Whilst I was driving to find a perfect spot for a nice sundowner drink we stumbled upon an amazing sighting. My tracker switched on our spotlight and when we looked to the left we saw two little eyes peeping at us but at that stage we didn’t know what it was. Until we got closer we realized we were looking at a Black-backed Jackal’s den with cute little puppies inside. We stopped and waited and to our amazement more of them started to appear. They came out one by one and started playing with each other. With the mom nowhere in sight….

This was such a precious thing to see. After a while the mom appeared and quickly chased the pups back into the den, obviously very protective over her young ones. We waited and waited for them to appear again, but we only saw little eyes watching us from inside.

What a sighting…

Story by Eduan Balt, River Lodge Ranger