Updated: Nov 10, 2022

Capture and collaring exercises are always exciting, but they are even more special in the early stages of our Greater Etosha Carnivore Programme!

Early in May 2022, our colleagues from IZW (Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Germany) set off on a mission to equip 18 lions in central Etosha with satellite GPS collars to study their ecology and understand how individuals from the same and different prides interact with each other. To catch all these lions in less than two weeks was a daunting task, but with the combined resources of EEI (Etosha Ecological Institute), MEFT (Ministry of Environment, Forestry & Tourism), University of Witswatersand (South Africa) and IZW and ORC, we collared 13 lions and will collar the remaining 5 in the coming weeks.

S. Périquet (ORC) and W. Kilian (EEI) with an immobilised  & collared lioness.

What an achievement! In addition to the collar deployment that will providing us with fine-scale GPS positions, we collected 593 biological samples (from blood to scats, from hairs to whiskers) to study the genetics, diseases, immune systems and gut microbiomes of the lions.

Here are some photos from this exercise: when science means having fun!

Stay tuned for more updates from the field soon!