African Wild Dog (Lycaon pictus)

[sanjay]

Wild Dogs hunting elephants!

As disturbing as this is, this is possibly some of the first ever recorded behavior of wild dogs actively hunting elephants. This is the third time I have heard of it but thanks to guide and friend, Ona, he let me post these pics to give an idea of what is going on here.

In 2013 guides in the Linyanti concession reported the same behavior but the elephant calf had been separated from the herd and they came to a scene where the dogs just finished killing the young calf. There was also another incident where such behavior occurred, but I am still trying to get the details of this and pics if possible. On top of hunting elephants, we have also noted that wild dogs will actively hunt buffalo from a herd in certain areas of the Okavango. This sort of behavior is almost undocumented too!

The Linyanti concession has some of the highest concentrations of elephants in Africa and medium size herbivores are lacking in number particularly at certain times of the year. This is probably the main reasons that the predators in this area are now actively hunting elephants - just taking advantage of the potential prey on offer. We have recorded all the major predators except cheetah, on fresh elephant kills that they have made and of course the focus is on the young calves. Even so, getting past the adults to get to the calves is where the predators have been so clever in adapting to conditions presented to them!

Here Ona came across this sighting just east of King's Pool camp where the King's Pool pack of wild dogs was seen to be harassing a female elephant with 2 calves (which seemed to be twins). Just as the wild dogs got the upper hand and were wearing out the one calf, the guests could not handle the sighting any longer and he pulled out of the area. Ona said he had many opportunities to capture better photos but it just felt wrong to take many pictures especially with his guests in such distress too. Just a few days later and the same pack carried out a similar hunt...but more to follow on this behavior and it will be something I will be paying extra attention to in the next while!

Credit to bush 24 fb page

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