At about 5:30 in the morning, I was idling at a stoplight and squinting to read the tiny print on my map when the white chap next to me rolled down the window of his beige Land Rover. Two Europeans were seated on the safari seats behind him with cameras already strapped to their necks. "Follow me!" he shouted.
"Going to—er—Pumbi?" I said, having no idea what the name meant much less which of the region's many tribal languages it came from: Xitsonga, siSwati, Sesotho, Tshivenda, isiZulu, Setswana …
When we first spotted Fender through the 8-foot-tall perimeter fence, I could see she was hobbling behind her two pals, Rory and Stellar.
In South Africa, wildlife live behind fences -- whether they surround national parks, public or private game reserves, or cattle ranches.
Brendan Borrell, for the Pulitzer Center
See this article's accompanying slide show: Bio-Boundary for African Wild Dogs
Africa's second-most endangered predator breaks out of the reserves created to protect it. Now, biologists are finding that its own urine can be used to contain it.
Brendan Borrell, for the Pulitzer Center
Brendan Borrell, for the Pulitzer Center
Grantee
Brendan Borrell is a New York-based journalist who has reported on human-wildlife conflicts around the world. He has written for Smithsonian, Scientific American, Slate, and the Los...