The "Night Roamers" Pilot Study Begins!

In the depths of night, small carnivores roam the African bush, yet few studies exist that focus on them. "Night Roamers" is a collaborative research initiative between The Civet Project Foundation and Mankwe Wildlife Reserve in South Africa that seeks to fill this gap in research. In this blog post, Civet Project trustee, Lucy Newton, reports from the field during her time establishing the Night Roamers pilot study.

Mankwe Wildlife Reserve

Mankwe Wildlife Reserve is a private reserve in the Northwest Province of South Africa.

Approximately 4700 hectares, Mankwe Wildlife Reserve was initially created out the buffer zone

of an explosive factory in the1980s. In 1992, wildlife enthusiast Dougal MacTavish took over the buffer zone and began to manage to land as a sustainable wildlife reserve. Dougal added dams and other waters sources to the buffer zone along with roads to increase management access. Dougal’s developments and habitat management have allowed the ecosystem to flourish. By introducing a wider range of large mammal species, and continual protection and conservation the site is now home to 53 species of large mammal, over 380 species of birds, 30 species of reptiles, 15 species of small mammals and 68 species dung beetles.

In later years, research started happening at Mankwe. Students from across the world have been able to undertake academic field courses there, as well as conducting research for Master’s and PhD projects.

Since 2000, a large number of university students have been to Mankwe Wildlife

Reserve on curriculum-designed two-week field courses to learn applied conservation in the field. In these courses, students put their theoretical knowledge to the test. Students learn techniques to collect scientific data that can be used for research studies in their future academic careers, and it opens their eyes to an array of different field techniques that they may otherwise not get to experience.

Camera Trapping at Mankwe

Over the years, Mankwe has used camera trapping to monitor the reserves animals, including species difficult to observe in person. One specific master student used camera traps as part of an investifation to compare the effectiveness of camera trapping, driven transects and ad hoc records for surveying nocturnal mammals against a known species assemblage. By having this research, it shows us where civets have been in the reserve historically, and the study also showed that camera trapping is the foremost effect way of collecting data on Viverridae.

Due to these long-term studies, The Civet Project Foundation now has access to a log of photos and videos on Viverridae for the past ten years- data which will be vital to understand Viverridae habitat use, distribution, and behaviour within the reserve.

Student Field Courses & the Mankwe Volunteer Program

In March 2022, I went to Mankwe Wildlife Reserve in South Africa with Plumpton

College, as part of my BSc studies. As part of my course, I undertook the field course in Wildlife Conservation which takes place at Mankwe Wildlife reserve. During my stay at Mankwe I met Lynne Mactavish and Melissa Dawson; Lynne Mactavish has taken over the management of

the reserve from her father Dougal, and Melissa Dawson is the research coordinator.

While at Mankwe I leant about anti-poaching efforts, field-based surveys and got the opportunity

to put my conservation theory into practice in the field. I was in Africa for two weeks and

this experience made me want to come back for longer as an Nkombi volunteer. The

Nkombi volunteer programme runs alongside the student field courses, all year round

enabling previous students, and anyone interested in getting more field-based

experience that foot in the door. While at the programme you can assist and learn a

range of tasks including reserves management, control burns, anti – poaching patrols, tracking, game capture and lot more different skills that are necessary to management a

wildlife reserves.

The reserves is also a place that continually has scientific research being undertaken

and they have published work on the wide diversity of animals and the ecosystem as a

whole. Some of the publications that grabbed my attention included:

• Comparative abundance and ranging behaviour of brown hyaena (Parahyaena brunnea).

• Evidence that vulture restaurants increase the local abundance of mammalian carnivores in South Africa.

• The population dynamics of the black-backed jackal (Canis mesomelas) in game farm ecosystems of South Africa.

After my university field course, I wanted to come back to Mankwe to do research and

complete my own data collection. It was perfected timing, as luckily for me, when I

enrolled in the volunteering programmed, The Civet Project were seeking a partnership within an African reserve, where they can conduct research. As a newly appointed trustee of The Civet Project, at that time, I was keen to combine my volunteer program with Viverrid data collection. Although The Civet Project was aware that Viverrids in Africa can be hunted for for meat, muti and black magic, there was little research available on these pressures, nor was there data on wild population numbers or the behaviour patterns of civets in the bush.

The IUCN Red List last assessed African civets in 2015, and it is still unknown if the numbers are falling or raising. That is why The Civet Project is so keen to investigate the African civet as there is so little data. There is little research into African Viverrids because they are secretive, nocturnal species. This makes them difficult to study.

The "Night Roamers" Research Initiative

The aims of the ‘Night Roamers’ research initiative is to conduct research on Mankwe’s Viverridae so that we can increase our understanding of Viverridae in South Africa. Mankwe have seen civets at the reserves but very few times over the years. To increase our study impact, we will conduct the research on all Viverridae including mongoose, genets, and civets.

In the three months that I am volunteering at Mankwe, I am undertaking a pilot study alongside Mankwe staff. In 2025 we plan to start a longitudinal study for which data will be collected by university students and volunteers while they are on their field course. Night Roamers will therefore, not only allow us to collect quantitative data, but it will raise the profile of Viverrid species within pedagogical practice.

We want to conduct a research project that students can take part in while they are at

Mankwe, to not only gain a good data set but to build on the general population’s

knowledge of Viverridae. They will learn how to use camera traps and clean the data,

keep acurate records and managing that dataset ready for analysis. It will give students a chance to work on a project that will be published. It also benefits Mankwe at they can understand more about their viverrids on the reserves, their population, and their movement patterns, to aid in the reserves continued conservation of more at-risk species. Viverrids are also especially important to the ecosystem as they are key in seed dispersal which helps with the growth of new plants and trees.

The Pilot Study

The aims of the pilot study is to find out hotspot areas for Viverridae. We know that civet

and other Viverridae live in grass and scrub lands. We also know that they stay away

from human activity and by doing this research using camera traps we can start

developing a better map of areas that may be occupied by civet and other Viverridae.

The places that we are looking for include water sources, grasslands, scrub lands and

corridors that small animals use. We can also use baited cameras as we know they eat

carrion meat, as long as the bait is in areas where there is less large mammal activity.

For the pilot study we have two camera traps, kindly supplied by Plumpton College. This allows us, for every deployment, to survey two separate locations. As this is a pilot study we looked at previous research and decided for now we would put the camera traps out for six nights which will allow the animals to get use to the camera and not be deterred by human scent, while ensuring no problems with the camera traps battery life or filling memory cards. After the camera traps are collected, I go through the photos and record the data on a spreadsheet and keep the photos of any Viverridae or other interesting nocturnal species.

For the first camera traps that were set up, we chose to put them in area that is called

‘New Camp;’ this is a fenced off 296ha area consisting of scrub and grassland that is

undisturbed by humans. Civets and other Viverridae can go through the fence between

the main reserve and this separate camp as the fence is a series of wire strands with no

electrics on the main fence itself. The fence is in place to stop larger mammals going

through the fence such as rhinos and giraffe. Therefore, the numbers of civets and

Viverridae can be varied but again we do not know what the average number in the

reserve is.

Placement of one camera in New Camp was at a water pan called Charlie’s pan.

Charlie’s pan is one of two pans in new camp, and as civets and other Viverrid's will be using water source at night, this location seemed ideal to try and look for Viverrid night activity.

Charlie’s pan is mostly undisturbed by humans. With smaller populations of large mammals having access to the areas it encourages access to smaller mammals such as Aardvark, Civet and Serval. Charlie’s pan is in scrub land which means it has got cover for animals to use and it not placed in open grassland, which benefits shyer and more nervous animals.

The second camera in New Camp was placed on a road junction called Charlie’s junction.

We put it on a road junction because animals use roads as passages to get to point A to

point B. Roads make an easier access route, hence high utilisation, as moving through

the dense bush comes with a lot of hazards. Predator can hide better in the bush

than on a the clear road, often making the road a safer option for smaller mammals.

We record the information about location of the camera such as GPS, tree that the

camera on, time and date. By having this information, we can put the camera trap in the

same place in the future.

The result for both cameras were very interesting and exciting.

Charlie’s pan results showed that many different nocturnal animals use the pan at night time. We did not get Viverridae at Charlie’s pan, but we did get a caracal and aardvark. Both the caracal and aardvark are listed as least concern on the IUCN Red List. Although this means both species of animals are not threaten but conservationists do not know if caracals or aardvarks

numbers are increasing or decreasing in the wild.

Capturing the activity of aardvark and caracals is very beneficial not only for Mankwe but for long term research, as these species also have limited data collected on them. These sightings can also feed into movement and habitat utilization studies moving forward.

The results at Charlie’s junction were very exciting as we got a small spotted genet and serval on camera.

Small spotted genet, like the civet, is part of the Viverridae family. At Mankwe there are two species of genets, there are small spotted genet and large spotted genets. They are not endangered but it is unknown to scientist if the population is decreasing or increasing. Not only will this data help with habitat use and behaviour, but the planned longitudinal study could aid in indicating the population changes in genets at Mankwe over the years or seasonally.

We also spotted a serval on the camera trap. A serval is a small cat species, prevalent

in more open grassland bush environments in Southern Africa. They are spotted and

can be mistaken as a leopard, but they are a lot smaller and have got large, pointed

ears. Servals are really pretty and not seen very often as they are very shy

animals.

After six nights we moved the camera new location. One of the key aims of the pilot study is to find out where are best location for the actual study when it starts in March 2025. It is therefore essential to try as many locations around the reserve as possible to help frame the focus on the

longitudinal study next year.

Watch this space for more updates from the field as we progress with our study design.

Author Bio:

Lucy Newton holds a Bachelor of Science Degree (with Honours) in Applied Animal Behaviour and Welfare, and a Foundation Degree in Applied Animal Behaviour and Conservation. In university, Lucy became interested in human and animal interactions, and she would like to pursue a Master's degree in Human and Animal Interaction in the future. Lucy is keen to understand and develop strategies to improve the relationships held between humans and animals and hopes to research the impact of civet’s musk on the African Viverridae.

How you can help

There are a few ways you can help Viverrids, the simplest one being to help spread awareness and support the research going into protecting these animals. Further actions you can take include:

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