The São Jacinto pack

During the past years I had a few close encounters with the pack of stray dogs that roams the dunes of São Jacinto. The presence of these dogs is likely causing problems for local wildlife, but as a dog owner I’m biased and must admit I’ve gotten fascinated by them. Here are reports of some of those encounters.






September 4, 2012 - In summer, when the water level of the ponds is lowest, the pack hunts on moulting ducks (which at that time are unable to fly), as well as any nesting waterbirds. The ducks try to find a safe place at the deepest part of the pond. The second dog from the right is the suspected alpha female.




March 7, 2014 – A confrontation with the alpha female and two of her pups in the dunes.








January 23, 2015 – At the beach, where they find and eat whatever ends up on the tide line (in particular beached animals). I assume the first black individual is one of the pups seen in 2014. Whether the other two on the first photo originate from the same litter remains unknown. On the second photo the suspected alpha male and female.






July 14, 2015 – The family patrols the pond again. A life any short-living Portuguese asylum dog would dream of? In the front the alpha male and female, in the back at least one of the youngest generation.

The São Jacinto Reserve, March 5 - 7

São Jacinto’s ducks, February 25 – 27: few ducks, but still a lot of work to be done.

On my last of this winter’s visits to the ponds of São Jacinto we were confronted with a serious lack of ducks. Although on the first day of captures we still managed to ring and mark 23 Common Teals (excl. 3 recaptures) and one Mallard, but on the second day our traps only held two Common Teals, including one recapture. The Common Teal was pretty much the only duck species present in our pond during these days and their number was low. There was a more interesting number of ducks present further away in a second pond, including Shovelers, Gadwalls, Wigeons, Pintails and a single Tufted Duck. These birds were obviously not at ease. There was a constant presence of a Goshawk again, which managed to grab at least a single duck during our stay, but more importantly, stray dogs managed to find their way into the fenced area again. I suspect that these are the main reason for the ducks to almost completely abandon the main pond. Thanks to them on the second day of captures we could spend most of our time cleaning up more storm damage, clearing more of the invasive acacia and resight the few ducks that were still there. Hopefully by autumn things are back to normal again.