Wild Dogs Big Ear Day: Video
Published by Wildcaster 1 year, 11 months ago Tags: adventure, africa, animal kingdom, blogumentary, cites, conservation, documentary, ecotraining, education, elephants, endangered species, experience, flickr, GLTP, gonarezhou, Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, hunting, IUCN Red List, malilangwe, mashable, narrowcasting, Open Content Alliance, pamushana, peace parks, photos, podcasting, polls, predators, teach, video, waterhole, wild dogs, wildcasting, wildlife, wildlife documentary, youtube, zimbabwe.What got into the elephants?
I was following the elephants calmly through the mopanie woodland. They were great feeding all around the vehicle as usual.
Then they treated me to the most amazing display as about 80 elephants came out the woodland as one big mass to drink at the pan on the south east corner of Banyini. What a stunning site. So many elephants all marching towards me to drink.
But as thirsty as they seemed in their haste to get to the water, they were off again. They kept on moving south west into the mopanie and then suddenly they seemed to panic. Or was it Stompie chasing the females around? Whatever it was, the herd were stampeding through the woodland in a cloud of dust.
I couldn’t keep up with them in the bush and rushed around to Chekwa pan arriving there just before them. Arriving en masse they were still trumpeting and agitated but then settled in for a longer drink before continuing on their journey south west to some unknown destination.
I picked up on the wild dogs later, our Mupanigawa pack, resting up at Nyari pan. They finished off their afternoon greeting ceremony with a number of dogs licking each other’s ears. I’ve seen them doing this before but today most of them seemed to be doing it.
All this contact with each other helps maintain social bonding in the pack but the ear licking must help reduce external parasites too.
The dogs were on the hunt again at dusk but had little luck even finding any impala before dark. The grass in some of these areas is taller than the dogs, which must really hamper their hunting ability.
Share Wildcast with the world: 
Beautiful woodland with large umbrella tree at end of video - with rain clouds at back. Do you have a still photo of that? It is almost like a painting (Pierneef trees?).
Rock art series is wonderful. Some years ago I purchased probably my most expensive book : “Mapungubwe - Ancient Bantu Civilization on the Limpopo”. In the years that we lived in that area, we were completely unaware of this treasure nearby. But that was all about Bantu gold working skills, etc - whereas the Malilangwe paintings are by Bushmen.
Was that a teething stick Chipfongwe had the other day?
I’m almost curious to see the life of an impala. They seem to be prey for so many animals. Is there any info about the life expectancy of the average impala? And what are their defense mechanisms other than speed? They seem to have huge horns but I never hear that other animals are intimidated by that.
Also, as an aside, it always struck me as weird that animals never developed horns on the backs of their bodies (as a defense mechanism) the same way that they did on the front. Lions seem to always attack the back side of an animal to avoid the horns.
The video of the dogs today was fasinating to watch! I have 2 dogs and they do this ear licking ALL the time! I have always assumed it was a dominance thing, maybe not. My 2 are 12 and 8 and it always is the older one doing the licking of the younger ones ears! The younger is the dominant one out of the 2. And her ears are perfectlly clean. But its funny how the younger one will lay next to the other and so slowly move her head in at her and wait for the ear and face washing to begin! It is a funny sight to see.
Tell me, what is the average size of the dogs in the pack. It seems from what Ive read that there is a great span in the size average. It also seems when watching them that they have very similar facial markings. Is this true of the wild dogs in general or is it more that this packs faces look similar because of breeding and relation? Or am I just seeing something in my own mind that isnt there? Its hard to tell yet. I have just noticed it when we see a bunch of them together.
Another note I have so enjoyed the posts from 7 years ago on Tjololo. I was not fortunate enough to get to see this stuff the first time around so this has been alot of fun for me! Any chance you will post video of him from back than? Have you thought about going back to do some “follow up” footage on him again?
Have a great day!
Kim — I’m trying to figure out from your new ele photos at Checkwa — is the pan flooded or is there much less water than when I was last there? KP
Nuanetsi. No didn’t get photo of the dogs in that lovely setting.
Chipfongwe toothpick? It might have been but he wasn’t carrying it for very long.
Kevin. those horns don’t help with predators. they’re only used when the males are fighting. Very seldom for defense. And females don’t have horns. Impala rely on breeding all at the same time so they flood the market with little ones otherwise they’d surely be wiped out. But speed is their only defense. Av. life expectancy? Not sure. Probably only a couple of years as the young are easily targeted. I made a film on impala years ago called “Impala - Fast Food”
Paige. Pack size is very variable. We had 15 adults and 21 pups in Botswana. When packs form they are obviously only few members until they have pups.
Yes their faces are all very similar but the rest of the body markings are all different.
Would love to put clips of Tjololo on the site but I don’t own that footage unfortunately. He’s getting on now but is still seen regularly so they tell me. Would love to follow him again for another year but too committed now up here in Malilangwe.
Kim I was speaking of the size of each individual animal not the pack size. sorry for the confussion. Too bad about the footage on TJ. Even though we can see the finished film it would have been nice to see the process to get to the end like we are able to do now. Just curious, how do you end up giving up ownership of that footage? Or shouldnt I ask?
Im wondering about the diseases that affect the dogs in the wild. The common distemper virus you had said was one. what others are a concern? Has the park managment thought about a vaccine to help with this? Im wondering only because it seems the species is endangered. So would they or even can they do that type of preventative care?
Im wondering about the diseases that affect the dogs in the wild. The common distemper virus you had said was one. what others are a concern? Has the park managment thought about a vaccine to help with this? Im wondering only because it seems the species is endangered. So would they or even can they do that type of preventative care?
Side not I loved last nights video clip! Not alot going on but I loved the rain sounds, glad you didnt cut out the audio and put in music on this one. It was one of my favorite things to watch at Petes Pond, when the rains and thunderstorms rolled in!
Cheers
Wild Dogs weigh 20 - 25kgs.
When you get squeezed ‘cos you’re financially strapped, they take it all. That is all your footage.
Rabies is another. Yes the park would certainly consider vaccination if there was an outbreak in the area. that’s if the dogs can be located. And it’s always hard to vaccinate a whole pack.