Studying carnivores can be difficult and frustrating work — people are generally either afraid of carnivores or generally dislike them because they can prey on their livestock, so there is little incentive to protect them. Poachers can receive either much-needed protein from hunting carnivores or money for selling snared wildlife in remote villages, or more likely, across the border in the DRC, a mere 40km away.
This is not the first snare injury I have seen. My camera traps have captured images of other jackals with snare scars on their wrists. And these are just pictures of animals that survive- I'm sure there are many more of the smaller carnivores that aren't able to free themselves from the snares of poachers. It's also interesting to talk to locals about carnivores here. Some people boast that they have seen leopard and golden cat (the two most elusive carnivores that have existed in Nyungwe in the past- now it is not clear if they have been extirpated here or not). Yet, most of the people I talk to aren't able to even differentiate between even common, non-carnivore species, like primates.
For example, my two students from NUR came to work here for the last month on their thesis projects. I received a call from them one day as they were going to check their traps that they had run into "monkeys" blocking the trail. I tried to ascertain what species of monkey (there are 13 species here and only one is aggressive, the olive baboon). They said they didn't know what species it was, only that it was grey. I asked for other descriptions (are they in the trees or on the ground? How big are they? How many?). The students were petrified of the animals and could only tell me some vague details. I told them to hang out and see if the troop moved away, otherwise they could eventually clap their hands and slowly approach them. I received a text an hour later saying they (the monkeys) hadn't moved and they were too afraid to approach them. To make a long story short, the monkeys turned out to be olive baboons. Which can be aggressive if you are 1) a stupid tourist who tries to get too close to take a picture, or 2) a stupid tourist/local who tries to feed the animals. But otherwise the animals are fairly mild mannered and given a respectful distance, pose no real threat. But what struck me wasn't what species they were, so much as my undergraduate biology students, one of whom grew up at Akagara National Park (where there are tons of baboons), couldn't identify them, even though theyare extremely common in Rwanda.
So if Zoology students aren't able to identify one of the most common primate species found in Rwanda, then I don't rely too heavily on the ancedotal "sightings" of leopards and golden cat that I have heard about in Nyungwe. For one, leopards look a lot like serval (large spotted felid), and solitary cats are amongst some of the most elusive of carnivores to ever see. There's really no telling what carnivore species remain in Nyungwe. I can tell you however, that if you go to websites endorsing tourism at the National Parks in Rwanda, you'll be surprised to know that these websites say that tigers, yes TIGERS, are in Rwanda!! Tigers are in India and other parts of Asia. See for yourself: http://www.akageralodge.co.rw/games/wild%20activites.htm
I'm hoping that my camera trapping might begin to shed some light on whether some of these rarer carnivore species exist, and what habitat they prefer. Perhaps this data can be used to encourage further conservation measures in Nyungwe - specifically, to protect wildlife from illegal poaching. Because while no tourist will ever likely see a wild leopard at Nyungwe, they still remain one of the more charismatic carnivores (after lions) that persist in Rwanda, and perhaps knowing they exist might draw some tourist dollars to this part of the country. Unfortunately, it seems that money is the only real incentive for developing conservation plans in most of Rwanda
