Rangeland Utilization By Cattle In The Lower Kuiseb River Area, Namib Desert, Namibia

ABSTRACT

There is a general lack of information on how cattle utilise the lower Kuiseb River rangelands, their feeding behaviour and how they deal with intense heat. This study aimed at understanding cattle habitat selection (considering that they are free ranging in the absence of a herder), and their foraging behaviour in relation to air temperature along the lower Kuiseb River area in the Walvis Bay Rural Constituency, Erongo Region. The study was carried out at three farmer settlements along the Kuiseb River area through remote sensing technology, where six selected cows were fitted with Global Position System (GPS)–enabled collars, two cattle per site from 09 April 2019 to 30 June 2019. The collars set to ten–minute sampling intervals to track their movement and understand how they select habitats. Soon after the collars were deployed, rare and unpredictable episodic rainfall in the study area allowed the rare opportunity to track cattle movement and behaviour before and after rain events in desert rangeland conditions. Cattle behaviour was interpreted by pairing observed behaviour with collar sensor data for the same animal over ten–minute intervals. Activities were categorised and scored for feeding, resting and walking, which were associated with ambient temperature to understand how cattle behaviour may relate to temperature. Data analysis was done using R, QGIS and SPSS, at 5 % level of confidence. The study revealed that there was a significant difference (P < 0.05) in habitat selection by cattle under dry and wet conditions. The distances over which livestock move to available forage did not significantly differ (P > 0.05) before and after rain, and temperature did not seem to be an important consideration as there was no significant relationship (P > 0.05) between ambient temperature, collar temperature and cattle foraging in the lower Kuiseb River area.

Keywords: Ambient temperature, Foraging behaviour, GPS collars, Habitat selection, lower Kuiseb River area.