The Secret Seventeen

The term “Big Five” is synonymous with hunting and safaris in Africa. Many wildlife reserves will use the term ‘Big Five Reserve’ to proclaim the fact that they have Lion, Leopard, Elephant, Buffalo and Rhino on the property. 

Black Rhino

Sadly, many visitors to this region are only interested in seeing those five species. They tick them off and return home happy – oblivious to the remarkable diversity of wildlife that they didn’t see. 

 Now I have nothing against the Big Five - they are wonderful creatures and are not called the Big Five for nothing – but they are just five examples of the remarkable diversity of mammals present in Africa.

 

                                                                           However I would love this all to change, which is the purpose of this post. I’d like to encourage all wildlife enthusiasts to get excited about seeing our SECRET SEVENTEEN mammals. Why seventeen? Well, there is no compelling reason why it has to be seventeen. It could just have easily been the Secret Sixteen or perhaps the Elusive Eighteen. The Furtive Fifteen came to mind as did the Nocturnal Nineteen – but the adjectives ‘elusive’, ‘furtive’ and ‘nocturnal’ weren’t universally appropriate.

Aardvark

  The point is the number needs to be reasonably high – so that it’s not just another small exclusive club of mammals. This is about celebrating biodiversity rather than getting picky.

I’ve compiled the list that follows from mammals occurring in South Africa but there is no reason why the concept should just be a South African one. All countries should have their own version of the SECRET SEVENTEEN. Each country has its own wonderful endemic species that should be included in its national list.

  

My guidelines for selecting a proposed list of seventeen secretive species were as follows:

1. They shouldn’t be easily seen, but should nevertheless be capable of being seen with some effort.

2. They should have a reasonably wide distribution within the country. Species that only occur at the margins of South Africa might be rare but are not appropriate for this list. So something like the Suni (Neotragus moschatus) might be rare enough in South Africa but is widespread in Mozambique – so is excluded. 

Riverine Rabbit

Similarly, the Riverine Rabbit (Bunolagus monticularis) now only exists in such isolated pockets that the likelihood of most people seeing one is very slim.
 I have also favoured those rare species that occur in the traditional ‘game viewing’ regions of this country because that is where most visitors go to view wildlife.

Small-Spotted Genet

3. Where there are closely related species of a particular family, that are all worthy of inclusion, then I have simply included the generic family. 
For example, any one of the three species of genet occurring here could have been chosen so I’ve decided to include just ‘Genets’ on the list. 
The same goes for our two Otters and two Galagos (Bushbabies).

4. However, in contrast to the above, there are some families with both rare and abundant representatives e.g. Mongoose, where we have ten - I think. Here I’ve made a decision to include just one species which I think best fits my other criteria.

 

5. I’ve excluded those Orders/Families that are particularly difficult to identify (and possibly of lesser interest to the general wildlife-viewing public). These would include the small rodents, moles, bats and marine mammals. I appreciate that I’m now on dangerous ground! I know that there are many extraordinary examples of the above but most wildlife enthusiasts, and even guides, wouldn’t be capable of identifying them without catching them.

Brown Hyena

6. I’ve also excluded large mammals which might be fairly rare but, if they occur in the area/reserve, are usually easy to see during the day. Examples would be Roan (Hippotragus equinus) and Sable (H. niger) Antelopes.

So here goes. This is my suggested list – in alphabetic order:

1	Aardvark	Orycteropus afer
2	Aardwolf	Proteles cristatus
3	African Civet	Civettictis civetta
4	African Weasel	Poecilogale albinucha
5	African Wild Cat	Felis silvestris lybica
6	Brown Hyena	Parahyaena brunnea
7	Bushpig	Potamochoerus larvatus
8	Caracal	Caracal caracal
9	Galagos (Bushbabies)	Galago moholi; Otolemur crassicaudatus
10	Genets	Genetta genetta, G maculata, G tigria
11	Honey Badger	Mellivora capensis
12	Otters	Lutra maculicollis, Aonyx capensis
13	Pangolin	Manis temminckii
14	Porcupine	Hystrix africaeaustralis
15	Serval	Leptailurus serval
16	Southern African Hedgehog	Atelerix frontalis
17	White-Tailed Mongoose	Ichneumia albicauda

This is a very personal selection and I’m very aware that some worthy species have been excluded. So I would really welcome your suggestions as to what would be other appropriate inclusions to this list, or simply your preferences. As mentioned above, this is my South African selection. So if you’re not from South Africa I’d also love to hear what your SECRET SEVENTEEN would be in other countries. Please do respond – I’d love to hear what you think.

African Wild Cat

 p.s. So when you do go out and find these secretive species please do take a photo and send it to the University of Cape Towns's MammalMAP programme ( http://mammalmap.adu.org.za ). The distribution of the Big Five is fairly well known but data on the SECRET SEVENTEEN would be invaluable to them.

A Cederberg Survey

As regular readers of my blog will know I'm fortunate to be able to spend a fair bit of time in the wilds of Southern Africa with my camera traps. Over the last few years I've visited many fabulous sites, rich in biodiversity, but seldom get to spend long at any one of them.

So I've been looking for a site that is reasonably close to home where I can leave out a few cameras for many seasons - and possibly even a few years. I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for - in fact, I have no idea what I'm looking for. I just like the idea of surveying a location that's wild and remote enough that my cameras are unlikely to be spotted by anyone. I'm keen to produce a video rather than a snapshot - if you will excuse the metaphor.

One such place is the Cederberg mountains where I've recently spent a few days. My local readers will know the Cederberg as a wonderful place for hiking and exploring. It is criss-crossed by hiking trails and the odd 'jeep track' but there remain many remote valleys that almost never get visited. But the vegetation has a low carrying capacity and the term 'abundant' would not be used to describe its wildlife. So its certainly not  'big 5' territory but I'm always more interested in the smaller animals: call them the secret seventeen.

The owners and managers of a wonderful place called Mount Ceder ( www.mountceder.co.za ) have agreed to let me leave my cameras on their vast property. I've done a bit of scouting around and I think I've found, with their guidance, a few great spots for cameras. So they're installed and, hopefully, clicking away (to the extent that camera-traps ever click away) as you read this.

During my few days there I didn't get too many images but there were a few that I liked:

A one-horned Grey Rhebuck ram (Pelea capreolus) who seemed totally oblivious to my camera. These guys are fairly common in the Cederberg but one generally only sees them bounding away with their characteristic rocking-horse motion - their white tails flashing prominently.

An African Wild Cat (Felis silvestris) - and again not a particularly uncommon species. However, what is interesting to me is that it was out at midday. There could be plenty of reasons for this but I wonder whether the remoteness of the location could make them more diurnal.

The only primate in the region, the Savanna Baboon (Papio cynocephalus ursinus). Do their babies suck their thumbs too?

One of my favorites, the Caracal (Caracal caracal) - also not often seen during the day. I've been lucky with images of these beautiful cats recently but I particularly like this one. Those eyes are mean!

So I'm hopeful that this new site will produce something interesting. And I'm looking forward to getting back there on a regular basis to check the cameras and swap out the cards.

Who's Killing the Penguins?

I've written before about work that I've done with the African Penguin (Spheniscus demersus).

This is the only species of penguin breeding in South Africa and, sadly, its numbers are dropping rapidly. Some of the  known causes of this are the depletion of its food supply, damage from oil spills and loss of breeding habitat. Fur seals are known to predate on penguins at sea but it was sad to hear that something was killing the penguins at the Stony Point colony in Betty's Bay - the only colony in the region that is actually growing.

Most of the carcasses were only partly eaten but it was estimated that, potentially, hundred of birds had died this way. So I offered to install a couple of camera-traps to see if we could identify the culprit.

Most carcasses were located near a thick stand of Rooikrans (Acacia cyclops) which suggested that this would be a good place to start looking. 

There were a couple of well used animal trails leading into the thicket so we installed the cameras a few metres into these trails. It didn't take long before the suspect was 'caught'.............

These aren't great images but they're quite good enough to identify a Caracal (Caracal caracal) as the likely culprit.

The cameras didn't catch much else other than some Rock Hyrax (Procavia capensis)  - who had better also watch out for the Caracal........

......and live penguins that wouldn't be in that thicket if they knew what was good for them:

In hindsight, getting images of the culprit was the easy part. What to do with them is way more tricky. I love the idea that we still have Caracals in coastal villages like Betty's Bay but I accept that ongoing predation of the African Penguin, now classified as endangered in the latest IUCN Red Data list, is a big problem. Translocating the cat (if it can be caught) is a possibility but it has also been suggested that it gets fitted with a tracking collar. The authorities can then monitor its movements and chase it away from the penguins when it gets too close. That's the idea anyway........

Camera-trapping Workshop

I  recently ran a camera-trapping workshop in the Waterberg region of South Africa. The wildlife reserve I used had a good variety of mammals but no lions, elephants or buffalo. So it was safe to walk around and set up our cameras as long as we kept a look out for the resident rhinos and hippos.

The management of the reserve had pointed out the carcasses of a wildebeest and a couple of impala that had been struck by lightning - which seemed like a good place to start. We also chose a couple of water-holes, rhino middens and interesting looking spots in some riverine vegetation. But we had less than 48 hours to get some good images so luck did need to be on our side.

Our first evening was very windy and cold which is seldom good for camera trapping. The results from the cameras confirmed this and the results were disappointing. However the following night was way better so we were cautiously optimistic that we might have bagged something interesting. This is what we got:

An African Hawk-Eagle (Aquila spilogaster) on a piece of the carcass. I've always known them as competent hunters so was surprised to see them scavenging a carcass.

But I wasn't surprised to see these two around the carcass:

A Brown Hyaena (Parahyaena brunnea) who enjoys nothing more than some ripe wildebeest and an African Civet (Civettictis civetta) who didn't hang around too long.

An then we were fortunate to get:

A Caracal (Caracal caracal) who seemed to find the camera's flash a bit much........

......an Eland (Tragelaphus oryx) who wandered past on one of the few occasions when the sun shone.....

....and a Waterbuck (Kobus ellipsiprymnus) with its characteristic 'toilet-seat' marking on its rear end.

I'd also spent the night before the workshop on the reserve and had picked up this Large Spotted Genet (I'm not sure if it is Genetta maculata or Genetta tigrina )

We also got unexciting images of giraffe, warthog, kudu, impala, zebra, jackal, wildebeest, bushbuck, baboon and vervet monkey. So I guess that wasn't bad for a weekend of 'trapping'.

Thanks to the management of Jembisa as well as my 'students'. I had a lot of fun!

Our Rarest Rabbit

I was privileged  to spend a few days last week with members of the Endangered Wildlife Trust's  Riverine Rabbit Programme. For those of you that don't know, the Riverine Rabbit (Bunolagus monticularis) is one of our rarest mammals and is listed in the Red Data book as "critically endangered". The number of remaining rabbits is not known but is no more than a few thousand, and possibly less. I won't attempt to describe what great work both the Endangered Wildlife Trust and their Riverine Rabbit Programme do, but would urge you to look at their website or the Riverine Rabbit Programme page.

With the rabbits being nocturnal the researchers don't see these rabbits often so I offered to take some cameras into likely riverine habitats to see what we could find. I wasn't encouraged by what I initially saw: thick chest-high scrub with very few clearings. Not the easiest place to set up cameras. Nevertheless we used the few small clearings that we could find and also set some up some cameras along the farm road. The first night didn't produce anything interesting but then.......

Success! The distinguishing line on the jaw, white ring around the eyes and and a lack of any white on the tail left no doubt that we had a Riverine Rabbit. And over the next few days we got more...............

Everyone was hugely excited. Not only that we'd obtained these rare images but also that many of them were obtained at dawn - indicating that that these guys were also crepuscular.

The cameras also picked up the following carnivores:

A caracal (Caracal caracal), likely to be one of the major predators of the rabbit.

African Wild Cat (Felis silvestris lybica). Its not known whether this cat would take an adult rabbit but presumably the young rabbits would be very vulnerable.

So, a succesful few days!
Many thanks to Christy Bragg and the other EWT staff for allowing me to be part of this great project.

The Frustrations of a Camera -Trapper

Its been a disappointing few weeks. I've had my cameras out in some promising spots and know there were interesting nocturnal amimals around. But do you think I could get a decent picture .....no.

This is the back of our local lynx, or caracal (Caracal caracal). The raised hindquarters are pretty diagnostic and its a beautiful cat - probably the apex predator in the farmlands around here.

This little face belongs to the Striped Polecat (Ictonyx striatus). I've never caught one on my cameras before and its been on my wish-list for a while. Sadly one sees these little guys often as road-kill.

This, I believe, is a Cape Grysbok (Raphicerus malanotis). If I'd got a good colour photo the lovely rufous-brown coat with white flecks would have been impressive - but it was not to be.

However, this is the image that I'm really bummed about:

I'm pretty sure it's a Cape Fox (Vulpes chama) since nothing else around here has a bushy tail like this. I would love to have got a good picture of him. It's the only true fox in the region and very seldom seen - certainly be me!

But obviously all is not lost. The animals are here so it's just a matter of catching them. Perhaps a job for my Cuddeback cameras which will usually give a good night-time colour image.

Oh,  I did get one good image. I'll call it Canis pesticus: