COMPANY PROFILE Overview

First opened in 1997, Bushlife Safaris is owned and run by Nick and his wife, Desiree Murray who have created an award-winning portfolio of safari experiences. These include the luxurious Vundu Camp built on the banks of the River, Little Vundu – an intimate camp, the Ruwesi Canoe Trail which is ideal for adventurous travellers and lastly a tented camp set in the wild Chitake springs area.

Vundu Camp is a permanent tented camp in Mana Pools, Zimbabwe that is well-known for its breath-taking views of the Zambezi River and the constant stream of elephants passing through to eat the pods of the albida trees. The camp has a total of eight spacious thatched chalets, one of which is a large and comfortable family room. Each chalet opens out onto the banks of the mighty Zambezi River, located just 10 metres away, where guests can sit outside and relax on their terrace, watching herds of elephant stroll by.

Little Vundu is a tented camp located 3km upstream from Vundu Camp, on the banks of the Zambezi River, making it a perfect location within the boundaries of Mana Pools National Park. If you are looking for a bit of adventure or to book out a camp exclusively, then Little Vundu is just the right place for you! With its personal wildlife experience and genuine feeling of being in the African bush, it is hard to beat a safari at Little Vundu.

The Ruwesi Canoe Trail is located within Mana National Park, covering a section of the middle Zambezi Valley. Canoe safaris run from the beginning of May and end in November each year where a minimum three night experience is recommended. If you are a new traveler to Africa and are looking for a bit of adventure where memories will be created for life with wildlife experiences second to none, then this is the perfect safari for you.

Our Chitake Camp offers a true wilderness experience which includes incredible photographic opportunities but is definitely not for the faint hearted as you are surrounded by wildlife, being positioned only 10 meters from the spring. Guests can be extremely fortunate with a variety of wildlife sightings as parade themselves around, starting from troops of baboons to herds of playful elephants and the famous painted wolves of Mana Pools. “Keeping up with the painted wolves... was down to the tracking skills of our guides. Nick Murray has spent so long tracking the painted wolves that he knew the exact routes they needed to travel in the wet season to get around” - Nick Lyon, Executive Episode Producer Dynasties

The BBC Earth Dynasties Painted Wolf espisode was filmed at Vundu Safari Camp.

Bushlife Safaris, worked for four years from 2014 to 2018 with the BBC Earth production crew in the filming of a new powerful wildlife series, Dynasties. Nick and Desiree Murray and their team of expert guides worked alongside world-renowned BBC presenter, Sir David Attenborough to capture the fascinating journey into the lives of the Painted Wolves of Mana Pools. Painted wolves are endangered and Nick and Des were delighted to have been involved in a series that puts the plight of these animals on a global stage.

It was a great honour and adventure to have worked alongside Sir David and the BBC film crew while filming the Painted Wolves of Bushlife Safaris’ Vundu Camp. Bushlife Safaris are exceptionally grateful for the BBC’s support in elevating global awareness for the conservation and protection of this endangered . filmed at Vundu Camp Our Brands

Bushlife Safaris is owned and run by Nick and Desiree Murray The Bushlife Painted Wolf Conservancy is a branch of Bushlife who have created an award-winning portfolio of safari Support Unit Trust, funded by Bushlife Conservancy a registered experiences. These include the luxurious Vundu Camp built 501C3 in the USA. The Bushlife Painted Wolf Conservancy on the banks of the Zambezi River, Little Vundu – an intimate specialising in research and conservation of the endangered camp, the Ruwesi Canoe Trail which is ideal for adventurous African Wild Dog. travellers and a tented-camp set in the wild Chitake springs. http://www.paintedwolfconservancy.com/ http://www.bushlifesafaris.com/

Bushlife Conservancy is a section 501(c)(3) registered charity Bushlife Support Unit Trust coordinates the activities of a group in the United States, that is dedicated to the protection and of trackers and rangers who tirelessly patrol the Zambezi River conservation of wildlife and habitats in Africa, primarily in the Valley and surrounding areas in the search of poachers, snares, Zambezi River Valley of Zimbabwe and Zambia. hazards to wildlife on both land and river. http://www.bushlifeconservancy.com/ EPISODE GUIDE DYNASTIES THE GREATEST OF THEIR KIND

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE PRODUCER OF PAINTED WOLF

daughter. It feels Shakespearian dangerous. A big male baboon is sodden and flooded. We NICK LYON in its scale and in the intensity of can weigh twice what a painted slogged through thick mud trying IT BECOMES AN EMOTIONAL Painted Wolf the rivalry. wolf weighs. But Blacktip’s pack to find the animals and just as EXPERIENCE WHEN YOU SEE ONE OF Producer had grown strong in numbers we were getting into position to What are the big moments we and we saw them learning to film - bang! - a tyre would blow THE CHARACTERS HAVING A BAD TIME should be looking out for? take on taking on baboons. It is and we’d lose the pack. On just We have one sequence where amazing behaviour. one shoot we got 22 punctures. we see Blacktip’s pack pushing But after all our following we Tait’s into lion territory. Tait is Is it hard to film painted wolves? got into sync with the packs, or having real success. I loved they needed to travel in the wet Who are the main characters in the puppies! I remember when season to get around, and he this story? an old, wise leader, which gives It was a real challenge. They and we understood their habits her a chance of keeping her pack range over such huge areas and and routines. This would let us they were out of the den for the could navigate us through tough The team arrived just as the alive there. But Blacktip is more a lot of that is hard to cover in a get ahead of the pack, get into first time at just three weeks old. terrains and mazes of streams most tumultuous period in the naïve and when she goes in after car. We drove a total of 82,000 position in advance and make big They were so tiny, with over-sized and rivulets, to pop out next to packs 20 year known history was Tait, she gets it wrong and four kilometres following and filming decisions that were gambles but heads, that would overbalance on the pack. beginning. The specific packs lionesses came for her and her them. The hardest time is in the their front legs. paid off, because we had grown Another of our guides, Henry filmed in this series formed the pack. You’ll have to watch the wet season when the landscape to understand these packs so The painted wolves got to Bandure, was phenomenal. He ultimate dynasty – Tait is the film to find out what happens well. recognise us too and were would look at a paw print in the matriarch of the whole dynasty then! - strong, stable and reliable. Do you feel like you bonded completely relaxed having us sand, and could tell how long An aging leader who was the But also in this film, you will see with the dogs over the course around. It was like they totally ago the pack had passed by matriarch of three related and them as loving pack members, of filming? accepted us being there with how much sand had blown into them. Such a privilege and the print or by what type of tiny neighbouring packs on the Mana with hugely strong bonds. Bonds Definitely. When you follow it allowed us to get some had walked through the Pools Floodplain. that mean the whole pack animals for as long as we did, extraordinary insights into their print after it had been made. support the young of the alpha you get to know them and 22 Then we have Blacktip, one of lives. He could even tell which pack it 23 couple – the only two animals to care what happens to them. Tait’s daughters. She runs a was by the smell of its dung – he breed in the pack. It becomes an emotional very large pack at 30 strong How did you keep track of the could do that while driving along experience when you see one of – unusually big today, but Were any new behaviours painted wolves in that huge in the car! That particular skill the characters having a bad time, a standard size in the past. discovered? landscape? allowed us to find a pack we When our story starts, Blacktip Yes. For example, all the books A lot of that was down to the had lost overnight, and to get needs more space and Tait is we used for research say that tracking skills of our guides. into position just in time to film vulnerable. The film is very much painted wolves don’t hunt Nick Murray has spent so long one of the key moments in the a battle between mother and baboons because they’re too tracking the painted wolves whole story. that he knew the exact routes

Photography copyright: Nick Lyon EPISODE GUIDE DYNASTIES THE GREATEST OF THEIR KIND PAINTED WOLF

Tait is a painted wolf, matriarch Blacktip is one of Tait’s daughters › Combining sensitive low › Painted wolves hunting impala of one of the last great families of and now rules her own pack light, Starlight and thermal and baboon at night. this endangered . She has to the west of Tait’s region. technology allowed us to follow ruled her dynasty for many years Blacktip is proving to be a highly the painted wolves for 24 › Biggest painted wolf pack on the banks of Zambezi river in successful mother herself and hours a day, in tag teams, in all filmed for a landmark series – Zimbabwe, keeping the peace her pack has recently grown to weather, and moon phases. 30 individuals. within her sprawling family. a total of 30 painted wolves. This is one of the biggest packs › Ground tracking stabilised › Rapid injury recovery – broken But tensions are rising. Tait is ever known and filmed. Blacktip camera allowed us to move leg to full speed hunting in one growing old and her power is and her pack are struggling to with stalking lions and running week. waning. One of her daughters, catch enough food in her current painted wolves. › The only painted wolf to ever Blacktip, lives close by. Her own territory. pack is growing fast and they › Working on location for two re-use a den site, and this are running out of space. She This is a species that has almost years allowed us to establish becomes the focus of the inter- urgently needs to get more too many common names to time lapse positions to show the pack feud. territory so that her pack can count. Its Latin name – Lycaon ebb and flow of the wet and dry › “Croc-watching” – an incessant catch enough food. But she has pictus – means painted wolf and seasons that drive the pulse of need to check any water for a problem. She is hemmed in on it is a misunderstood and widely life in Mana Pools. crocodiles. one side by human lands. There persecuted species. They share is only one way she can go to a common ancestor with the NEW BEHAVIOUR FILMED FACTS ABOUT PAINTED get what she needs – her own wolf but are not descended from › Baboon hunting – the science WOLVES mother’s lands. them. Painted wolves are not said it doesn’t happen, so the often the focus of natural history › Packs can roam vast home Painted wolves thrive through team worked with a scientist ranges 400-2000 sqkm films because they are very hard to rewrite this – a new paper is cooperation. It is what had made to follow! this dynasty so strong, for so being published (co-authored by › These are such fantastic Nick Lyon, the episode director). animals to follow because they long. A family feud could bring it TECHNOLOGY USED TO FILM to its knees. are “the underdog” – being › Cameras capable of filming in › First day emergence of puppies relatively small at around 25kg – at just three weeks old. – they are at the mercy of much 20 FILMING LOCATION colour in very lowlight levels at 21 dawn and dusk revealed new › Clash of two painted wolf packs, larger predators, such as lion, Mana Pools National Park, behaviours including baboon and the subsequent territorial hyena and crocodile. Zimbabwe hunting and a honey badger takeover. encounter. › There are only 6,600 painted › Courtship behaviour, and group wolves left in the wild. The team › Brand new stabilised camera singing. wanted to make a film that technology allowed us to film in would help people look at these Zimbabwe, where conventional › First to film painted wolves at wonderful and endangered aerial Cineflex was prohibited. night. animals afresh.

FILMING FACTS

CHARACTER PROFILE 669 91 82,000 Number of camera filming days Painted wolves filmed, Bumpy kilometres driven Tait is the most successful 182 flank patterns to learn! painted wolf ever known. There are only 6600 painted wolves left in the world. To date, there are 10 0 mins to spare 280 from Tait’s own bloodline Specialist camera operators 22 When Sir David Attenborough which is a significant contribution Punctures in a single wet met the painted wolves it was to the future of this endangered season shoot approaching the end of the day animal. Tait has ruled her pack and we were many hours away uncontested for five years, where 17 from camp. Just as he delivered she has reared eight litters of Cameras used 313 hrs 12 mins his line to camera, the pack stood pups. Two of her daughters now Footage to be logged and up and went to hunt not to be rule packs of their own and live memorized, from 16,056 seen again, but we got the take. on either side of Tait’s territory. 9 hours in the field Sir David nailed it All together they are a formidable Professional guides dynasty. But Tait is growing old and her powers are waning.