Hunting drama in the Venetia night

This Saturday being a typical night, after a long day of research drives on Venetia Limpopo Nature Reserve, we headed off to bed at 8:45pm, were sound asleep by 9:00pm and all was quiet until 12:30am. We then were startled awake to the sound of pounding hooves, crunching branches and very heavy, rhythmic breathing heading directly our way.

Some otherwise diurnal predators will hunt under a full moon, and this was a very bright moonlit night. We looked out our windows to see glowing moonlight, punctuated by black shadows thrown by the mopane woodland in our camp and the sounds of something unknown running straight for us. We knew that something was being chased and seconds later we heard a massive body smack directly into our south fence, no less than 15 meters from our tent with the sound of substantial weight hitting the wire mesh at full speed. After the crash and a short moment of stunned silence, the chase was back on in the river bed just below or tent and within seconds we heard a night-shattering distress call from some sort of animal; a deep bellowing roar of sound repeated again and again for two or three minutes in the river bed just 8-10 meters from our tent. At this point we had no clue as to what type of animal was being hunted, and our imaginations ran wild- we just knew that some or other large mammal was in deep trouble.

Five mins later, base manager Chris Joubert, a big burly South African, comes barging into our tent in his boxers, tells us to get out to the river bank because “Guys- there’re wild dogs…they’ve got a kudu! Come see!” Kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros) are large antelope (up to 1.5m at the shoulder and 230-250kg) The wild dog pack (Lycaon pictus) had hunted this adult male using our camp fence as a collision point to catch the animal. They had it cornered in the river bed, pinned against the sheer river bank and it was bellowing as the dogs began to make contact and bring it down. We and our tent-mates jumped out of bed with hearts racing, crept to the riverbank where we saw the commotion of the dogs running around in the moonlight against the pale background of the sandy river bed.

At this point we were outside our tent watching the dogs in the river bed and listening to the kudu, which was visibly injured. The dogs were frightened by our presence on the bank and ran across the river into thick bush. After they ran off, stopping at a safe distance, all was silent except for the deep breathing of the kudu. There was nothing left to see, so hearts racing, and after the biggest jolt of adrenaline we had experienced since arriving on Venetia, we laid awake in bed, listening to the rustlings in the bush across the river, trying to get back to sleep before alarms would wake us at 5:00am.

Cody and Amber Lyman, volunteer couple, USA

Hunting drama in the Venetia night