This heartbreaking scene plays out as mongooses take turns tearing a baby hare apart – showing no mercy to the little one. This sighting took place on Mala Mala Game Reserve in the Greater Kruger.
Dwarf mongooses are gregarious animals living in family groups and adhere to a hierarchy. The alpha male and female are generally in charge, but this various from context to habitat to food resources.
These creatures generally eat snakes, eggs, and insects and may eat rodents – but are not known to attack animals bigger than themselves. That in itself makes this sighting so much more special as these mongooses took turns in tearing a baby hare apart.
The wild seems to be producing things when you least expect it. The mongoose was first seen eating a poor hare.
It looked as if though the dominant mongoose was the only one attacking the scrub hare at this point and once he/she had their share, the next most dominant one had their turn. It took quite a long time for the hare to die – the whole scene probably took place over 30 minutes.
A couple of mongooses then pulled the scrub hare into the grass and out of sight and as we also lost visual, we moved off. This was a very strange and rare sighting for me.
The video was also recently posted on Youtube and has also attracted 85k viewers along with many people who have left comments about this rare video.