TALES FROM THE BUSH: The day the Jackals came |
Even though I was bouncing around in the back of a Landcruiser with clear daylight visible between my backside and the seat, I was feeling particularly pleased with myself. I really had made the right decision to visit one of Africa’s most famous game reserves. The Masai Mara was living up to all expectations. That morning I had already witnessed the quintessential sunrise, gazed around at the jaw-dropping expanse of savannah, and captured hundreds of images of a male cheetah coalition as they walked and scent marked. I reflected on all of these wonderful sightings, but thought “where is the drama?”
There is no doubt that big cats are beautiful and the massive nature spectacle of savannah herds migrating north is a vision I will never forget. As beautiful and wondrous as my sightings had been, they were still just a show without the grit. Somewhere beneath the glossy brochure exterior of gorgeous animals, blue skies, and picnic breakfasts, there is a contest being fought between predator and prey. So where was the fight for life?
Our jeep stopped abruptly and I was thrown from my contemplation. Through the window I could see a Tommy giving birth. It was incredibly tender as she pulled away the placenta and licked the newborn into life. For the briefest of moments, I recalled a documentary featuring small savannah predators and how they preyed on the youngest and most vulnerable. I dismissed it. This was too beautiful to ruin.
We moved on. After about one-hundred meters we came across jackal cubs playing around their burrow. Their parents were trotting away in the background. I immediately grabbed the camera and shot away. After about twenty minutes, the jeep revved into life and our guide was shouting “Hold onto your cameras!” We dashed straight back to where we had left the newborn Tommy to find it dangling from the mouth of an adult jackal. From the den, it had homed-in on the sent of the blood and placenta.
The fawn was flinching and kicking as the jackal looked around. I think I was in shock. From what seemed a million miles away, one person was repeatedly muttering “Oh my God! I can’t believe it!” Everyone else was silent. It did seem inexorably cruel that this fawn had known nothing of life and it was certainly going to die to feed those higher in the food chain.
The jackal continued to scan the horizon, but this time it did not scan far enough. Blindsided, the jackal was unaware of an adult Tommy now bearing down at full speed. It was the mother. Hearing the footfall, the jackal glanced round and was rammed by the Tommy. The jackal crumpled and relinquished the fawn at once. The marauder tried to sprint away, but the Tommy was all over it, ramming and butting with its small horns. Breathing hard, she slowed to watch her fawn sprinting, right into the jaws of a second jackal. We were now watching one of life’s cruellest games – tag team. The dazed and confused fawn ran so close the jackal barely had to move and snapped its jaws around its throat.
In that instant, the mother charged. The jackal could not run fast enough with the fawn hanging from its mouth. Seeing the Tommy close in, the jackal dropped the fawn and sprinted away with the mother in close pursuit. Then the tables were turned. Another jackal, sensing the Tommy’s exhaustion, gave chase and hunted down the mother while its partner hunted the fawn. But the mother Tommy never conceded defeat. As soon as she had outrun her pursuer, she instinctively turned the tables once more, charging back to rescue her fawn.
It was hard to believe the fawn could survive. It had been throttled four times before the jackals finally gave up the chase. It was a bitter defeat for the dogs, having invested so much energy into this hunt. I glanced back and forth to the panting jackals and the fawn galloping away into the Tommy herd. Together, the jackals trotted back to their den to rest and to wait for the next birth. Feeling emotionally drained, I slumped back onto my seat and immediately decided that I would be more careful about what I wished for in the future.
(Written for and published by BBC Wildlife Magazine)