Yester day we we lucky enough to view the 4 male cheetah feeding on a young blue wildbeest, just after they had taken it down, in the north east of Madikwe. With the sun setting in the back groung. trully an amazing sighting.
Author: MH Focus Online
Wild Dogs of Madikwe
There are an estimated mere 3000 – 5500 Wild Dogs left in the wild on the entire continent of Africa. Only 500 of which occur in South Africa.These amazing hunters, Lycaon Pictus, have been persecuted for decades and this, combined with rapid habitat loss due to human population explosion, has dwindled their numbers rapidly. Madikwe Game Reserve is one of the few places where one can visit and stand a good chance of seeing these elusive creatures.
Wild Dog, African hunting Dog, Painted Wolf, are some of the names these amazing canines are referred as. They are not related to our domestic dog. They are in fact related to wolves but that relation lies three million years ago in an ancestor long since gone. They were originally categorised from a sample found in Mozambique and labelled Hyaena picta with the picta referring to their beautiful painted like coat patterns. Each coat pattern is unique to the individual. Their scientific name means, in fact, ‘painted wolf-like animal.’
They are highly social, extremely curious, and easily adaptable to circumstances. They are not ‘top dogs’, as it were, and can be killed by larger predators such as lions. Wild Dogs are an endangered species and highly conserved on the continent.
Persecution of the African Wild Dog occurred for many reasons, but one of the main ones, was that they were thought to be pests. These animals need large areas to traverse and when in contact with human habitation are known to predate cows, goats, and other livestock. They do not have claws like the felines, whereby when attacking their prey the claws get stuck-in, thus allowing easier take down. A Wild Dog’s claws are just like that of a domesticated dog and do not hold much traction except for running. Thus, the Wild Dog must either run their prey down to exhaustion of they disembowel the prey as it is trying to escape. This has lead humans to believe that they are quite savage and a ‘lowly’ predator. In my experience as a guide for many years, Wild Dog actually kill their prey more quickly than the cats as the disembowelment or running it to exhaustion and rapidly consuming the prey, means less agonising time being eaten while still alive as seen with lion and cheetah.
Madikwe Game Reserve has had one of the most successful relocations of Wild Dog in Southern Africa. The reserve was started just over twenty years ago after being cattle farm area for several decades. Before it was cattle farm, the reserve area was wild land with free-roaming wild game as in much of Africa. Wild Dog freely roamed this area along with lion, leopard, elephant, and many of the other species one can find on Game Drive while staying with us. Wild Dog at this point were seen in packs of fifty or more. Packs of this size do much better in the long run as they are communal hunters and all feed the pups of the alpha male and female. Wild Dog are susceptible to diseases such as Canine Distemper, Rabies, Mange, and Tuberculosis, so larger packs also do better as a few may pass due to these diseases but the pack as a whole will carry on. With Operation Phoenix coming into play as the largest relocation of game into a reserve in Southern Africa, the advent of Madikwe Game Reserve, our Wild Dog relocation was propped to do well. And so they did.
We have two packs on the reserve at the moment – The Northern Pack and The Southern Pack – with the total Wild Dog population numbering at thirty plus. We routinely have tremendous sightings of the pack interacting with other predators, hunting, killing, being fat and lazy, and patrolling. Although no sighting is guaranteed we are very fortunate to have such charismatic creatures to track and find whilst on Game Drive.
Some videos from the past week.
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Hi Everyone,
Hope everyone is good. Here are three videos for you. Some loving Lions, tons of Elephants and some elegant Cheetahs. Enjoy and see you soon.
Kind Regards
Jacques
Splish splash fun in the sun
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Elephants having fun at the dam
The lions call
The lions call, a stunning sound of the African bush. It can be heard up to 8 km away.
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Leopards, do they have spots?
The distinctive markings on leopards act as camouflage, protecting these large cats from predators. These markings are often called spots, but they actually are rosettes. They also appear on so-called black leopards, but the pattern cannot always be seen on the animal’s dark fur unless it is in a well-lit area.
Leopards’ beautiful coats make them targets for poachers and hunters, causing the animal’s extinction in some countries.
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Lilac Breasted Roller
The Lilac Breasted Roller, showing off his Beauty. The national bird of both Kenya and Botswana.
These birds are typically solitary or are found in pairs, but may stay in small family groups during the winter months. They perch on high vantage points at the very tops of trees and poles, and stay still while watching for prey to approach.
After dropping onto a victim, they may beat their prey against a rock or on the ground to kill it before swallowing it whole. All rollers, including the lilac-breasted, are known for their acrobatic, agile flight.
Hi there Bloggers
My apologies, I know it’s been a while since my previous upload. So let’s start off with some interesting facts.
Let’s start with part 1 of a couple of topics, first with Giraffes’ scientific name; Camelopardalis.
So what does Camelopardalis mean? It means, tallest living quadruped, having a spotted coat and small horns and very long neck and legs, of the savannahs of tropical Africa.
Now that the name is covered, let’s dig a little deeper. Like we all know,Giraffes are mammals, and the most popular question that pops up for the guide will be, “how many neck vertebrae does a Giraffe have?”
The answer is 7. All mammals, including us humans, have 7 vertebrae.
For more info you need to come and visit us.
Let’s get back to what I want to chat to you about, Osteophagia…
So what is Oste@#$% (yes that tong twister Osteophagia)?
It is the name for herbivores that chew on bone. This helps with extra calcium and phosphor deposits to the body.
Like we can see on the photos at the bottom, here is a Female Giraffe that is busy chewing on a piece of old bone.
Now we don’t see it that often on drive, but like I always say “the right time, the right place and you can see everything you want”.
So why do Giraffes nibble on bones?
Let us start with the skull, the skull of a Giraffe never stops growing and an extra bit of calcium and phosphorus is never a bad thing. With pregnant mommies or moms having a little one suckling,the extra calcium and phosphorus helps her keep up her calcium levels and with the little ones calcification.
So how do they break the bone down? The salvia and the rumen fluids softens the bone particles further during the digestion.
Hope you enjoyed it
A bush goodbye
Dwayne de lange
Head Ranger.
A visitor at our water hole
Late one afternoon we were very lucky to have one of the Male lions in the area come to our water hole for a drink , they had made a buffalo kill not too far from the lodge .
A stunning picture with Madikwe Hills in the back ground
After having a drink decided to get out of the sun and lie in the shade from Gregs Game Viewer.
Wild Dogs in action
Setting off one afternoon in search of the Wild dogs, we had a good Idea where they were seen from the morning drive. On route to the area we where luck enough to get to see many other magical species, elephants, White Rhino, Giraffe and loads of zebra and wildebeest.
After some time we managed to locate on the Wild Dogs, resting in the shade of a large buffalo thorn.
After a few min the Wild dogs started to get active, running around and greeting one another, and set off running at a steady pace west. With the sun setting in front of them it was truly an amazing sight.
And they were off, the chase was on splitting up a heard of Blue Wildebeest. We had one Blue wildebeest coming straight towards us with 3 Wild Dogs behind and in the other direction another one running east with 2 dogs behind, we decide to follow up on the ones heading away from us , there was dust with the 2 wild dogs trying to get down a young Blue Wildebeest.
After some time the rest of the pack had also manage to take down 2 other blue wildebeest further west from us. Truly an amazing sighting.
Madikwe At It’s Best
I recently returned from a 6 night stay a Madikwe Hills, with Greg and Lebo at the helm, anything was possible. Over the course of the 6 days, we saw everything from a cheetah kill to ring tailed mongoose digging for scorpions. Here are a selection of pictures I took, including a time-lapse over looking the watering hole outside the main lodge:
All photos by Matt Buckley
Hi Madikwe hills blog family. “leopard sighting”
Last night, the 27th of September 2013. We had a unbelievable Leopard sighting, I would like to just share some of the photos I manage to get.
This was a young male.
Hope you enjoyed it, wished you were here to share this moment with us at Madikwe hills
A kind bush regards
Dwayne de Lange
Head ranger