Click Here to listen to the jackals’ song
The hills of the Pelješac peninsula, home of golden jackals
There are jackals here on the Pelješac. Each night they sing, sometimes very close to the house, on the hills above town. Their song is more of a true howl than our coyotes back home, whose voices rise and fall randomly, complicated words, canine jazz. These jackals sound more like the Hollywood version of wolves or coyotes, plaintive yelps and a slow, dropping howls. Their voices raised singing and answering just at dark, then all goes quiet, a call to the pack for the evening hunt.
Although in photographs they look like coyotes, their song was unfamiliar enough we had to ask what we’ve been hearing each night. There are both wolves and bears in Croatia, but not on this peninsula. We listen and wait for more, for a song neither tame nor of man, one that announces its own wildness to the night.
.
.
.
.
