The hyaena den at dawn was surprisingly quiet. Usually the arrival of my vehicle gets the inquisitive little guys out to see what’s arrived. But there was no sign of them and I wonder if they haven’t moved den.
Shortly a big mommy arrives and calls in the den entrance, a low growl. She’s calling her cubs to come and suckle. But her cubs are tiny and right now probably sound asleep. Call as she may she gets no response.
And to make it worse she can’t go in there to wake them. The den is too small and specially so designed to keep out predators. So she decides to wait it out, but the sun soon gets too much and she leaves to find shade.
I left the den too and less than a kilometre away was at the wild dog den. They’re still there. The adults shouted their abuses at me, and the pups were growling and hassling each other underground.
I haven’t seen them now for about a week and no doubt they’ve grown somewhat.
I’m really at a loss as to how to work with the dogs at the moment. I know sitting there I’ll just be putting added pressure on them and anyway wouldn’t get any footage. So I’ll have to wait till they move again. This will probably be when the pups are big enough not to be den bound any more, which could easily be in the next couple of weeks.
It was back to the hyaena den at dusk and mom arrived just as the sun was setting. Again she called and again her cubs slept on! No doubt hunger will wake them as night falls.
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