SELOUS IMPALA NEWSLTTER August 2010

Another amazing month along the Rufiji River.

Selous Leopardess - photo by Dominic Oldridge 2010

About 10 leopards have been spotted in only a couple of days by our guests out on game drives!
Very early in the morning, a couple left the camp for a game drive and met a young leopard female stopped in the middle of the road to Impala camp with a very fresh kill - as is often common with leopards, it was an impala.
Being very shy and skittish, she quickly disappeared in the thickness of the bush leaving her prey on the ground unguarded. The guide requested the driver to leave the sighting, to give the leopard a chance to enjoy her hard-earned meal. A little later another group of our guests, on their way out from the camp, saw her on a nearby jackal berry tree feeding herself.
The leopard, after the first guests left, went back to her prey and dragged it up to safety out of the reach of scavengers such as hyenas or any other threat.
In the afternoon our guides tried to look for her again but in vain, probably because of too many disturbances, she and her kill had disappeared. For sure she was still in the surrounding area, she couldn’t move her heavy kill that far. Being well hidden and camouflaged, she was probably looking at us. What an elusive creature!
Other leopards have been seen this month around this area, a pair of them by nearby Lake Mzizimia mating, mounting more than once, almost totally ignoring our car.

Also a very rare Serval cat was by the main road while we were driving back to the camp, around sunset. A herd of impalas alerted us to the presence of this rare Serval cat - as they were seen with their necks stretched out, ears pointed up and snorting with fear of the predator presence.

Did any one out there know that the ferocious Honey Badger (Ratel) does exist here in Selous? A pair of this tough and aggressive animal has been seen, seen searching for invertebrates, foraging the ground floor along the Mzizimia riverine forest.

Siwandu Pride

The Selous lions have been resetting their territories and now that the dry season is approaching and herbivores are mostly settled by the lakes, everything as been decided.
The so called Siwandu pride (composed by 7 adults and 2 five months old cubs) has claimed the original area of Lake Siwandu. The Nzelekela area is now the territory of two lionesses, who share with the Siwandu pride, one big male.

 

It seems that the old male successfully established his authority over the lesser males in the area and two newly born lions cubs have been seen with the Nzelekela lionesses. The cubs were out on the open area with the pride for a few days, but then the clever mother took them back into the safety bush, far from dangers, to attend to them and allow them to grow a little. We are not surprised we haven’t seen them yet again, it is uncommon that one week old cubs are so exposed.
Let’s wait to see them again one day, healthy and strong and with the pride.

 

Unfortunately it has not been an easy time for the social pack of 10 wild dogs.
Last month the alpha female gave birth and after a few weeks also the subordinate female gave birth, she was not carrying signs of pregnancy anymore.
We don’t know if the alpha took over the subordinate puppies or the subordinate has been harassed by the alpha to abandon the pups; we were waiting to see how many they were, hoping and waiting for the pups to show up and so have a chance to understand the situation better.

 

Only one pup made it out, probably the first born, the others were heard screaming from the den, but one afternoon our guests came back to the camp reporting that there was an African Python in the surroundings of the den.
Of course the Python could have been a danger, but we did not have any fear or doubt that ten dogs would have been defending the pups, guarding them and perhaps moving them if the serpent would have been a real threat for them and the puppies. Instead the dogs were just resting on the ground, having an eye on the snake without showing any kind of concern.

 

Some thought that the giant snake had a nice meal, instead after a few days, the puppy made it out of the den one more time.
It was lovely to see him running behind his mother begging for the breast in search of milk, even if the mother did not seems so interested to feed him and amazing to observe the behaviour of the rest of the pack going to greet him immediately after the first step out, all of them always in a submissive way, a sign of respect for the alphas.
This has been the last sighting of the dogs with the puppy. Normally wild dogs den down for about three months, time for the small ones to grow up enough to keep up with the nomadic dogs’ lifestyle.
In the following days, to our surprise, all ten dogs have been seen close by the Manze Lake, no one left to guard the den and they were too far from it.
Very sad but till today they never returned back to the den.
Who knows what happened in the dark of the den or who knows what pushed the alpha female to abandon her puppies.

What we know is that in nature everything has a reason and of course it’s better to live and have the chance to breed again.

We’ll be back next month with more news for you!

Barbara and the team at Selous Impala Camp.