Wild dogs challenge wildebeest: Video
Published by Wildcaster 1 year, 8 months ago Tags: adventure, africa, animal kingdom, blogumentary, bush knowledge, cites, conservation, documentary, ecotraining, education, elephants, endangered species, 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, wild dogs, wildcasting, wildlife, wildlife documentary, zimbabwe.What’s going on in the wild dog pack?
I picked them up at dawn all well fed and lying around in the mopanie woodland. But again there was a new a change in status.
Punk was back as the alpha male and Sash was looking rather dejected.
But instead of Punk shadowing the alpha female as he used to, and as I’d expect him to do now not wanting Sash to move back in, he was very relaxed about the whole affair and lay a ways off from his mate. And even when the dogs got up to greet, Punk didn’t run to her side.
When Sash approached the alpha female lying down, she just got up and moved away. He didn’t follow.
This is the time the dogs should be mating, and quite possibly have already done so. So might it be that Sash is the father of the next litter but Punk remains the alpha male? This is something only DNA tests could give us conclusive answers.
For the rest of the day I was searching for the elephants and didn’t pick up any fresh sign of them. It’s amazing how such huge beasts can just melt away.
In my search I found some mopanie worms. Big deal! Well for the local people they’re a delicacy eaten fresh, fried or dried. They can be found in vast numbers but I only found one tree with about 10 individuals.
Back with the dogs at dusk and they were on the hunt. But the wildebeest gave them the once over and the dogs soon backed off.
I wasn’t able to do a head count today, but the good news is it’s not Whisky who is missing. So if he was then we have a full pack again. Another head count is in order.
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It’s fascinating to see that a pack learns to hunt a specific animal, and has trouble with others like in this case the wildebeest.
The pack I recently witnessed in Tanzania, was used to hunt (and kill) Wildebeest almost daily;
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nikao/sets/72157594525161323/
Could it be the difference in terrain? The Tanzania hunt was on wide open plains, where the speed of the wild dogs would be most effective and the wildebeest was running for cover.
I’m not sure.. I just know that a pack usually sticks to hunt what it’s used to hunt.. could be due to the terrain indeed…
I think it’s more to do with what prey is the most plentiful and of a size that they can handle. In east Africa wildebeest are also smaller than the wildebeest we have here.
But I heard from our guide that he knew of a pack that was used to hunt zebra’s … they would leave the wildebeest alone, and go for the zebra.
But the pack I saw, wouldn’t bother the zebra, not even test a herd for little/old/sick ones…
It’s really interesting how different packs will target different animals. And lions on the same. Some prides have developed the technique to hunt buffalo, some hippo and others even elephant.