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| Cape Hunting Dogs (update) | ||
 The
Hunting Dogs are a healthy pack of 16 dogs! Last year when we first noticed
them there were three adults, two males and one female. They set up a den
and raised a litter of 10 pups of which five died over the next year; wild
dog pups have a high mortality. Now the alpha female has given birth to
a litter of eight pups. So, where there until recently were no permanent
wild dogs there is a pack of sixteen in little more than a year! Truly prolific
breeders if given the chance.
Last week we were enjoying the sunset from our veranda when suddenly a panting and wide-eyed bushbuck ewe burst out of the vegetation in the dry riverbed. A young ram, her lamb from last year, closely followed her. She sped forward and dove into a bush and he ran back into the riverbed. In a clearing next to the bush a male wild dog came to a panting halt, for a brief instant, and then he lunged forward into the bush where the bushbuck ewe was hiding. He had caught her crouching in the bush and was dragging her by her buttock. Within seconds the rest of the pack arrived including all the pups. The ewe was devoured in minutes and the pups were begging for more from the adults. The adults immediately responded in what can only be described as selfless, they regurgitated their meals to the pups! This altruistic behaviour has allowed one of the original males that started the pack last year to survive for the last six months with a broken leg. The other dogs feed it when it arrives late a kill. This concern for each other is characteristic of wild dogs and in stark contrast to their fearsome reputation as cruel killers. In fact it is also in stark contrast with the behaviour of other, more admired, predators such as lions. A lion with a broken leg would not be able to count on its fellow pride members to provide for it! |
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