Zimbabwe Wild Dogs

Category: Denning, Uncategorized, Wild Dogs, zimbabwe | Date: Jul 04 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

Forgive the infrequent posts at the moment - we are rushing around like mad things trying to keep up with the dogs as they all start to den and the pups start appearing.  This is just a brief update of where we are now…

We’ve located 5 den sites so far: the four collared packs (Maera, Mapari, Bedford and Teddy) and one un-collared pack (Star).  The Maera pack pups came out aboout 2-3 weeks ago, but I haven’t mangaged to see them again since they moved dens after the lion visited!  I recently saw the puppies of the Bedford pack for the first time as well.  We only saw 7 but camera trap photos show there to be at least 12.  All very exciting, and they are such fun to watch! 

The other packs have only recently denned down and so the pups are not yet out.  Mapari pack will probably be next, followed by Star pack.  The Teddy pack is quite late and only denned down about 4 days ago.

Having found those den sites, I am now able to ask the scouts to focus on other areas in the conservancy, so hopefully soon we should get a clearer picture of the other packs in the conservancy, and if we can find their den sites, we’ll have the chance to count them and photograph them as a baseline for the forthcoming year.

Back soon,

Rosemary

PS - I’ll conscript Rafael into writing some blogs soon, so you can see the project through a new pair of eyes!