A few years ago, a group of farmers near Johannesburg, South Africa, suddenly noticed a border collie barking at an animal on the ground. When they realized whom the dog was barking at, they were shocked.
The tiny animal looked like a baby hyena. But the farmers knew she was actually an aardwolf, whose name translates to earth-wolf in Afrikaans and Dutch.
While aardwolves are not endangered, they’re incredibly elusive, and most South Africans live their whole lives without seeing the unique-looking animal up close. They eat only insects, often consuming up to 300,000 termites in one night.
View this post on Instagram
The farmers realized there were no adult aardwolves around who were taking care of the baby. Concerned, they looked for the cub’s mom but couldn’t find her anywhere.
“They searched around for two or three nights with no mom in sight,” Lauren Beckley, who was a longstanding volunteer with Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital, told The Dodo.
Knowing the baby aardwolf wouldn’t be able to survive on her own much longer, they called the wildlife veterinary hospital, who came to pick her up right away. When the aardwolf, named Maple, first arrived at the vet, she was in very rough shape.
“She was really underweight and dehydrated,” Beckley said. “We just had to get her through the first couple of days, just getting her to eat.”
Maple was so tiny when she was rescued that she needed to be bottle-fed and cared for around the clock. She ended up living inside Beckley’s home for the first few months of her life.
Over time, Maple grew bigger and stronger. Before long, she was able to try her first few bites of termite. Then, Beckley decided to transfer her into a soft-release outdoor enclosure so she could start getting used to living in the wild.
At first, Maple was hesitant to embrace the outside world. But once she realized that nature was full of termites she could snack on, she started embracing her wild aardwolf life.
That’s when Beckley knew it was time for Maple to be freed. She left her enclosure open, allowing her to leave whenever she felt ready.
Maple stuck her head out of her crate, looked around, then walked away into the bushes. But before she disappeared from Beckley’s sight, she looked back over her shoulder, as if to say thank you for saving her life.