We Have A Wild Dog Den! – Londolozi Blog

This blog is to help cheer up the mood after yesterday’s devastating news. There are no two ways about it, the excitement levels are through the roof at Londolozi. Reece posed the question just over a month ago,

“What is next for the Pack of three?“

After witnessing the female mating with one of the males in the pack, it was just a waiting game, about 70 days to be slightly more precise to see where this pack would settle? Originally having dispersed from an area about 50km away, as the crow flies, the pack was on the search for an area where competition with other packs is low and unlikely to encounter other larger predators. This found them frequenting the open grasslands of Londolozi regularly as they would traverse between Londolozi and our neighbours to the south and neighbours to the west.

During the later parts of her pregnancy, we then saw the pack lead by the female digging away in several termite mounds, a great sign that she was starting to look for potential dens as they moved about. One termite mound, in particular, had them spend a couple of days at before moving on. We had to contain our excitement so as to not be let down again as has happened many times in the past. Rangers would find a heavily pregnant female wild dog digging in a termite mound, only to hear that a week later she has given birth far away from there on a neighbouring property.

A few days after their time spent at this one mound, the pack was found very far south of our southern boundary, two days later they were then found in the west. So we conceded to the fact that this pack denning on Londolozi was incredibly unlikely. Until, once again they appeared back at the mound, now the female looking incredibly uncomfortable, her belly hanging low. She could sit, or lie still. Constantly up and down, whimpering, going into the mound for a bit then emerging. Digging excessively. We left her at the end of the morning still inside the mound.

When a few rangers found them during that afternoon drive, her tail was wet and bloody and she seemed significantly more relaxed than she was in the morning. All the signs and signals pointed to her having given birth, except the fact that her belly still seemed full.

The following morning, we went down again to investigate, now this time I had video evidence of how full she initially was and could compare that to how she looked. She had definitely given birth and we could pin it down to the exact day they were born.

A camouflaged camera trap in a tree nearby to the entrance to the wild dog den. Lets see what it captures!

The next few steps for us from the discovery of the den is to set a camera trap up at the den to help monitor the happenings there without impacting the mother and the pups at the den. As soon as I had set up the camera and was reversing out I heard the mother emerge from the den giving off a gently whining-whimpering call accompanied by a high-pitched squeak.  I slammed on the brakes of the vehicle, scrambled to get my camera up and this is what I saw.

The mother with a one-day-old pup in her mouth. Absolutely flabbergasted, uncertain of what was going on, I thankfully managed to get some footage of her before she picked the pup up and went back into the den. As far as my understanding goes, this was very unusual behaviour. The pups are normally kept in the den for about 10 to 12 days before they emerge. Could this have been the mother separating one pup from the others because it was the runt? Or was it just pure coincidence and it was just her moving the pups around in the den. As far as we are aware this is the very first litter that this female has given birth to. So she is a new mother and probably just figuring everything out.

We left the camera traps there to do the work for us and after two weeks or so, we checked the camera trap hoping to see some signs of the pups beginning to emerge from the den. Sadly there was a fault with the camera and we missed what activity did go on there. However, we have just changed the cameras and have got some very inciteful information.

Stay tuned for the next update on the wild dog den!