As the weather warms up, we are readying ourselves for the hot, dry season ahead. Many areas of the park are already parched with high numbers of elephants returning from southern parts of the park daily. We’re bracing ourselves for several very tough months ahead.
Ongoing Maintenance Work
Every year we assist the Authority with the fireguards, but this year work was delayed by a shortage of sufficient Park’s labour. Once underway, things progressed smoothly until the very last section. The fire jumped the boundary at Mbiza and due to high velocity winds quickly ran out of control. The three working HNP Blowers were not adequate to combat the fire and, most unfortunately, a large area of the Park was burnt. With the assistance of various operators in the park, the fire was eventually brought under control.
We have experienced various maintenance issues with solar water pumps:
- The inverter, pump and motor at Garakamwe needed replacing.
- One of the boreholes at Guvalala went down due to ants eating 10 meters of underground cable which shorted destroying the inverter, pump and motor. The damaged cable has been replaced with armoured cable which will hopefully keep underground critters at bay! The inverter, pump and motor have been replaced.
- At Dopi thesplines on top of the motor on one borehole were worn. Although the motor continued to run no water was being produced. A new motor was installed. At the second Dopi borehole, elephants were pulling the pipe up back towards to the hole. Steel railway sleepers have been placed over the pipe, and everything covered with sand and plenty of wood which seems to have foiled the pachyderms destructive efforts for now.
- The inverter at one of the Sicheche boreholes was replaced with a spare and the faulty one sent for repair.
- At Mbazo the polypipe came off the top of the borehole. In trying to attend to this, the pump attendant broke off both the safety rope and the cable resulting in the pump and motor plunging to the bottom of the hole. Gary’s legendary fishing skills came to the fore, and he managed to fish out both the pump and the motor averting the potentially very costly exercise of drilling a new borehole.
!! New Project !!
Assistance with Anti-poaching and Wildlife Monitoring
The Main Camp Management Area of HNP is bordered north and east by Communal Land, some privately owned farms as well as the Sikumi and the Ngamo Forestry areas. Both these borders are very porous, with no hard boundaries. Patrols on a regular basis are necessary to stop poachers accessing the Park with relative impunity, especially along the Eastern boundary.
Both Sikumi and Ngamo are well patrolled at the moment, which helps to create a wildlife buffer. However, within the Park, there is very little funding available for field staff in terms of uniforms, equipment and training. The Authority is hard pressed to deploy anti-poaching patrols in the field. Additional assistance is required in critical areas of disease control and wildlife monitoring.
We’re delighted that Steve Alexander has agreed to join FOH to help with this crucial work within the park. Steve will assist with anti-poaching, as well as with all aspects of wildlife monitoring, disease, and poison control. He will work closely with the HNP Wildlife Authority as well as with the Forestry Commission, the National Police and other major stake holders in the greater Hwange landscape. Together with the HNP vet, he will assist in preforming postmortems on unexplained animal fatalities and send samples for analysis to the veterinary laboratory run by Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust. Cyanide poisoning of specifically elephant as a form of ivory poaching has been a problem in the past and until recently has been under control. However, there are signs that this may be on the increase. Two poachers were arrested in Bulawayo trying to sell ivory and although the investigation is still ongoing, the culprits have each received a mandatory nine year sentence.
This new venture will require substantial funding for set up and running costs to include a new Vehicle, Housing, Labour, Communications, Fuel, Maintenance and Subsistence costs. We are hugely indebted to Frank Zindel and the Bright Light Foundation for his very generous help in this regard but are appealing for further donations to get this venture fully operational. Any extra support would be very much appreciated
Friends of Hwange undertakes all its work in close collaboration with ZimParks.
