Tragedy struck the Nduna pride last night.
But the good news is a wild dog has been twice over the last couple of days near Sosigi hill. I don’t think this is Whisky, as apparently the dog didn’t have a collar.
Anyway it’s all very hopeful for the future of other dogs moving into the area.
The Nduna pride were resting in the valley near Gypo for the early evening before heading north again.
Again they had us moving through that tough impenetrable bush with Manyari leading the way, as she always does.
Then she moved into stalk mode. She broke away from the rest of the pride to start flanking the prey they had in their sites. I couldn’t see anything and stuck to Manyari. Then she moved off at a trot and I couldn’t keep up in the thick bush.
We were soon alerted to the sound of stampeding animals. Switching our cars off to listen for any further cues, we heard the zebra alarm calling and stampeding away. All went quiet, except for a few more zebra alarm calls.
Driving around I picked up Manyari with one of the male cubs. She was sitting but something looked wrong. I approached and still she hung her head to one side. For about 5minutes she sat there, but only when she lay down very very slowly was I aware that she had been injured.
She was in a huge amount of pain, even battling to clean her wounds.
The young male with her moved off to join the rest of the pride. They stayed in the area for some time, but eventually moved of without even greeting Manyari.
Manyari was down for about half an hour, but the tried to get up to move. Initially she just couldn’t get up. The pain was too much. When she did manage to get up, it was all very slow and painful as she moved half a step at a time. Only then did I become fully aware of her injuries.
The huge gash in her chest looked like a tree stump had ripped through it leaving shreaded skin and muscle behind. A huge gash at least a foot long. And then another huge gash in her groin. This was just a cut but a long deep one.
Both in injuries are in places that require a lot of movement and so will battle to heal.
Manyari saw the night out trying to sleep before moving a few more paces at dawn and collapsing again.
As is policy on the reserve, we don’t interfere with natural disasters, which is always so hared to handle. But one needs to let nature take its course.
Even if we were able to doctor Manyari we’d need to tranquilize her almost daily to be able to attend to her wounds.
But these animals are incredibly tough and who knows, she might just pull through although it’s going to take lots of time.
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