Tracking painted dogs
Joseph Mugambi is a gentle and soft-spoken man but, beneath his calm demeanour, he is widely regarded as one of Kenya’s most experienced wild dog guides and behaviourists.
Joseph grew up in a small town called Barguret, neighbouring the Mount Kenya forest several kilometres from Nanyuki. He studied diligently throughout his school years and graduated as a mechanic. His skillset led him to get a job maintaining and fixing the safari vehicles at Laikipia Wilderness Camp in central Kenya. While he was a mechanic, he showed a lot of interest in becoming a guide and the camp owners decided to take him under their wing and train him.
The Laikipia Plateau is home to an array of wildlife – elephants, lion, leopard, buffalo, giraffe and many more. Added to this list is the African wild dog, also known as ‘painted dog’. At the time Joseph joined the camp, there were four packs of wild dogs hovering around Laikipia. On top of that, the Laikipia Wild Dog Project had just set up their base camp in the area. The project had collared several dominant females and the data was being used to understand the animals’ rangeland and behaviour.
Steve Carey, the owner of the camp, who has been studying wild dogs since 2008, set up Laikipia Wilderness Camp in an area often frequented by these dogs. Steve saw Joseph’s potential and decided to take him on and train him.
Joseph explains “I was at the right place at the right time and my amazing journey with the wild dogs had just started. These critically endangered animals are arguably the most intelligent hunters in the world. Their teamwork is flawless; every individual in the pack knows their status, place and role. There is no overlap in roles and the hierarchy is always intact.”
“These critically endangered animals are arguably the most intelligent hunters in the world. ”
“They are extremely intelligent hunters and researchers say that they have an 80% success rate. Once they set their eyes on a target, there is no going back. They hunt as a pack and they will tire their victims before tearing them apart within minutes to avoid lions, hyenas or leopards from stealing their kill.”
Joseph has spent over seven years tracking, monitoring and leading photographic safaris at Laikipia Wilderness Camp and this has made him an expert in all matters relating to wild dogs. He is well acquainted with inter-pack behaviour and understands the majority of noises they make when communicating with each other.
Wild dogs cover a significant amount of land every day. A collared female once led her pack on a hunt for 50 kilometres! Joseph and his Toyota land cruiser could barely keep with the chase. There are less than 5,500 wild dogs left in the wild, all of them in Africa. Kenya has about 800 individuals and most of them are concentrated in the Laikipia Plateau, Samburu National Reserve and Tsavo National Park.
Sadly, a combination of loss of habitat and disease has decimated these intelligent animals and Joseph bears testimony to this. “The wild dogs were thriving from 2013 to 2016 and their only threat at the time was the lions because they are eternal enemies. Then in late 2016 to 2017, there was a prolonged drought in Kenya. The northern part bore the brunt of the drought, and the pastoralist tribes there descended on the Laikipia conservancies and ranches with their hundreds of thousands of cattle, guns and dogs” he recounts with sadness.
Laikipia quickly became a lawless sprawl of land with armed pastoralists taking over ranches in search of pasture for their cattle. Skirmishes between police and the herders increased, with many deaths and damage to property being reported.
The area became so volatile that the army had to be called in to pacify the situation. Local politics took a hold of the narrative and, with a general election looming, things looked bleak. Age-old grievances emerged and land became a major consuming issue.
Luckily the rains came and the herders reluctantly left Laikipia, but the damage had already been done. Hundreds of animals had been killed and the pastoralists’ dogs had spread a contagious disease called canine distemper. This virtually wiped out all the wild dogs in Laikipia.
“I witnessed four packs of wild dogs waste away and die in front of me. This period was one of the saddest in my life. There was nothing we could do and we were helpless. Life had to go on” he says sadly.
One day last year in 2019, while on a game drive with guests, Joseph heard the distinct sound of a wild dog and he thought he was dreaming. He had to stop the car and by the time his guests asked why he was stopping, he was already on the safari vehicle’s roof scanning the savannah with his binoculars.
He saw them! Three of them. A female and two males. “I never thought I would ever see wild dogs again and here they were playing around and bonding. Where they came from, no one knows, but it shows that they are very resilient animals and when all odds are against them, they rise and thrive” he says.
We found out that three wild dogs came back to the Laikipia Wilderness Camp area in early 2018 and since then, they have bred two years in a row. Joseph has led a lot of professional photography safaris and he is always happy when his guests tell him that seeing the elusive wild dogs was their greatest moment.
Wild dogs are very social animals and if one member of the pack is injured or sick, they will take care of it until it is fit and healthy. They will hunt and return to their injured colleague to regurgitate the food for it, in turn helping it to heal.
However, just like most animals in Africa, wild dogs have enemies. There is always friction between the other predators of the savannah such as lions and leopards. These killer cats often try to kill the wild dogs when they are puppies in order to eliminate one less rival in the food chain.
“We were once tracking a pack and the alpha female’s collar signal had been static for a few days. We eventually found her remains in a tree, where a leopard was feeding on it. We discovered that a lion had killed it and the leopard had taken the remains. We sadly picked up the collar and left.”
“Another day, we witnessed two wild dogs kill an impala. Not long after, a leopard snatched the kill, dragging it away with difficulty. The two wild dogs called to the rest of the pack for help and within seconds, before the leopard had made it up the tree, the rest of the pack fought it off and retrieved their kill. Their teamwork is immense”, Joseph says proudly.
“A wild dog hunt is special. They attack their prey from all sides and then eat it alive to lessen the chances of lions or hyenas interfering. ”
He continues, “A wild dog hunt is special. They attack their prey from all sides and then eat it alive to lessen the chances of lions or hyenas interfering. Within minutes there are bones and a red patch of blood on the ground. They then run along with the kill to feed their pups and the rest of the family” says Mugambi.
Mpala research centre has been at the forefront of vaccinating domestic dogs in Laikipia and its environs. This proactive stance will hopefully lessen the spread of rabies and canine distemper amongst the wild dog population.
“My wife understands my line of work and that I am away from my family for extended periods of time. I always make sure I call her and the kids and we spend quality time together when I am on leave. The future is bright. I have a bronze guide certification, and I am planning to get my silver guide certificate next year. My dream is to appear in a National Geographic documentary about wild dogs… You have to aim high!”
Written by Joseph Wahome
With special thanks to Joseph Mugambi and the team at Laikipia Wilderness Camp.