African wild dogs: a brief encounter in Botswana with the elusive apex predators under threat from humans and their myths
- African wild dogs have the highest hunting success rate in the continent, yet fewer than 7,000 remain in southern Africa
- On a trip to the Okavango Delta, in Botswana, the writer was blessed with the sighting of a pack of these elusive, intelligent and social creatures
To grasp the scale of Botswana’s Okavango Delta, you need to arrive by air.
In addition to being quick and convenient, flying provides an unbeatable perspective of this marvel of nature where, for half the year, nearly 20,000 sq km (7,700 square miles) of southern Africa’s Kalahari Desert is transformed into a spectacular inland lagoon that swirls with life … and death.
Taking off from the dusty township of Maun, parched earth and tin roofs give way to a carpet of green that meets the blue horizon. Limpid channels course like capillaries through shallow vegetation, encircling sandy islands pockmarked with termite mounds.
We soar above eagles, yet stay low enough to be able to make out the shapes of elephants cooling off in the mud. Some 45 minutes later, we land at a remote airstrip in the delta’s upper reaches, where the new Duke’s Camp is located.
Alighting from the plane, I am immediately whisked off on a game drive instead of heading to camp to freshen up; the elusive creatures I’ve travelled halfway around the globe to see have been spotted and there’s no time to lose.
In the late afternoon heat, Chaba, my guide and driver, races to catch them. We rattle across bristling grasslands and sparkling floodplains, while antelope, wildebeest, zebra and warthog eye us nervously.
