Wild Dogs (Dhole) on the hunt @ Tadoba...Vicious Killers!!!

“Nature taking its course - hunter and prey, the endless circle of life and death.” – Stephenie Meyer

How often does one get lucky watching a hunt in the wild! Well I have been one of the lucky ones! It was a cold December evening at Tadoba. I was accompanied by Atul Sabnis, a dear friend & my classmate whom I managed to trace after more than 25 years.

Atul flew into Hyderabad and we decided to head to Tadoba for a weekend. We decided that was the best place to plan a getaway, and catch up on news, event etc over the last 25 years of our lives.

We didn’t get to sight any Big Cats on the trip, but were very lucky to see a pair of Wild Dogs (Dhole) hunting down a baby Sambhar, and that too right on the road. It was unusual just to see the dogs do that as a pair and not in a pack. I guess either they were very hungry or didn’t want to share the spoils with the rest of their pack. What we witnessed for close to an hour was how one dog managed to engage the mother Sambhar, while I other one kept having a go at the young one.
With just the two of them in the hunt, it needed a lot of guile and speed to bring down the young one. The mother Sambhar kept herself between the predator and the prey. The Dhole unlike Bigs Cats don’t choke their prey. But deliver a very sharp bite and take a chunk of flesh away. And this was how despite just being a pair, they managed to bring down their quarry. The pictures will showcase the Face-Off that happened, and the eventual result.

It was a very gruesome encounter, and definitely not for the faint-hearted. The Dhole continued their attacks, persistently and clinically, until they bit a large chunk of the young one's backside, which rendered the crucial blow. The young one couldn’t move and just lay down, tired, bleeding and in lots of pain. It kept howling, as the pain must have been intense. All the tourists kept very quiet, mesmerised by what was going on. The mother knew this was going to end in a kill, but made relentless effort keeping the dogs at bay. It kept thumping its leg on the ground, which was an attempt to fight the dogs.

As all this kept happening, another gypsy, the open safari jeep recklessly parked up right next to where the young one was lying, and this made the mother panic and run away. The dogs also ran into the undergrowth, cautiously eyeing their meal. And in this melee, the young one was bleeding profusely and crying out loudly in severe pain. The tourists guide and the driver got a mouthful of abuses from everyone there, as this was a very callous act. After the vehicle moved away, the dogs came out, dragged the young Sambhar into the undergrowth and started feasting on it alive. That's how wild dogs hunt!

As much as it was probably gory for many, we were witnessing the show nature was putting up! That's the law of the wild! That was an experience many yearn for, but you have to be very lucky to see it happen!!!

The picture below captures the dogs, in the morning, pulling off a stunt which is very very rare...walking on two legs...another lucky capture.