Food and Eating
The food offered consists of the following parts: oat-flakes soaked in water (1 kg.); ½ kg of pork bones or chicken carcasses; around 1 kg. of kitchen leftovers (vegetable peelings, leftover food, etc.); half a loaf of bread (sliced); fish and fish innards if available. On the average, the food offered ranges between 3 and 5 kg. Recently, dog-food kibbles have been added to the menu (⁓ 200 g), but did not meet approval.
This amount of food is eaten to about 2/3 of the whole lot. Meat and fish are always eaten with relish, less so the rest. Curiously, bread slices are not liked by the jackals as they were at the Km 727 bait-site and more of other leftovers have been steadily accumulating. In result, a waste dump has grown.
By 18 July there are two stray cats attracted by the camp: the small tomcat who was the first to arrive, and, after a while, a bigger yellow cat who may be female, but my father is not too sure. In any case, the cats have been fighting for position in the tent, until some arrangement has been reached. Which is that the yellow cat inhabits the western ‘porch’, and the small tomcat the eastern one. Unlike at the beginning, both cats are now calmer and enjoy the shade and relative coolness of the tent.
From time to time, they visit the bait-site, mostly in the morning, after the jackals have gone.
Another bait-site visitor is the brown dog mentioned before, given the name of Jacky. When he visits, that’s again after the jackals are gone:
To prevent these three newcomers stealing the jackals’ food, my father began feeding them twice a day. Luckily, Jacky eats dry dog’s food (kibbles) with relish. The cats are mostly after fish.
By various signs, the three animals are stray and not feral. That is, they have not gone wild. A strong signal of that is that they do not like raw food (fish heads, innards, etc.). Fish has to be fried, with heads and tails boiled into a soup. This is a strong difference with the jackals who readily eat food in any form, raw or cooked.
Bait-site order
Preference to the food at the table is given to Dark Patch. At times she appears in three sessions of about 20 min to half an hour each. Unlike in the first days when Black Tail was pushing her away from the food, now they eat nose-to-nose when together. But mostly Black Tail leaves the bait-site to Dark Patch, himself searching for food elsewhere. When he comes, he eats hungrily for under a minute and then disappears. A rare daylight appearance (07:03 am) has been recorded after a rain-storm during the night:
It is to be noted in this connection that jackals, on the whole, are not afraid of rain and thunder-storms:
Vocalization
After the wailing by Dark Patch on 14 July at 22:15, another such vocal activity was heard twice in the night of 19-20 July. The first was by Black Tail while Dark Patch was looking:
Regrettably, only a few seconds of the vent had been recorded. The wail was followed by a ‘ua-aua’ sequence and then stopped. A second bout of wailing was heard at 23:45, but was not recorded as no one happened to be at the bait-site at the time.
Competitors
During the last half a month, the two cats and Jacky offer some competition, but not much. The main trouble comes from Jacky. Despite regular feeding at the camp he still trespasses at the bait-site, going mainly for the pieces of chicken legs or wings offered together with the rest. He would trespass in jackals’ territory at all times but principally around sunset, or after sunrise:
The interesting thing is that he doesn’t seem to eat all of the chicken pieces in the ‘bowl’. This is evident from the fact that when the jackals arrive, they still find chicken pieces:
But the main thing of course is that with the regular food by the tent Jacky has less incentive to poach from the bait-site.
Both the yellow cat and the small tomcat do not hesitate to poach. The yellow cat is often seen during jackal time, while the little tomcat prefers the time when jackal dinner has been just served.
A new and somewhat strangely-looking trespasser appeared at 01:24 am, on 22 July. In fact, the trespassers might have been two, as a second pair of eyes was recorded, but that animal preferred to ignore the bait-site. The first one marked the rim, then went up to the bait-site and sniffed around, but did not take anything. It had the black ‘socks’ of a fox, as well as a longish and fluffy tail, but otherwise did not look quite right as a fox. Perhaps that was because of recent end of molting with the new hair just beginning to grow. On the other hand, the possibility of a ‘jackal-fox’ hybrid is not to be ruled out, but more clear evidence is needed before one comes up with such a statement. In any case, at least one communication has appeared in academic journals about registering ‘jackal-fox’ hybrids.
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