July 2023 Report

Green and Black Poison Dart Frog tadpoles metamorphosed into froglets, six in total by the end of the month. They are currently housed off-show in a tank set up to provide them with a terrestrial environment.

An internal meeting was held to present findings to other staff on the BIAZA Keeper Skills Workshop. A second meeting was held to focus on the future plans for the collection plan of the Carnivore Section.

On 18th July, our Chilean Flamingos were caught up for health and wing checks. This health check includes confirming the condition of their feet and carrying out a keel score assessment. The keel score, or body condition score, is a measure of the amount of pectoral muscle mass present, determined via palpation and visual assessment, and is a good indication of the general health status of the bird.

2 Species arrivals

On

3 Male Warthogs (Nne, Mbili & Tatu) were transferred to ZSL London Zoo on 19th July.

27th July, female Alpaca Louise moved to a private farm for breeding, but will return in the near future.

35 Boeseman’s Rainbowfish (pictured) arrived on 6th July and 50 Cardinal Tetra arrived on 27th July. These are currently in quarantine and will join the River’s Edge and tetra exhibit in Worlds Apart respectively in the near future.

Angela Matthews (Head Keeper) attended the BIAZA Avian Influenza Workshop at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust site in Slimbridge.

A Toast to Wildlife evening was held in celebration of the Zoo’s 60th birthday and to announce our future development plans.

Breeding Transfer

education

Out of the 10,624 pupils, 3,987 attended sessions (37%).

In addition to schools, we also welcomed education youth groups, including the Girl Guiding Anglia Event, and quite a few others as well.

So far this academic year, we are looking at a little over 28,000 educated in formal sessions, and roughly 43,000 children visiting under group and school rates.

10,624 pupils visited

At the start of the summer holidays, the Education team commenced their summer activities under the name ‘The Exploratorium’.

We have 26 boxes on different topics about animals and zoo keeping, including examples such as Conservation, Enrichment, Animal Health Checks, and many more.

In the first week we had 2,716 attendees (1,489 kids and 1,227 adults) and this was with pretty poor weather.

from 170 schools in 122 education sessions bringing 1,028 participants

37% of pupils attended education sessions

24 education youth groups

1 Community Outreach We undertook 1 community outreach in Lavenham for 25 people.

1,489 children and 1,227 adults attended our summer activity in the first week, with an estimated 10 minutes dwell time at each visit

388 average activity attendees per day

In July, Jemma Dias (Conservation Educator and Research Coordinator) attended the BIAZA Research Conference at Dudley Zoo.

Two new studies were started this month regarding species such as:

A study looking at the effects of visitor flow on the behaviour of Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)

1 Charity Visit 6 Staff Members monitored project

Which olfactory stimuli can be used to attract Sun Bears (Helarctos malayanus)?

This links to a proposed study on the ‘2020 Priority Topics for Ex Situ Sun Bear Conservation Research Prospectus’ which wants to determine the success of different baits and scent lures, such that they can be applied in the field in order to improve detections of bears by camera trapping or hair collection for genetic analysis. The use of captive animals provides an excellent opportunity for identifying a number of olfactory and auditory stimuli in a relatively short time.

Save the Rhino International visited to meet our Rhino section staff and present on the latest Rhino conservation work

Six staff members visited Copt Hall and Cudmore Grove to survey the Hog’s Fennel plants and monitor feeding signs of the Fisher’s Estuarine Moth

UMPHAFA

Work continues to remove old fence posts and wire from the Reserve road repair, as well as the continual fixing of the fence line where the Warthogs are trying to escape to the ‘greener’ agricultural land the other side of the fence!

Gabion Built

An additional new gabion by the fence line has been put in to the west of the Reserve where it is constantly being eroded away. This gabion will help to stop further erosion and also aid vehicles in getting across bad dongas (dry gully).

1 Fibre Line Fixed

A new fence went up on the N3 boundary where there were holes in the fence line from poaching activity. The old fence will be used for making gabions.

The fibre line fell down over our main gate and potentially was live which could have been a hazard if a vehicle caught on it. Despite us contacting them since May, they finally came to come and fix in July.

Block burns and fire breaks continued across the Reserve this month.

6 Vehicles Fitted with trackers

Certain cars now need to have trackers installed in case of theft, as part of a new insurance requirement in South Africa. 6 of UmPhafa’s cars were fitted this month, but, fingers crossed, we won’t need to use the system!

UMPHAFA

Following ongoing discussions with Panthera and Wildlife Act about our Leopard population, they have finally received funding to come and put out more camera traps, which we shall be monitoring and reporting our findings back to them.

They are hoping to come out mid-September to pop the cameras up around the Reserve. It will be great to understand the actual population numbers on the Reserve.

£2,000

Rebecca Moore (Zoological Director) visited UmPhafa for her bi-annual trip to look at the work completed since her last visit in September 2022.

Rebecca presented the field rangers with new equipment, following a £2,000 donation from a supporter in the UK.

This month, we have been joined by 3 new Interns; 2 of them are carrying out research projects.

A biodiversity meeting was held early July. This comprised a full day’s meeting discussing the UmPhafa Management Action Plan to submit as part of the application to achieve the status of ‘Protected area’.

1 Project Contact Developed

donated by UK supporter 3 Interns join the Reserve

In mid July, Righardt joined us from the Giraffe Conservation Foundation to collect DNA from as many of our Giraffe as possible. He managed to collect from 10 animals, which is a 20% sample of our population.

With this DNA, he is able to ID the sub species that we have on the Reserve and hopefully, when it comes to moving them around, we can identify where to get new giraffe genes from.

This does mean, however, that he needs more DNA samples from the local reserves to help this process. We have put him in touch with the reserves in our area so he can gather more DNA and start to identify the amount of Giraffe in the northern KwaZulu-Natal area.

UMPHAFA

We have been contacted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal who will be visiting us again in September for a week to spend time surveying the soil.

Dr Musa will meet us to discuss possible new sites and student numbers.

Amanda joined the Cheetah Advisory Group meeting –this is a new group that have only been meeting since November last year.

The meeting discussed cheetah not only just in South Africa, but the rest of Africa and also India, with 58 people dialled in, the focus was on KwaZulu-Natal and it was good to hear how many cheetah are in this area, but also that some Reserves are looking to move genes around. We just need that permit and maybe our time will come!

10 Giraffes DNA Sampled