Movement response patterns of livestock to rainfall variability in the Richtersveld National Park

Patterns of resource use by livestock during and after drought on the commons of Namaqualand, South Africa

“…Elsewhere in Namaqualand, different travelling distances of livestock during dry seasons were also attributed to differences in food availability and quality (Hendricks et al, 2005). However, we did not find any difference in route lengths during or after drought although we expected herds to forage further during drought.…”

“…The availability of water and forage are among the factors that guide livestock keepers in the location of stockposts in Namaqualand (Hendricks et al, 2005). During this study there was no significant difference between distance of the stockposts from the water point during or after the drought.…”

“…The grazing orbit of the Paulshoek herds during the drought period does not differ from the grazing orbits elsewhere in Namaqualand in the Richtersveld (Hendricks et al, 2005), nor to that of one herd monitored over three seasons in 2001 in Paulshoek (Combrink, 2004). This means that 2000-2500 m might be the average distance that a herd moves away from a stockpost to find enough food to eat irrespective of rainfall.…”

“…It may be that the Paulshoek communal area has a high abundance of water points, since wherever the herders in Paulshoek establish their stockpost; they will still be less than 3 km from a water point. Other pastoralists in Africa specifically move their herds closer to water sources during the dry season so that their animals can be watered regularly (Bassett, 1986;Sieff, 1997;Hendricks et al, 2005).…”

“…Studies in Namaqualand have recently documented herd mobility of communal livestock (Combrink, 2004;Hendricks et al, 2005;Baker and Hoffman, 2006), but none have specifically looked at herding patterns during drought periods. During dry periods, livestock herds may move long distances to greener pastures (Sieff, 1997), expand their home range (Bassett, 1986;Hoffman, 2005), concentrate in key resource areas within their home range (Coughenour, 1991), rotate between camps (Goldstein et al, 1990) and forage more intensely around water points (Pickup and Bastin, 1997).…”