Wildlife. Updated November 2026. 4 min read.
On almost every early drive in the Mara there is a moment when two small, silver-backed animals trot across the track in front of the vehicle, glance back once and keep going. Guests often ask whether they are foxes or wild dogs. They are black-backed jackals, mbweha in Kiswahili, and they are among the most successful animals on the plains: hunters, scavengers, devoted parents and partners for life.
You can see jackals in most of Kenya's savanna parks in any month. The Maasai Mara, Amboseli, Lake Nakuru and Nairobi National Park are reliable for the black-backed jackal, the common one. The shyer side-striped jackal prefers wooded and wetter country, and the animal once called the golden jackal is now usually classed as the African golden wolf. Early morning and dusk are the best times to watch all three.
Kenya's jackals at a glance
| Animal | How to recognize it | Where in Kenya | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black-backed jackal | Reddish-tan sides with a dark saddle flecked with silver, black tail | Open plains countrywide: Mara, Amboseli, Nakuru, Nairobi NP, Laikipia | Often seen by day, especially early and late |
| Side-striped jackal | Grayer, with a pale stripe along each side and a white tail tip | Woodland, farmland and wetter country, including the coast and the west | Mostly at night; seen less often |
| African golden wolf | Sandy gold, a little larger and longer-legged, no saddle | Open plains and drier country in parts of the Rift and the north | Dawn and dusk; uncommon |
Pairs for life
Jackals usually live in pairs that stay together for years, often for life, and share a territory they mark with scent and defend against neighbors. Both parents raise the pups, which are born in a den, often an old burrow dug by an aardvark or a termite mound hollow. One of the most interesting things about jackals is that young from a previous litter often stay on as helpers, bringing food to the new pups and guarding the den, and pairs with helpers tend to raise more young. Jackals call to each other with high yips and wailing howls, especially at dusk, a sound you will hear from camp.
Hunter and cleaner
Jackals are opportunists. They eat rodents, hares, birds, insects, fruit and the newborn young of gazelles, and pairs work together to take a Thomson's gazelle fawn while the mother is distracted. They are also quick at kills. Watch a lion or cheetah feeding, and the jackals are usually first to arrive, darting in for scraps and dodging away, often ahead of the vultures and hyenas. In the Mara during the calving and migration months they are busy all day. By cleaning up carcasses they do a useful job, though they are hunters in their own right.
Behavior to watch for
- The dawn trot: pairs moving steadily across their territory, checking scent marks.
- Kill raids: one jackal distracts a feeding predator while the other darts in.
- Pups at the den: playful, and often outside in the early morning, especially in the Mara and Nairobi National Park.
- Leaping for insects: jackals pounce on grasshoppers and beetles in the grass, a little like a fox.
- Calling: pairs answer each other's yips at dusk, and neighbors join in.
Three things most people do not know
First, jackals belong to the dog family, cousins of wolves and domestic dogs, but they are not African wild dogs, which are a separate and endangered animal; our wild dogs page covers those. Second, genetic studies published in 2015 found that the golden jackal of East Africa is actually a different animal from the golden jackal of Asia and Europe, closer to the gray wolf, and it is now usually called the African golden wolf. Third, in Swahili stories mbweha is usually the clever one, quick-witted and a little sly, which fits the animal well.
How to photograph jackals
Jackals move a lot, so set a fast shutter, 1/1000 of a second or quicker, and track them with continuous focus. The best images come at dawn, when low light catches the silver saddle and their breath shows on cold Mara mornings. A pair trotting together, side by side, makes a stronger picture than one alone. At a den, keep your distance and wait for the pups to relax and play. At a kill, a jackal darting past a lion's nose tells the whole story of their life in one frame.
Safety and conservation
Jackals are no danger to people in vehicles, but never feed them or any wild animal; jackals can carry rabies, usually picked up from village dogs, which is also a risk to wild dogs and other carnivores. The IUCN lists the black-backed jackal, the side-striped jackal and the African golden wolf as Least Concern at the time of writing. Outside parks, jackals are sometimes poisoned or trapped when they take young livestock, and the dog-vaccination programs run by some conservation groups around parks protect jackals and wild dogs as well as people.
Trips where you will see jackals
Any safari to the Mara, Amboseli, Lake Nakuru or Nairobi National Park will almost certainly include black-backed jackals, often on the first morning. For side-striped jackals, a night drive in a Laikipia or Mara conservancy gives the best chance. Ask your guide to stop for them: the jackals are often the best behavior watching of the day.
