Zimbabwe Wild Dogs

Good morning!

We left at 6am this morning, Rueben and I, to look for the Maera pack. Once we reached appropriate territory, every couple of kilometres Rueben would call ‘woah’ from the back of the pickup, and I’d pull over while he lifted the radio antenna to scan 360 degrees for a signal from the collared dog in the Maera pack, Alphy, the alpha male.

‘Abana signaw’, he would report in Shona, ‘no signal’. And we’d continue. Often while Rueben was scanning I’d jump out to have a quick look at the tracks of wildlife on the road. We saw tracks of Eland, Impala, Civet, Leopard, Tree Squirrel, Slender Mongoose, Aardwolf, Jackal, Zebra, Giraffe, Elephant, Guinea Fowl, Blue Waxbill, Yellow-Billed Hornbill, Black Rhino, African Buffalo, Blue Wildebeest, Small-Spotted Genet, Porcupine, Baboon, and African Wild Dog….those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head sitting here. Later we found tracks of White Rhino and Caracal. We were lucky enough to have actual sightings of a harem of Zebra, Wildebeest and a herd of Buffalo, too.

We climbed an old, empty concrete water-tank to gain height in the hope of picking up a signal. Inside, there was the greying skull of a poor monkey who had climbed in to get a drink long ago and been unable to get out. The whole place smelt of old death.

But ‘abana signaw,’ no signal.

We passed through thick elephant country; dense canopy forest of Mopane crowded with the signs of elephant: their barrel-like dung in the road in piles large enough that you feel the bumps as you drive over them, and massive branches broken off or whole trees pushed over as they fed; smaller branches stripped of nutritious bark with dextrous use of the trunk and mouth. Any moment we might put ourselves at risk by surprising a group of them at close quarters in the thick bush. But ‘abana ndzo’; we saw no elephants.

At one point we turned left at a crossroads and a short distance along the new road we stopped to check for a signal and, to my surprise, Rueben suddenly found one. He told me to turn around as our trajectory was wrong to find the dogs. As we drove back towards the crossroads, I saw something dark, long and large crossing the road, and I slowed to a halt; it was a White Rhino, and was soon followed by a second. Rueben asked me to approach them so that he could get a view; I got close in the car and one of them started to trot towards us to investigate, or warn us, but it didn’t come close. I reversed slightly to remove some branches from our view. Then as the rhinos moved away I saw someone running after them, crouching low and keen. I glanced back at Rueben, but he wasn’t there—he’d clearly jumped off the vehicle in hot pursuit of the Rhinos—luckily he knows what he’s doing as he spent years working in Rhino research before joining the Wild Dog project almost a decade ago.

A dustcloud appeared far down the road which turned out to be a group of Rhino-research scouts on their bicycles. Rueben had apparently heard on his radio that they were nearby and returned in a moment to show them the Rhino photos he’d just taken.

Back in the vehicle, we checked the Wild Dogs’ radio signal and resumed our pursuit; far down the straight road ahead there was a group of big dark things kicking up dust. Even with binoculars I couldn’t tell whether they were buffalo or wildebeest. Rueben thought that perhaps the Wild Dogs were there, harassing the beasts. I slowed as we neared them.

“Beneath that tall spring-green Mopane by the side of the road,” Rueben told me, “that’s where the Wild Dogs are.” I couldn’t see them, and neither could he, but it was the right direction for the signal and he seemed to have a hunch. Within seconds, at some hundred metres through vegetation, Rueben spotted the Wild Dogs, but they fled our approach.

Several hundred metres further on was a waterhole by the roadside, and there, our attention perked by strange wildebeest behaviour, we found the Wild Dogs again, only some 40 metres away in the feeble shade of a big Mopane just coming into leaf. As we arrived they were all on their feet, ears and noses in our direction, clearly wary. However, they relaxed a lot and more dogs came into view.

Four-ten (with the collar) and Harriet by the water-hole–

We counted 14, including 3 pups, which is the entire pack. We were able to watch them for some 15-20 minutes gaining a magnificent view and taking lots of useful photographs. Several of the adults including the alpha pair trotted to and fro, a touch unsettled by our presence, but many dogs stayed lying in the shade and several times came to the small water-hole to drink briefly, but mainly to roll about or lie in the murky water. A vulture sat in the tree above them. Alphy faced us sometimes and barked warningly. Eventually the pack moved away in a close unit heading East through the Mopane trees, one puppy trailing disractedly behind.

Cindy was loving it…

And others soon couldn’t resist…

This was a particularly good sighting, and more than enabled us to confirm again that the Maera pack is still together and all its members look fit and healthy. 

I hope all of you are too!

Roy