The Zambian Carnivore Programme’s conservation actions address immediate threats to species and ecosystems as identified by conservation science. ⁣

They collaborate with an array of local partners to help ensure that threats are addressed through initiatives ranging from supporting anti-poaching and wildlife crime prevention, to connectivity, land-use planning, species reintroduction, mitigating human-wildlife conflict as well as disease mitigation.⁣

Through their various ‘Conservation Capacity’ projects - training, educating, sponsoring and creating job opportunities - they also want to ensure that local communities are effectively involved in these conservation efforts to allow their sustainability.

‘ZCP’ gives women and young Zambian wildlife professionals the opportunity to contribute their talents to conservation.

FOCUS: Anti-snaring Project

This season has been very intense for the Zambian Carnivore Programme in their fight against animal snaring. The result was largely successful, but a lot of efforts had to be deployed and we thought this project deserved to be highlighted on this blog.

Less known than elephant ivory and rhino horn trafficking, the illegal bushmeat trade has an unprecedented impact on Africa’s ecosystem. 

Wire snaring, very largely used by meat poachers, is a non-selective but easy, effective poaching method which causes horrible damages on a variety of species, including large carnivores.

To fight this trend, the anti-snaring project of the Zambian Carnivore Programme consists of using GPS collars, allowing them to know the animals exact location and visit and monitor the groups so they can rescue individuals caught in snares.

The data collected with the collars also helps ZCP to determine which areas are most in need of protection, to deploy anti-poaching units to patrol and remove snares from these areas.

With communal species, they only need to use one collar on one individual per family group to be able to monitor the entire group.

Success Story

In 2014, ZCP rescued and treated a wild dog pup with a bad deep cut in his mouth, which prohibited him from eating and facing certain death. They kept following him throughout the years and, in 2019, they had the great surprise to find him as the healthy alpha male of a new pack of 16 individuals!

Read more about the successful rescue of Wild Dog 365 here.

Zambian Carnivore Programme Bracelet

Using Red Jasper and Leopardskin Jasper with Ethiopian brass features and a beautiful lion pendant, 50% from every sale of our gorgeous Zambian Carnivore Programme bracelet is donated directly to ZCP and contribute to the conservation plans for lion, wild dog, leopard, cheetah and hyena.

A great opportunity to GET INVOLVED!