lions were recorded during the study period. This is primarily due to the behavior of lions at waterholes – groups will often spend long periods close to the water, and may drink several times over a period of hours. This triggers the cameras to record many sequences of the same lions, making identification of individuals that much more important.
For those lions not wearing radio collars – most of them - information gathered in the months before the survey to identify groups is compared with camera trap images in an effort to determine which lions are which.