Notes from the Field: The new pups of Mpindothela and the ‘no pups’ of Nyamepi
The long tale of the Mpindothela pack continues. This time it takes a good turn, successfully emerging out of the den with five well-nourished pups. This is the first litter of the troubled Mpindo pack survivors and Mathathela males who joined and formed the Mpindothela pack.
You will recall that the four surviving Mpindo females were released in August last year to join the four Mathathella males. We expected some coexistence issues but the response from the community was also as we hoped for and they tolerated the few instances of predation, actually blaming the livestock owners who suffered the predation for not looking after their livestock properly. As a unit, the communities rallied around and simply chased the dogs away rather than seek retribution. Today the pack have pups, illustrating the long-term behaviour change that we are seeking that will sustain the coexistence of wildlife and people.
In Hwange, poaching through wire snares remains one of the main threats to painted dogs. And through your help, we are meeting this head-on. The Mpindothela pack pups will be a great addition to the painted dog population of Hwange if they can make it through the next challenging months and reach adulthood. Our team is working hard to minimize any human-induced threats to the pack, which continues to occupy an area we know is a poaching hot zone.
Mana Pools, on the other hand, has a different set of problems for the endangered painted dogs, highlighted by the case of the Nyamepi pack this denning season.
The Nyamepi pack alpha female, called Whisky, gave birth to a litter of pups on September 16th or 17th. We saw her, heavily pregnant, on September 14th. We counted the days from when we had seen her mating on July 9th and knew the day was very close (painted dogs have a gestation period of 69/70 days).
On Monday 19th, Whisky spent the entire day and night away from the den with the rest of the pack. Boas, the alpha male, was hoo-calling a lot. This haunting call, a unique feature of the painted dogs, is a sign of a pack mate or mates missing. We were concerned because the alpha female spends almost all her time inside the den with her newborn pups at this stage. We wondered if lions had “raided” the den and chased Whisky away. If lions or something else comes to the mouth of the den she would be terrified, trapped inside. As soon as the coast is clear, she would flee to preserve her life above anything else.
Early on Tuesday 20th, the pack returned to the den. However, we could not locate them that evening.
By Wednesday 21st, we knew something terrible had happened to the pups because the entire pack again spent the day more than 2km from the den and never returned. It became apparent that the Nyamepi pack were already back into their nomadic ways. After intensive searching, we located the pack again on 4th October at Little Ingwe, which is about 10km from the original den site. The sighting confirmed once and for all that they were not denned and so the pups had perished, just a few days old.
The pups could have died of natural causes. It is very unusual for painted dogs to den so late in the year in Zimbabwe, however, there are enough recorded cases of such an unusual event happening. The usual denning season is June through to the end of August to early September. Or, had some disturbance caused Whisky to abandon her pups? On the latter, we continue to engage authorities to enforce the code of conduct agreed on in these areas regarding human behaviour around wildlife. We want people to see painted dogs, it serves them well in the long-term endeavour to protect the species, but if we smother them during the denning season in particular or disturb their hunts, we are not serving them well and the rate of recruitment will decline to pose a threat to the numbers. Every individual counts and we ought to protect each and every one of them together.