The Boucher Legacy is raising funds to protect our wildlife!
The Boucher Legacy has been involved in wildlife conservation since 2012. In all we do, the safekeeping and development of our wildlife remain as the focus. Our big goals include – collaring all African wild dog packs in the Greater Kruger National Park, the ongoing rehabilitation of pangolins, working to develop high-tech tracking and monitoring for endangered mammals, as well as the ongoing monitoring and protection of rhinos.
We do our best, but we can’t do it all without you.
The painted dog
There are an estimated 300 African wild dogs in the Kruger National Park. The park has been a special area of focus for us as there are a number of African wild dogs that are continuously exposed to threats such as snares, canine distemper and rabies, retaliatory killings by farmers and strikes caused by passing vehicles and trains.
A saddening 21 snares were reported in 2022 from 11 different packs. We were able to successfully remove 12 snares, but despite the improved efficiency in detecting packs that are at risk, we still lost at least 8 dogs to snares.
The option of relocating a resident pack is logistically and financially difficult to implement, especially for a pack that has an established home range. The best approach, in this case, is proactive human-wildlife mitigation.
To further protect these mammals, we use GPS collars and SigFox repeater devices, to follow the movement patterns of packs in high-risk areas outside the boundaries of Kruger National Park. The dogs’ movement is monitored intensively before, during and after the denning season for about 3 weeks to be sure of their settling, safety and protection.
A multitude of strategies is needed to protect these precious mammals. In our efforts to do so, we continue to put these life-saving measures in place for over 40 African wild dog packs.
The most trafficked mammal
As an extension of our successful wild dog tracking and collaring project, we have invested our passion into the release of Temminck’s pangolins in South Africa. Through the funding of VHF and satellite telemetry, and in partnership with the African Pangolin Working Group, we’ve been able to track the journeys of 6 rescued pangolins as they reintegrate into the wild. The African Pangolin Working Group, which has been mandated to oversee pangolin conservation in South Africa by the Department of Forestry Fisheries and the Environment, adheres to the rule which requires the attachment of telemetry units to every pangolin that comes under their radar. This is an enormously costly exercise but a necessary one for monitoring the effective release of these mammals, and for configuring settings and downloading data for research.
The gentle giant
451 rhinos were killed in South Africa last year, and the black rhino numbers have dwindled down to just 2056. To combat this dreadful situation and contribute to concerted efforts to safeguard our gentle giants, we’ve embarked on a 5 tier rhino tracking and protection program, which includes creating a rhino DNA database in collaboration with Dr Cindy Harper from the University of Pretoria, rhino collaring and tracking with the use of Max-Planck tracking devices, as well as rhino orphan support and rhino dehorning.
To continue providing our precious wildlife with the support they need to survive, we need your help. Your donation goes directly to securing telemetry units that allow us to track the progress of rescued pangolins, and to continue our rhino and wild dog protection and conservation projects.