Reece was back with us for a short stint recently, and boy did he pick a good week for it.
On one of the morning drives, he was following the Othawa Pack of wild dogs, and what they came away with is about as good as it gets. I will share one a little bit of what it is like in a full wild dog chase, a little POV from behind the ranger, for those of you that have been in this situation, you will know the excitement and adrenaline, dogs flat out in every direction, fast and loud and slightly out of control.
And then towards the end, I don’t know if you noticed the impala that played a whole different strategy, and it worked out. Mid-chase, the dogs came flying past an impala that had decided to freeze solid and hope for the best. And it worked. The dogs were so locked onto what they were already after that they ran straight past it without a second glance. It stood there, dead still, and watched the whole thing thunder by. I guess, sometimes doing nothing is the smartest move you can make.
Sadly, a different impala didn’t have as good a fortune as this one, with the hunt ending the way they often do. This time they were down in the shallows of the Sand River. And that is where it got really interesting. Well, firstly, I am sure the impala tried to escape through the water, but this most certainly exhausted it quicker and it might have lost its footing, making it easier to overpower. But now, on top of that, having the wild dogs feeding in the river must have been a remarkable sighting.
A lone hyena heard the commotion, rocked up and decided the carcass was worth a try. On any normal day, that is not a terrible bet. Hyenas pinch kills off wild dogs fairly regularly, and one determined hyena can often bully a whole pack off a meal. But one hyena against nine dogs is a bold call, and the Sand River was the worst possible place to make it. Out in the open shallows there was no bank to back into, no bush to hide under, nothing to protect its rear. And the dogs knew it.
What followed was ruthless and almost beautiful to watch. The pack went to work on the hyena in shifts, each dog darting in to nip at its back end and peeling away a split second before the hyena could spin around and land one of its own bone-crushing bites. In, out, in, out, perfectly timed, never giving it a target. The hyena was lashing in every direction at once, trying to fend off an attack that was coming from everywhere and nowhere. For a while it clung to the carcass anyway. But the harassment never let up, and eventually it had to make a choice. The meal, or itself. It let go and turned to simply defending its own skin.
From up on the bank, it looked like something out of the Colosseum. You almost expected a crowd. One animal in the middle, surrounded, turning and turning, and a pack moving around it with a level of coordination you cannot help but admire, even while you feel for the thing on the receiving end.
The dogs eventually saw the hyena off. But even then they didn’t relax. All that noise, the yelping and the cackling, carries a long way out here, and they knew it might have rung the dinner bell for something bigger. So they stayed switched on, glancing around, half expecting company.
Every so often the bush puts on something you could watch a hundred times; this was one of those.
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on The Colosseum on the Sand River