In 2016, the CRP hosted fellow scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) for the investigation of immune marker variance in a native population of Egyptian geese in Namibia. The birds were successfully live trapped using the CRP’s cheetah traps and expertise. Blood samples for immunological assays and serology were taken, centrifuged and transferred with an uninterrupted cooling chain to the Leibniz-IZW where they were analysed and compared to similar samples from the invasive population in Germany. We are proud that the CRP regularly facilitates research of fellow colleagues of the lively and inspiring research cosmos that is the Leibniz-IZW and that we collaborated with the Namibia Bird Club for this study.

Rural central Namibia is one of the most important strongholds of the declining global cheetah population. Here, the rarest large African cat lives on privately owned farmland. A traditional conflict poses a threat to them, as they occasionally prey on cattle calves and are therefore rarely welcomed on the farms. New insights into the cheetah’s spatial behaviour provide a viable solution to this human-wildlife conflict: In the core areas of male cheetah territories all local males and females frequently meet to exchange information. This results in hotspots of cheetah activity in these “communication hubs” and in substantially less activity in the vast areas between the core areas of the territories. Implementing this knowledge and moving their breeding herds with young calves out of these hotspots, farmers were able to reduce livestock losses by more than 80 percent. These insights are the result of a close and trusting cooperation between scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) and farmers in central Namibia. They are published in the scientific journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America”.

We are glad to communicate that our seroprevalence paper on apicomplexan parasites was published yesterday. In this work, we tested more than 500 individuals of 12 wildlife species sampled on Namibian farmland and National Parks. The main results are that seroprevalence of apicomplexan parasites in carnivores ranged between 52% in cheetahs and 93% in lions (and 92% in brown hyenas). We also show that older individuals have higher Toxoplasma infections than younger ones.