A FIRST CARACAL RELEASE AT UKUWELA
It was an exciting day that we had been anticipating for months - the arrival of a rescued caracal at our Ukuwela Nature Reserve in South Africa. Read more about the caracal, predator conflict, and why Ukuwela was chosen as the perfect wild home for this lucky cat in our story below.
The caracal (Caracal caracal) is a medium-sized wild cat, native to Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and India. It is easily recognizable by its long black ear tufts and reddish coat. It’s also unique as one of the few wild cat species without spots on its coat. While not threatened in South Africa, the species is listed as Threatened on the IUCN Red List in North Africa and Critically Endangered in Morocco.
Extant distribution area of the caracal in Africa (IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2016).
In South Africa, the caracal population is stable and its conservation status is listed as Least Concern. However, with habitat disappearing and more wild spaces being used for farming and development, they are increasingly coming into conflict with farmers and people.
As a predator, the caracal’s diet consists of a large array of prey including small mammals, rodent and insectivores, antelope, hares, birds (Avenant & Nel, 2002) and other small animals including domestic goats and chickens .
Similar to the conflict between ranchers and wolves in the United States, in South Africa the caracal is considered a ‘problem animal’ for being a livestock killer and has been heavily persecuted in farming communities. As birds form part of the caracals’ prey base, where a poultry farm overlaps with their range, they can also become dreaded chicken raiders.
FreeMe Wildlife, a local KwaZulu-Natal based wildlife rehabilitation and rescue organization, has in the past, resolved farmer-caracal conflict by removing ‘problem’ caracals from farms, and from captive situations. These rescued caracals need new wild homes. And that’s where Wild Tomorrow Fund can help. Our Ukuwela Nature Reserve is within the caracal’s historic range and has all the right food sources, and being surrounded by other wildlife reserves, Ukuwela also gives relocated caracals a better chance of not coming into conflict with people.
Caracal have been reintroduced into many parts of South Africa where they were formerly extirpated or in low densities. However, in our region on the eastern coast, they have not yet repopulated. This makes the reintroduction of this individual caracal even more important, as a first step towards the return of wild caracal to our regional ecosystems. This re-introduction was permitted and approved by the regional government wildlife authority, Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife.
Who is the new lucky caracal?
The male caracal that was released on Ukuwela was rescued from a captive situation. Caracal kittens are sometimes illegally kept as exotic pets, but quickly become unwanted when they grow into big and wild teenagers. After his rescue, the male caracal spent six months in a boma (an enclosure for wildlife) at Veterinarian, Mike Tofts’ Zululand Treatment Centre. This prolonged period was to break his homing instinct, and to make sure he was wild enough to hunt for his own food.
His release day finally came on the 21st of January, 2020. He was tranquilized and transported carefully to Ukuwela, where our ranger Mzi had the honors of opening the crate door. Check out the release video capturing this special moment below.
Post-release, it is important that we monitor his location to make sure he makes his new home range within protected wildlife reserves. He was fitted with a GPS tracking collar which records his location four times and day. The collar has been fitted with a cotton “drop-off” meaning it will fall off within 6 months to a year. After this, we will keep track of him with our camera traps and general observations and sightings.
The GSP tracking collar shows he has been exploring Ukuwela and not leaving the safety of our protected area. So far, so good for our first caracal!
Stay tuned for more updates as we track this lucky cat at his new wild home.
References
Avenant, N. L., & Nel, J. A. J. (2002). Among habitat variation in prey availability and use by caracal Felis caracal. Mammalian Biology, 67, 18-33.
Avgan, B., Henschel, P. & Ghoddousi, A. 2016. Caracal caracal (errata version published in 2016). The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species2016: e.T3847A102424310. https://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-2.RLTS.T3847A50650230.en. via the IUCN Red List