This week’s dream: at home with Zimbabwe’s painted wolves
In 2018, the African dogs Blacktip and Tait were among the stars of the BBC’s wildlife series Dynasties. Three years on, their progeny still thrive in Zimbabwe’s Mana Pools National Park, says Mike Unwin in The Daily Telegraph – and on a safari there with African Bush Camps, you can watch these animals at close quarters in the company of the British wildlife photographer and guide Nick Dyer. Also known as painted dogs or painted wolves (a literal translation of their latin name, Lycaon pictus), they are among Africa’s rarest carnivores – just 6,500 or so remain in the wild – and Dyer, a co-founder of The Painted Wolf Foundation, knows them “intimately”.
With their “lean physique, gleaming teeth, dark masks and fight-tattered ears”, the creatures seem at first to embody their reputation as “ruthless” killers. Yet after a while you’ll notice how sociable, “needy” and eager to please they are, just like domestic dogs. One pack– the Nyakasanga, descended from
Blacktip – are so habituated to humans that you might spend time with them every day, to watch them “haring around in madcap frolics”, getting into “vicious” skirmishes with hyenas, or hunting and eating hapless warthogs. Particularly striking is a greeting ceremony, in which the pack reaffirms its bonds in “a leaping, wrestling mêlée, waving white tail flags and twittering ecstatically”. Chances are you’ll feel an “intense” bond with them yourself by the time you leave.
As well as this daily rendezvous with the dogs, there are game drives to go on, and the guided walks for which Mana Pools is famous. Even gentle riverbank strolls to see hippos and “dazzling” carmine bee-eaters can involve unexpected sightings of lions, buffalo and elephants – including Fred Astaire, a bull elephant that has learnt to balance on its hind legs to tear down branches. Six nights cost from £7,935pp, including flights (naturalworldsafaris.com).