For years, we talked about what it would take to bring wildlife back to Zambia’s Lower Luano.
In September, we stopped talking about it and did it.
Cape buffalo and puku have now been returned to an area where these species had disappeared locally following years of commercial bushmeat poaching.
This was never simply about moving animals from one place to another. Wildlife restoration is far more complicated than that.
It requires habitat. It requires government cooperation. It requires professional wildlife management. It requires money. And, most importantly, it requires the support of the people who actually live with wildlife.
That is what Operation Return of the Wild was created to demonstrate.
Working alongside Zambia’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife, local communities, professional wildlife veterinarians and capture teams, the Nortons and our other partners on the ground, we successfully completed the first major translocations into the Lower Luano.
The Cape buffalo are now acclimating in the holding boma. The next major milestone will come in November, when the boma is opened and the herd is allowed to begin moving naturally onto the surrounding landscape.
Puku have also returned to the Lower Luano.
There is something profound about seeing an animal standing on ground where its species had disappeared.
But returning wildlife is only the beginning.
The real measure of success will come years from now. Can these populations establish themselves? Can they reproduce? Can wildlife once again provide economic and social value to the communities that live alongside it? And can we build a conservation model strong enough that these animals never disappear from this landscape again?
Those are the questions Shepherds of Wildlife intends to follow.
We will return to Zambia in November to document the next stage of the buffalo restoration. We will continue monitoring the project, recording the voices of the people involved and creating educational conservation content from what we learn.
We are also continuing production of our next documentary, Killing the Shepherd: Return of the Wild, which will tell the much larger story behind this restoration.
Operation Return of the Wild isn’t finished.
In many ways, it has just begun.
Mother Nature doesn’t practice conservation. People do.™
Tom
