Seasonal Pattern of Springbok Fence Related Mortalities in Southern Namibia

ABSTRACT

Analysing a decade of records on fence-related springbok mortalities at an 8000 ha farm with 36 km of internal (height: 1 m) and 48 km of boundary fences (height: 1.4 m) resulted in an average mortality occurrence of 0.25 and 0.61 mortalities/km (over the 10 years period) for boundary (1.4 m) and internal (1 m) fences, respectively. Male mortalities occur mainly during summer (hot/wet season) with equal numbers killed in internal and boundary fences, while female mortalities are mainly associated with winter (cold/dry season) and internal fences. Mitigations to minimise mortalities include varying the width of the upper fence strands and leaving camp gates open when livestock are not present to facilitate the movement of springbok.