We were incredibly fortunate while in
Samburu to see a pack of painted hunting dogs warming up for their morning. We saw them run down a hill and were able to follow them for at least half an hour before they hunkered down in a dried up river and were largely hidden from view.
They are very social pack animals with hunting habits similar to wolves. By hunting cooperatively in a group and covering large distances they manage to have an 80% hunting success rate compared to the 30% or less common to lions and the like.
Our tour operator had only seen them once before in his 20 some visits to Kenya, and our driver had only seen them once as well in 9 years of work, so we were incredibly lucky to see them so well in our few days in
Samburu. These beautiful animals need a very large area of land to hunt in the loss of their habitat combined with competition against larger lions and hyenas in that smaller space has made them critically endangered.
They are very social pack animals with hunting habits similar to wolves. By hunting cooperatively in a group and covering large distances they manage to have an 80% hunting success rate compared to the 30% or less common to lions and the like.
Our tour operator had only seen them once before in his 20 some visits to Kenya, and our driver had only seen them once as well in 9 years of work, so we were incredibly lucky to see them so well in our few days in Samburu. These beautiful animals need a very large area of land to hunt in the loss of their habitat combined with competition against larger lions and hyenas in that smaller space has made them critically endangered.
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