Wild dogs on the move - 01:28 am
18 Sep 2009
This sighting of the dogs was not as fleeting as the last and this gave me a better opportunity to get an accurate count of their numbers.
The pack has 6 adults, 4 pups of about 7-8 months and 4 pups of about 3-4 months.
When we saw the pack back in April it appeared that there were 2 pregnant females and now seeing the 2 different age groups of pups, our predictions were correct.
This is very unusual for wild dogs as it is normally only the alpha female that will give birth and if a subordinate does give birth there is little chance of her pups surviving as the alpha female will not allow her access to the den and she will therefore be unable to suckle the pups.
The conclusion I have come to is that with this pack being only recently formed and a hierarchy having not been properly established, this would have led to more than one female being covered. This pack of dogs must be very efficient hunters, 4 adults being able to provide enough food to feed 2 suckling females while they were unable to hunt.
It will still be a couple of months before the older pups actively start hunting with the pack, but for now they are left with the younger pups as the adults move around their position. The adults never move to far as the pups are extremely vulnerable to predation and would not be able to out run their attackers.
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1 posted at 01:57am on 11 January, 2010 by Brendan Scully
My favourite type of dog - lovely (these and my two German Shepherds