The lions have been back.
I saw male lion tracks in the area of the wild dog den and on getting to the den, no sign of the dogs. This was in the afternoon as I’d spent the morning with Mark on the giraffe carcass with the hyaenas.
For the last couple of hours of light I searched the area, but picked up no sign of the dogs.
With an early start the next day I was back in the area searching, climbing all the highest koppies hoping to get a signal from Chevvy’s transmitter. In this mountainous country, using telemetry becomes rather hit and miss, but being up on the highest peaks usually produces success. By lunch time and with many conquered hills under my belt, I was still no closer to finding the dogs.
So I’d decided that I’d fly in the late afternoon. But just before heading to the airstrip, I climbed another mountain, this time close to home base, and sure enough I got a signal a long ways to the west.
The whole pack, including the pups had moved to another den having travelled about 5kms from the previous den. This is a long way for these 12 week old puppies, but they all seemed just fine.
They only spent a couple of days at this den and moved to another further south. This was far more user friendly to me than the last one.
But after being there only 2 days, disaster struck. Getting to the dogs at dawn, I only counted 10 puppies. One was missing and the pack had now moved away from the den. Searching the area there was no sign of foul play, until I got to the den and peering into the crevice I saw the curled up body of an African Rock Python. I could only see the one coil and then I saw the dead puppy. Shortly the python had disappeared. Not an easy feeling as I wondered which crevice it might appear from next. And then of course I went even more against the grain and wedged myself deep into the crevice to retrieve the puppy. Which I did and found its upper body covered in saliva. The python was already beginning to swallow the pup and my appearing on the scene must have disturbed it. I left the puppy there, but the python never returned.
The pack subsequently moved their den back to the previous one. Hopefully no more pythons up there!
I’m not sure why you retrieved the dead puppy. Since it was already dead, seems like the python should have had its meal.
Right, Nancy, unless Kim had intended to check for rabies or something like that? I had thought the same thing you did.
I also thought that snakes’ teeth point backwards, so that once a prey item is on its way down the snake’s throat, it really can’t come back up because it will snag on the teeth. Yet this python regurgitated that puppy, which had obviously been in its mouth?
By the way, what stops this controlled fires, anyway? And do you burn the same third of the park each year, or rotate?
When i saw the python in the den, i didn’t see the puppy. only on looking further once the snake had disappeared from view did i find the puppy. not in the same place as the snake. so i didn’t know what had killed the puppy. So i took it out to see if i could find any signs on it. And was surprised to find half its body covered in saliva. so the snake was obviously already swallowing it when i arrrived on the scene. all i could see through the cracks were a few body parts. I had no idea the snake was busy swallowing the puppy and i had know idea it had abandoned it when i was there. I put the puppy back in the den but the snake never took it back. from previous experience, if a python is disturbed while trying to swallow its prey it doesn’t come back to it.
In this case i could accept the death as the python was only looking for a meal. Not like those lions that just kill for the sake of killing and then leave the carcass.
Alas for the puppy, but nothing like fearing the male lion had somehow wiped out the whole pack….
Are you ever scared of those fires, Kim, because it was horrendously big! And bad luck to the poor little puppy. But I guess that’s how nature is, you can’t stop things like this from happening.
Amazing video Kim, and I am happy the lions have not found the dogs again.