Zimbabwe Wild Dogs

Category: Wild Dogs | Date: Mar 05 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

I found the Mapari pack yesterday, for once in a very open area, so managed to get some great views of them.  I spent a long time with them, both in the morning and in the evening just before they went hunting.  A couple of the adults were getting very frisky and I wonder if this will be the next alpha pair (the previous alpha female was killed in a snare). Such a privilege to watch this kind of behaviour…

Then in the evening, the pups were the playful ones - two of them spent about 5 minutes holding onto each others tails and going round and round in circles - it was so funny I actually cried laughing!

The Mapari pack still has all six adults but only 8 pups now: unfortunately 2 are missing - Dudu and Trinity.  Pups of that age shouldn’t leave the pack for any reason, so unfortunately I suspect they have been killed, but you never know and if I’ve learnt anything by working with wild dogs it’s that you can never predict anything!  I’ll let you know if we see either of them again, but in the meantime, we have the 6 adults and Loopy, Biscuit, Milo, Roxy, Macbeth, Simba, Twinspot and Mishmash.

Back soon,

Rosemary

Tags: African Wild Dogs, conservation, hunting, playing, zimbabwe

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