I’m Going To a Wild Dog Collaring!

In a few weeks, I’m flying to South Africa because I have not been through the hellhole known as OR Tambo in the last week and miss it dearly. But whilst I’m there, reviewing the latest (and maybe not so) greatest properties, I’m going to freaking be present for a wild dog collaring.

What does this mean? It means I have donated a sum of money, and in return I will be allowed to stand close to the world’s best, sedated animal while people with actual qualifications do the entire thing, after which someone will photograph me crouching beside it, looking like I personally saved the entire species.  You’re welcome.

This will be my fourth conservation involvement in the last year.  There is definitely a pattern to this, a pattern my wife does occasionally question when it shows up on our bank statements. It began innocently, the way these things do. A teeny, tiny freebie to get me hooked – a rhino relocation. Then a rhino notching. Then an elephant collaring. Each time I told myself it was a one-off. A bucket-list item. A thing to talk about at dinner parties until I’m no longer invited.

Fluffy Demons

Let me disabuse you of something, because people hear “wild dog” and picture me petting stray dogs in Johannesburg. African wild dogs are the best animals ever. The end. Oh, you want more? Ok, they’re the most efficient large predator on the continent, with a hunt success rate somewhere north of 80%, which makes lions look like me trying to assemble IKEA furniture. They’re wildly good fun to hang around with, make the noise of a VHS tape being rewound, and they’re bloody wonderfully kind too. They return from a hunt and regurgitate food for the pups, the injured, and the elderly members of the pack who can no longer keep up. Ruthless murderers with a functioning welfare state. Socialists! No wonder everyone tried to kill’em.

There are somewhere around six thousand African wild dogs left, making them one of the most endangered large carnivores in Africa. The moment a pack steps outside a protected area, it meets snares, roads and farmers who are entirely reasonably furious about their livestock being wiped out. The collar helps monitor them and prevent that human/wildlife conflict that is a big part of their demise. A monitoring team can tell, in near real time, when a pack is heading for a boundary, so someone can call the farmer before the dogs arrive and go Rambo. It can help them find a snared dog while it’s still alive, or track packs so the gene pool doesn’t go all Norfolk.

Conclusion

I love wild dogs more than I love my children. (If either of my children reads this one day, because I was eaten by a lion I had been assured was sedated, this may not be true. But in my defence, neither of you has ever regurgitated a meal for me.  And no, throwing up on me doesn’t count.  )

This is going to be one of the greatest experiences of my life.