Southern African Wildlife Management Association symposium

From 16 -19 September Beth Silvester and Kaggie Orrick from GVI Karongwe attended and presented at the annual Southern African Wildlife Management Association (SAWMA) symposium.  SAWMA, founded in 1970, has a multi-disciplinary base including wildlife research, ecology, conservation science and animal science.  SAWMA promotes the interaction between wildlife managers, scientists, students, conservationists, environmentalists, game producers and game farm owners.

With over a hundred people in attendance, the days were filled with lectures and presentations from the top professors and researchers in the wildlife management field as well as Honors, Masters and PhD students.  While the presentations varied from consumer preference of cabanossi (a type of biltong, or beef jerky) made from domestic pig (Sussofra) and warthog (Phacochoerus africanus) to the implications of incorporating predator social structure and demographic-level prey preferences in the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) carrying capacity model, each were incredibly insightful, thought-provoking and inspired new research ideas for both Beth and Kaggie.

During the three days both Kaggie and Beth had the opportunity to present research conducted by GVI.  Beth presented a poster on a cheetah energetics study by Michael Scantlebury of Queen’s University Belfast and Johnny Wilson of North Carolina State University, which had used Jabu and Djuma, our male cheetah coalition on Karongwe as the study animals. Kaggie’s presentation discussed the response of small mammals to natural and human-altered edges associated with the afromontane forests on Mariepskop, also authored by Michael Scantlebury and Johnny Wilson.

Both posters were very well received and generated some contracts for potential new research on Karongwe.  With such a great success it is hopeful that GVI, when possible, will continue attending SAWMA events in the future!

Southern African Wildlife Management Association symposium