Hunting for the hunter
Looking for dogs
Sometimes you have those mornings in Kruger that make your stay in the park truly special. That’s exactly what happened one morning in August, when we decided to take a route where wild dogs had been spotted the last 5 days. During this trip, we hadn’t seen any wild dogs yet, even though we had driven down several roads where they are often spotted. We were specifically looking for these dogs, but had not managed to find them. But this morning, we were lucky. “Wild dogs, got ‘em!” Greg shouted excitedly.
And sure enough, there they came running straight at us. Blood-stained faces, full bellies. These six were clearly on their way back to the rest of the pack to feed them. We knew they had many pups, and of course, pups are always hungry. As the group headed into a field near a side road, we decided to take the same turn.
Suddenly, three other wild dogs appeared in the middle of the road. They, too, had blood-stained faces, but their bellies were much slimmer. Apparently, they had already fed. We kept an eye on them when suddenly we saw a hyena appear on the right. Wild dogs don’t take too kindly to hyenas and one of them approached it hyena menacingly. As the hyena turned to walk away, it received a sharp bite to its hind leg.
The dogs moved toward a picnic site, so we followed. While we informed a man at the picnic site about what we had seen, the dogs crossed the riverbed. What an incredible moment! We decided to head back to the side road, hoping to see the other six dogs with the rest of the pack, but unfortunately, we didn’t.
We found them again.
The next morning, we drove the wild dog route again, but for a long time, we didn’t see anything. By now, the light was absolutely stunning, so we decided to drive the road once more, slower this time. And yes—there they were, a pack of eleven wild dogs! They were clearly hunting and were running along the road. We followed them for about 11 kilometers. It was truly beautiful, especially in that gorgeous morning light!
Eventually, the eleven dogs disappeared into the field, and we decided to head off to find a quiet spot for breakfast. All in all... it had been two magnificent mornings in the wilderness.
A wild dog approaching our vehicle
A whole pack of them
