With all the wonders of the bush, we will inevitably witness horrific injuries inflicted upon wildlife by other wildlife and, sometimes inadvertently, by humans driving too fast on the roads. When feeding this and another mom this morning with their combined seven piglets, our jaws dropped when we spotted this horrific injury on one of the moms.
It may be why she joined up with another mom with piglets since she may know she won’t last long with this severe injury. This morning I messaged Ranger Jaco, sending him the photos, and he agreed this injury was from a leopard or lion.
Warthogs are not necessarily territorial but live in groups in a home range, called sounders, and may or may not be together at certain times. Males mainly live alone but may hang out together from time to time, but not in the female sounders and only with females during the mating season. We’ve often seen moms and piglets together and later aunts, nieces, and sisters. We have witnessed all of this.
Jaco also stated that although warthogs are sturdy and often recover from serious injuries, it’s unlikely that flies will eat away the dying flesh from this type of injury. Eventually, she’ll become septic and die.
Two things come to mind for us after this sighting. One, will she die nearby since we’ve seen her and her piglets several times since they were born a few weeks ago? Two, is the lion or leopard that inflicted this severe injury hunting nearby in our area?
We will be extra diligent in the future. Many have seen lions and leopards during the day and their usual evening hunting time. People walking and biking must be extra careful, knowing an attack is possible if getting too close. Often, unknowing tourists will go to inspect a “kill” only to put themselves in danger. What if the lion or leopard returns to eat the remainder of their kill?
I had a busy morning getting food prepared for tonight’s sundowner gathering. There will only be four of us since one of our guests had a family emergency out of town. It’s a scorching day, so I made a point of making easy snacks that won’t require any fussing when the power goes out for load shedding at 5:00 pm, 1700 hrs, for at least two hours.
Right now, as I write, the temperature is 97F, 36C, but the humidity is only 29% with a dew point of 59, much more bearable than it has been for several days this past week, with tomorrow about the same. Saturday and Sunday, we’ll be looking at temps over 100F, 38C, and 103F, 39, respectively, with higher humidity and dew point than today.
I’m glad we planned tonight’s little gathering today rather than over the weekend. We’ll be back at Jabula on Friday and Saturday, but according to the load-shedding schedule, they should have power while we’re there. There’s aircon in the bar, which makes it quite comfortable during hot periods.
Tom just took a short nap since he didn’t sleep much last night. Soon, I will join him for a bit of a rest while the fan is on. We don’t use the bedroom’s aircon during daytime hours, saving it for sleeping, which is more important to both of us.
Be well.
Photo from one year ago today, November 16, 2021:
