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Baboons are a bit bewildered by this behavior but are learning to fight back. So far, they have not been able to defend effectively against the dogs, but they are learning.
Interestingly, when one of them sounds the alarm as a pack of wild dogs approaches, the baboons will rush down from the trees, placing them in greater danger. A guide told the author that this may be due to a fear of leopards. Their first instinct when someone sounds the alarm is to get out of the tree, where leopards may lurk. Naturally, this is not the greatest idea when there are twenty dogs with sharp teeth ready to pounce on you on the ground.
Wild dogs are Africa's most effective predators. They hunt in large packs, run tirelessly for miles to wear down their prey, and swarm the prey with a highly effective strategy of nip-and-retreat, nip-and-retreat. Like hyenas, they have sharp teeth and powerful jaws and will literally eat their prey alive. Once a gazelle or similar prey animal is on the ground, it is devoured within seconds.
There are an estimated 6,600 such dogs left in Africa, only 1% of the former population. Like many other species in that troubled continent, their hunting range is increasingly encroached by human activity, and poachers and farmers are killing them as well.
As the article points out, baboons are less endangered, and thus are starting to pop up more often on the radar of the carnivores.
Baboons are a bit bewildered by this behavior but are learning to fight back. So far, they have not been able to defend effectively against the dogs, but they are learning.
Interestingly, when one of them sounds the alarm as a pack of wild dogs approaches, the baboons will rush down from the trees, placing them in greater danger. A guide told the author that this may be due to a fear of leopards. Their first instinct when someone sounds the alarm is to get out of the tree, where leopards may lurk. Naturally, this is not the greatest idea when there are twenty dogs with sharp teeth ready to pounce on you on the ground.
Wild dogs are Africa's most effective predators. They hunt in large packs, run tirelessly for miles to wear down their prey, and swarm the prey with a highly effective strategy of nip-and-retreat, nip-and-retreat. Like hyenas, they have sharp teeth and powerful jaws and will literally eat their prey alive. Once a gazelle or similar prey animal is on the ground, it is devoured within seconds.
There are an estimated 6,600 such dogs left in Africa, only 1% of the former population. Like many other species in that troubled continent, their hunting range is increasingly encroached by human activity, and poachers and farmers are killing them as well.
As the article points out, baboons are less endangered, and thus are starting to pop up more often on the radar of the carnivores.
Nature is brutal but fascinating.
Leopards are solitary hunters, so it's logical that baboons know that there's strength in numbers for defense vs. a lone big cat, who looks to pick off the oldest and weakest member of the troop. This is a bit different for hunting dogs, which hunt in packs.
Though I'd think baboons also have to defend other predators who hunt in groups, such as lions and hyenas - so they'd learn to also adjust for the hunting dogs as well.
Leopards are solitary hunters, so it's logical that baboons know that there's strength in numbers for defense vs. a lone big cat, who looks to pick off the oldest and weakest member of the troop. This is a bit different for hunting dogs, which hunt in packs.
Though I'd think baboons also have to defend other predators who hunt in groups, such as lions and hyenas - so they'd learn to also adjust for the hunting dogs as well.
Good point. I would think some baboons have to deal with hyenas, which are not that different from dogs.
You can always depend on humans to unbalance nature.
I think humans and all their acts are part of nature. What else could they be? Anyway, it’s natural for some of us to think and learn and work for change, that’s good.
I think humans and all their acts are part of nature. What else could they be? Anyway, it’s natural for some of us to think and learn and work for change, that’s good.
For the Jew, the Christian, and probably the Muslim (since much of the Koran builds on [or, it may be more accurate to say, "borrows from"] Jewish and Christian texts... but I have not read into it in depth to know for sure), God created earth for man and his offspring. Man is a higher-order creature.
On the subject of African dogs, several years ago a toddler fell into an African wild dog enclosure at the Pittsburgh Zoo (his mom was holding him up on the railing to see better and he slipped). He was mauled to death: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/wi...-zoo-kill-boy/.
This is only a story because babboons resemble humans. There are countless species that have been driven to decimation or exitrpation by the selfish and thoughtless introduction of exotic species (dogs, pigs, pigeons, snails, grass, etc) including the dingo that ight Meryl Streeps bighby.
they are the ugliest dogs EVER , cannot wait for them to be extinct
maybe the stud lions and lovely leopards can start hunting them in return
Not cool (not to mention also that you resurrected a 3 year old post), no one wants distinction of a species. "Painted wolves"...they aren't dogs, they aren't wolves either. They are part of the ecosystem however. Ugly to you, but each "dog" has it's own distinctive paint job, like fingerprints. They also have amazing human-like pack/family dynamics.
Lions do hunt them, but in a pack they will protect and hold there own ground against a hungry lion.
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