Shortly after sunrise on a grey August morning, a pack of wild dogs is on the hunt in South Africa’s Sabi Sand Game Reserve. One dog splits off from the pack and takes down an impala. It leaves its prize unattended to call the rest of pack back to the kill site. It’s time to eat.
But as the wild dog leaves the scene, its face splattered with blood, a hyena slinks out of the brush and digs in to the dog’s meal. Soon the wild dog reappears with its pack. They chase the hyena off and begin their family-style feast. It’s not long before the lone hyena returns, this time with backup: at least five more hyenas.
This wild game is a struggle for survival. Who will get to eat? Hyenas and wild dogs are top predators competing in an unforgiving landscape. It’s a classic battle that plays out over and over again in the African bush where these animals compete for the same food resources. (Watch wild dogs try to steal a cheetah’s meal.)
Similar But Different
Roddy Watson, a visitor on safari at a private game lodge called Londolozi, caught the rare moment on video. To watch it is to witness a “primeval interaction”,” says Markus Hofmeyr, chief conservation officer and veterinarian at Great Plains Conservation Foundation in Botswana. “It’s the whole wild ecosystem in full play.”
