Translocation of wildlife by road not an easy feat says Wildlife Vets
The Wildlife Vets of Namibia (WVN) have described their recent translocation of wildlife game to to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), as a challenging mission as the team had to travel over 3000km through Namibia and Zambia by road.
The Vets on their social media page said that this was their furthest and most challenging road translocation ever.
“After all the animals were captured and loaded we drove near non-stop to the Namibian-Zambian border and crossed the border into Zambia in the early morning,” they explained.
With a slight delay on the Zambian side of the border, because of documentation processing, the Vets had time to feed and water the animals while waiting and by mid afternoon they were eventually cleared to proceed.
“Due to very poor road conditions in Zambia we were forced to take a detour of 250km, to avoid the worst road and even then, we had to brave several sections with nasty potholes and long stretches of road where most of the road was missing,” they explained.
To make their journey in Zambia easier the Vets had a Zambian wildlife officer traveling with them, who saw to it that they were not held up at the road block.
“Our travel took us through the Kafue National Par, which allowed for some nice game and bird spotting and we drove through several flood plains, what an amazing sight to see all that water, especially for us Namibians.”
The Vets added that for such a long translocation to be successful they had to make stress reduction and make animal comfort a priority. “To achieve this, we preferably take younger animals and we give all animals a long acting tranquilizer and we ensure they have enough space and provide excellent quality food and water,” they emphasized.
According to the Vets one of their trucks carried 4 tanks with a total of 4000 liters of water and they had to feed the animals A-grade teff hay and lucerne and use camel thorn pods as tasty and nutritious appetizer which the animals really appreciate.
