Our results showed that density declined over time & was spatially structured. As badger presence changed during the study, with a new badger sett appearing halfway through the study, we observed a density-weighted shift away from this badger sett, providing evidence for the landscape of fear.

Really happy to share our new paper exploring the Mostela as a monitoring tool for African small carnivores!

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Happy to share our new paper, led by Cornelia Warrer, investigating large carnivore snaring rates & drivers of snare occurrence across Kruger NP!

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

We found that carnivores were highly susceptible to being caught in snares & predicted snaring hotspots in Kruger

Awful photos but a great sighting (before the photos 😆) of caracal on the way to the office this morning! 🤩 Not a bad "commute"! 😊

#caracal #mammals #SouthAfrica

Happy #InternationalLeopardDay! 🐆

I didn't get to see a leopard today, but I'm lucky enough to get to work on projects involving them and got to spend today hiking in Cape leopard country in the Outeniqua Mountains 🤩🐆⛰️🏞️

A proud supervisor moment yesterday as my MSc student, Marna Visagie, presented her study on carnivore densities from Tswalu Kalahari Reserve at #ecm9 in 🇬🇷

Presenting for the 1st time at an international conference & representing the #WildlifeEcologyLab

Thanks @timhofmeester.bsky.social for the 📸

We'll cover:

📸 Practical deployment - incl. field work in a nearby game reserve 🦁🐘🦓
🗺 Survey design
💻 How to collect, manage & process camera trap data
📈 Data analysis (incl. occupancy, activity, density & abundance)
👨‍🏫 The chance to discuss & analyse your own data

We're running our #cameratrap course again! 🇿🇦📸🐆

This time from the #GreaterKruger, the course will give participants a fantastic mix of practical & analytical modules to become a camera trapping pro! 📸💻🐘🦏🐾

More info can be found here:

wildecolabdotcom.wordpress.com/courses

Please share widely! 🤩

It's always an amazing & lucky sighting if you see an #aardvark! 🤩

But this night drive in #MountainZebra NP really delivered! Aardvark, 3x aardwolf, brown hyaena, bat-eared fox! Such an undervisited & amazing park! 🇿🇦🦓 Especially if you like the often overlooked species! 😊

#mammals

Note to self: do more camera trapping work on wine estates... 📸🍷

• They're beautiful 🤩🌿🌾
• There's cool wildlife 🐾
• You can buy good wine when you've finished 🍷🥂

#cameratraps #SouthAfrica

Seems there are some Botswanan #elephants in South Africa that don't care about fences! 🤣🐘🇿🇦

Elephants and potholes, a true African road in SA! 😆 On the R572 to Mapungubwe NP! 🐘

#Mammals

A beautiful place to watch a lion (if you can spot it!) with the Waterberg Mountains in the background! 🤩🦁🐾🇿🇦

#Mammals #Wildlife #Lion #SouthAfrica #Nature

Seems like elephants object to small carnivore monitoring! 🤣😤

Elephants 🐘 - 1
Mostela 📸 - 0

A nice trunk selfie at least for the trouble! 🤣🐘

#mammals
#conservationscience 🌍
#elephants

Wow! Amazing opportunity here for South Africa based 🇿🇦 researchers to develop their quantitative skills! 🤩💻

Two workshops:

• An intro to stats in R
• Applied hierarchical modelling

The course is FREE! These opportunities rarely come about in 🇿🇦, so share widely & sign up!

#conservationscience 🌍

2) Beytell et al documented multiple long-range dispersal events of large carnivores in northern Namibia! 🇳🇦🦁

Included in these records was a #spottedhyaena that spent 254 days in a dispersal phase, covering 5000+ km! 🤯

#carnivoreecology #conservationscience 🌍

📸 Beytell et al. (hyaena = blue line)

Sadly, the animal was killed, but there were multiple records of (likely) the same individual moving ~160 km across SE Egypt over 8 days!

The authors suggest increased rainfall & grazing practices may have created a corridor to neighbouring Sudan!

#carnivoreecology 🐾

📸 A. Mahdy et al.

Wahoo proud supervisor moment! 🤩

My Honours student, Kamil, received the top mark in his class for his research project where we tested the Mostela as a monitoring tool for African small carnivores! 📸🇿🇦🐾

We got some fantastic results & great to see his hard work pay off! 😊

🚨 New paper in #FoodWebs

We report on trophic interactions between #cheetah & #baboon and suggest baboons could be an underreported source of food loss & kleptoparasitism!

doi.org/10.1016/j.fo...

Thanks to Wildlife Act in Hluhluwe–iMfolozi for some great 📸!

#mammals 🦊

A positive first post for 🔵☁️

Happy to share our #NatureNote in Ecology & Evolution describing the first #cameratrap images of African wild dogs in Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve, Malawi! 📸🇲🇼

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...