They are about how to be safe while eating from human waste. To understand the rules, we need to understand in turn how a dump (in our case: the bait-site) is experienced by the members of the jackal family. The key to such an understanding from the ‘jackals point of view’ is the life-death distinction between safety and risk. The medium through which the distinction is taught from the very first days of jackal life is by the whens and wheres of sneaking up to a dump and eating from it.
The Bait-site
How these lessons are taught needs to start with the bait-site. Let’s look at it in daylight:
From a jackal’s point of view danger may lurk at any point of this landscape. There may be a nasty surprise come from a hidden trap, a poisonous snake, a bullet, from poisoned bait, from another animal. One has to be wary at all times. Still, some places are safer than others.
According to a safety-risk distinction, the bait-site landscape can be divided like this:
The focal point of this very basic micro-topography is the pile of food in its centre. Rule Number One here is that when approaching the pile of food (the ‘bowl’), one’s face must be towards Risk, and the back – to Safety. Reaching Safety in our particular case is by sprinting into bush cover and then up to ‘home’ on top of the bluff.
One needs to be agile and swift-footed - the jackal is such to an impressive degree. For example: to dive into cover a jackal is able to retreat backwards without losing precious time for turning around. In the following clip, Big Ears retreats backwards sensing danger from the top of the bluff:
Fig. 2. Reversing
Big Ears sensed possible danger from the bluff. This is the rightmost R-arrow in Fig. 1a. (In a 3-D illustration, it would have pointed up, but as it is, it is horizontal.) There are three salient directions of potential risk: the old tree, the bluff, and the path to my father’s tent. Below we consider them one by one.
The old poplar tree
In Fig. 1 above, an old poplar tree can be seen on the left of the picture. From the roots to the top this is the home of many creatures. By and by, we’ll be presenting them as the jackal story takes us deeper into family and neighbours life. However, a prominent neighbour need to be presented right away. This is the Old Wildcat whom we have met on previous occasions.
Over the years, this formidable neighbour has been spotted from time to time. Maybe it was the same, four years ago, who was waiting for the bait-site ‘to open’. That was back in April, 2020 (cross-ref.). In all events, one has to be careful not to cross paths with The Cat. This the youngsters seem to know without much teaching. Young or old, every jackal keeps checking about the cat’s presence up on the tree:
The bluff.
The bluff rising on the hinterland side of the opening is another high place from which danger may come. The bluff rises behind the camera-tree. (The camera-tree is not seen in the bait-site picture, as it is from it the picture has been taken). All family members lift their heads, look, smell, and listen for any danger that may come either from the tree or from the top of the bluff.
The human habitation seems to be a much lesser concern, judging by the rare glances in that direction. That happens mostly when jackals – primarily the Mother – had gone out to the bait-site in daylight. Also, at times when there are family or friends coming to see my father at the camp. In the latter case, jackal visits are made later, when it is fully dark.
The presence of my father is well-known to the jackals. Given the closeness of the distance between camp and the jackal family ‘home’, they need only a fraction of their phenomenal senses to always know what is going on.
The camp-routine is well-known. If there is smell of frying fish coming from the large pan on the stove, there will be fried-fish leftovers in the evening, and slices of bread soaked in fishing oil. If the nets are set in in the evening, and taken out in the morning, that’s a sure sign that fish could be expected. My father claims that the jackals have become experts in the boat-stove-bait-site connection. His claim is also that as soon as they hear the four-wheel bike head for the village on the weekly trip for products, chicken wings or carcasses can be expected for dinner. Thus, the camp is a source of food and not of aggression. Surprises can be expected only when strangers come to visit him. In the final account, danger from the tree and the bluff are the serious concerns, much less is feared from the direction of the camp.
Twigging.
‘Twigging’ is a term my father uses to describe jackals’ bending and shaking branches around the periphery of the bait-site. He thinks there are many reasons the jackals have for doing this, but a primary one may be to discover traps or ambush. The branches are of the Amorpha fruticosa bush, locally called morpha. It is the most common plant along the bank.
Reaching up to catch a morfa branch was recorded from early on: particularly in the first season of bait-site recording. That was in 2018. The bait-site in those days was by the water edge. Its position was later moved to where it is now: at the foot of the overhanging bluff. That was done to avoid high water overflowing it, which recurrently happened in the course of a season.
Fig. 6. ‘Twigging’ amorpha branch
At one point in bait-site history, the baffling behaviour seemed to be triggered by my father’s changing the food-serving routine. Instead of dumping the food on the ground, he began serving it in a baking dish. He said that he had not wanted to waste liquid food – like leftover fish soup, with chunks of broken bread soaked in it.
However, the well-intended innovation caused panic. Here is what he wrote in his diary.
‘At 22:30, right after I returned from setting a net and going to bed, twigging was heard close by the tent. I coughed a couple of times and it stopped. Later, however, when I was already asleep, a good deal of twigging was recorded by the camera. As it turned out in the morning, the twigging had been done by the dominant male (23:14, 1st visit).
The bait-site visitors are mainly three by now: the dominant male with a junior adult (⁓2 yr.) in tow, and Badger Gosho on his own. The Mother has not been seen since mid-July. The three other junior adults have not appeared either.
The first visit was by the dominant male with the 2 yr. old far out at the back and never entering the stage. Upon seeing the dish, Big Man visibly became very suspicious of a trap or of someone waiting in ambush. He did some vigorous twigging first, possibly to see if some device (trap?) would be activated. Or a human (me?) hiding, who would be provoked to move. After a while, Big Man seemed to decide there was no foul play, but he was still very suspicious. He began very slowly to drag himself towards the dish. He was on his belly, stretched out on the ground his full length. Eventually, he reached the dish, but instantly sprang backwards, possibly because of the smell of metal.
Possibly alerted by the dish, Big Man suddenly became very conscious of the camera – staring at it and also moving his head from side to side. This activated the red diode blinker. At 23:16 there was much staring at the camera, side to side dancing (‘pendulum’ dancing), and even growling. He then retreated backstage and did some twigging. The last suggested another possible meaning of twigging as an adversary challenging device, or maybe frustration.
Another clip a little while later, illustrates very well that the animal was aware of his ability to activate the blinker.
The second and third visits were by Badger Gosho with nothing of note there, except that he immediately set upon the muesli right from the dish. Big Man had not touched it at all.
The 4th visit (01:47-58) has the junior adult coming in onstage, but still not going up to the dish. As on previous nights, he looks for what Big Man may have left for him in the ‘wings’ – the periphery of the opening on the eastern side. He never takes directly from the bowl – keeps close to cover.
A following clip (01:49) again speaks of multiple functions and meanings of twigging. In that scene, Big Man was eating from the dish at last, and not minding either it or the camera. The junior was, on the contrary, rather fixed on the camera, activated the blinker, and eventually went backstage to do some twigging. Possibly, that was a replication of what his patron had done before and thus part of the learning process behind the senior adult-junior adult relationship.’ (20 Aug., 2018)
My father’s last conclusion points to an important part of the learning process. Danger-evasive patterns are replicated down the hierarchical ladder. This goes from the dominants at the top, to the junior adults below, and finally to the cubs at the base. Since the biggest losses are from among the cubs and the junior adults, there is a mechanism which makes them be even more careful than the seniors. This concerns particularly the junior adults – the most volatile group in the family. How the mechanism works is a mystery, but the instance described speaks of its existence. While the dominant did eventually eat from the dish, as well as the badger, the junior adult never touched it.
After a few trial runs, my father abandoned the dish practice. He found it too stressful and unfair to the animals who were placed into a situation to be torn between fear and hunger.
The cameras.
Besides risk being associated with the food itself, the jackals had to come to terms with the cameras. The devices emitted strange lights and smelled funny. A reassuring sign was that my father’s smell was on them, but it seemed that was not enough.
There are many people who use camera-traps nowadays, but maybe many do not realize how obvious they can be to animals. To demonstrate this, my father placed one of his two cameras in a position from which it covered both the bait-site and the other camera (trained on the bait-site). This was the result:
Fig. 7. Cameras reveal themselves
As we can see in the clip, the observed camera fully reveals itself. The jackal who is eating is not much bothered however. It cannot be well seen, but he seems to be White Back. It has to be said about him that he is an old hand at this site and, as a person, he is very much a laid-back character.
In general, senior adults show greater indifference to the camera, than youngsters. How do we know about this?
Rule No 1 may help: always face danger, while your back is towards cover. In respect of the cameras, youngsters are never seen to eat with their backs to the camera, while seniors are often seen to do that.
The dominant male, Big Man, is only rarely bothered about the camera (like during the ‘dish experiments’). Mostly, he would go directly under it, without either sniffing at it or looking up. This camera-confident behaviour can be seen in the clip below:
Fig. 8. Big Man close to cameras
The two cameras, together with the sound-recorder, are strapped 1.5 m from the ground. A big senior adult like Big Man would be tall enough (nearly half a meter at the shoulder) to only lift his head and touch the cameras (or damage them). But such a thing has never happened during all past years – six by now. Jackals would not touch anything around the camp – only what is left for them in the centre of the bait-site. About this discerning jackal attitude (prudence? ethic?) more will be said later on.
White Back is another from the seniors who does not bother much about the blinking devices. He is a laid-back character, as said before, and very confident about the bait-site. He can be seen often to eat with his back to the camera:
Fig. 9. White Back at the bowl, eating back to camera
The junior adults, on the contrary, watch the cameras and often look at them, as if mesmerized. Here is Big Ears looking in wonder (awe?) at the cameras:
Other signs of confidence, or opposite to that, of distrust, are gait, posture, and position. These telling behavioral features we describe in the next story.
