Last week, Dr. Joao Almeida from the STS Mozambique team, travelled to central Mozambique. There he was to deploy 3 GPS collars on lions living in Coutada 9.
Coutada 9 protects 400,000 hectares of wilderness in a private-community partnership. This aims to re-establish the wilderness areas that provide key habitat for a number of important species.
Due to the vast and wild landscape, the collaring operation required a huge effort to locate and dart the target lions. After a week of driving day and night, we finally managed to deploy one of the collars on a beautiful male. The lion population in central Mozambique is poorly understood. Therefore, collar data will provide a critical insight into lion movement. It will also provide insight into population dynamics in one of the last true wild lion range habitats in southern Africa.
STS will return to the reserve to complete the collaring soon and keep you updated about this exciting conservation project.
We would like to thank ANAC and Coutada nine operators for their help and continued dedication to wildlife conservation in this remote part of Mozambique.
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