Well-spotted 7

June 15, 2021

Well-spotted 7

It's been a very exciting week in terms of sightings of some very rare animals...

Credit: Mohamed Iribo

Mohamed has been keeping an eye out for Jo and her cubs, whilst Peter had a rare sighting of a leopard with its kill - even more unusual because bushbuck are reputed not to taste very nice!

Credit: Peter Ekidor

Boniface spotted these elephants down by the water...

Credit: Boniface Lowoi

...and was later involved in an expedition with Saruni to find the African Wild Dogs which had been spotted in the river. There were fourteen adults with five puppies. (All photos credit: David Saruni)

Collared African Wild Dog in the background

It was particularly exciting to see the African Wild Dogs because they had come close to being wiped out altogether in 2017 when there was an outbreak of the deadly disease Canine Distemper. This is a virus which attacks different organs in the body including the heart and lungs, as well as the immune system itself. It was most likely caught from the dogs owned by neighbouring communities.

A vaccination programme for domesticated dogs was carried out as a matter of urgency – alongside an anti-rabies vaccine programme which is still ongoing and has, incidentally, covered 30,000 dogs so far.

The African Wild Dog population began to recover in 2018 when a small number, inevitably dubbed ‘The Phoenix Pack’, were spotted in neighbouring Mpala Ranch where there is a world-renowned Research Centre. One of them has been collared so that they can be traced more readily but, although there were three sightings of the Wild Dogs at Loisaba, no-one had seen them for very long. Saruni recalls:

“I hadn’t managed to see them at all and on one occasion I patrolled with a VHF specialist for four hours and still didn’t see them!”