The new den
Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jul 22 2008 | By: zimbabwewilddogs
Hi guys,
I just wanted to let you know more about this new den we found: It has six puppies and three adults. Whilst six is a fairly small litter size, it’s not bad for such a small pack of adults, and I only hope they manage to rear them successfully. It is fairly uncommon for wild dogs in a pack smaller than 5 or 6 to successfully rear a litter. However a colleague of mine doing a leopard study in the area keeps reporting the dogs eating from his leopard baits, so at least that is adding to whatever they manage to hunt!!
We think the dogs are the Ingwe pack: I’ve managed to positively identify one of the individuals as belonging to that pack, but havent yet got decent pics of the others. Being such a small pack they are very wary of vehicles and are hard to get close to. The terrain around the den is also very rough - lots of boulders and trees and car-breaking stumps, so it’s not the easiest place to get close to. But with the help of the scouts we’ve cleared a rough track there so can get the vehicle in at least. It’s going to be a tricky pack to collar though, that’s for sure!
I put a camera trap up at the Maera den site the other day, to see what goes on there at night, so I’ll report on the findings from that at the next post.
Back soon,
Rosemary
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Rosemary Groom is a post-doctoral research scientist with the African Wildlife Conservation Fund -
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4 Responses to “The new den”
sheryl, washington dc, on 22 Jul 2008
OK, since my dog knowledge mostly concerns c. familiaris, why is it difficult for these dogs to successfully raise a smaller litter? I hope you’ll be able to post any good pics you get from the camera trap.
s.
Maina, on 22 Jul 2008
Great news. could this mean that the population of wild dogs could be increasing hence the need for growing packs to split and move to new dens?
zimbabwewilddogs, on 24 Jul 2008
Hi Sheryl,
It’s difficult for these dogs to raise any litter, because they are such a small pack of adults. That means they cant afford to leave one adult at the den as a baby sitter whilst the others hunt, increasing the risk of predataion on the pups. Also, smaller packs cant hunt so effectively so they often cant feed the pups enough either. Six pups is a fairly small litter size, but it’s still likely to be hard work for only 3 adults to rear them. I’ll let you know how they do!
Rosemary
sheryl, washington dc, on 24 Jul 2008
Hey, thanks for the explanation, Rosemary. I hope they’re successful in raising the pups, somehow.
s.
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