10/05/2026
Happy Mother's Day to all you incredible moms out there 💐🌼🌹🌸🌺
To celebrate this special day I have posted a few pictures of a Black-backed jackal mother with her two pups. We set out on an early morning self drive from Satara to Orpen in the Kruger National Park in the hopes of ticking off Black-backed jackal on our animal sightings list. As we neared Orpen camp the bush obliged and rewarded us with a mom and two playful pups who were getting their hunting lessons.
Reasons why Black-backed jackals make great mothers:
🌺 For the first three weeks of the pups' lives, the mother stays in the den and spends roughly 90% of her time looking after them;
🌺 To keep pups safe from predators, the mother will move her litter to a new, safe den location about every two weeks;
🌺 The mother will actively defend her pups and often uses complex, high-pitched yapping to intimidate or distract predators much larger than herself, such as lions or leopards
