The African wild dog (Lycaon pictus), also goes by the name of African painted dog or Cape hunting dog, is Africa’s most efficient and successful predator. Their hunting success rate is up to 85%, whereas lions and other predators have on average a 30% success rate. They may just be one of the best hunters in the Animal Kingdom. Despite their size and slender body, they can take down ungulates such as zebras, antelopes, impalas, gazelles and springboks. Their diet is mostly mammals, however they have been known to hunt large birds, such as ostriches.
‘Every pack member is important and plays a role in the chase’
The reason behind their success is down to their hunting behaviour. African wild dogs hunt in large packs, with an average of 7 to 15, but sometimes 40 individuals. Their carefully executed hunting skills, along with their incredible speed (up to 35 mph) and endurance, enable them to run in pursuit of prey for up to 3 miles. Very rarely does their targeted prey escape. The success of their hunt is reliant on every individual’s contribution. Every pack member is important and plays a role in the chase. Therefore, the health of every pack member is important for their success and inevitably their survival. This is where the canines incredible and unique social structures come into play.
Every pack is led by a dominant breeding pair, the alpha male and alpha female, who remain monogamous for life. There is little aggression and intimidation between individuals in their social hierarchy, this helps to retain balance and reduce the risk of injury. They form close bonds with their pack members and perform greeting rituals using adorable vocals such as twittering and whining. Each member of the pack works together to care for sick or injured individuals, they will return from a hunt and regurgitate meat for them to feed on. The whole pack also helps to care for the smallest and youngest pack members. They all take in turn to play the role of ‘nanny’ or a babysitter to look after the pups. Even the nursing mother is not forgotten when the rest of the pack return from a hunt, they will bring back chunks of meat (if the den is nearby) or regurgitate meat for her and the pups. These highly social and intelligent canines really demonstrate the meaning of family and their behaviour has fascinated scientists and conservationists for years.
‘One of Africa’s most endangered species’
Even though they are protected their numbers are on the decline. There are approximately 6000 African wild dogs in the wild, with fewer than 550 left in South Africa. They once roamed almost the entire continent with pack sizes as large as 100 individuals, but now are only found in eastern and southern Africa with some packs being as small as 7 individuals. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has classified the wild dog as ‘endangered’ on their red list of threatened species for over 20 years. Their populations have been dramatically reduced over the years as a consequence to the threats they face. The wild dog threats include habitat fragmentation, localized, small population extinction due to epidemic disease such as rabies and canine distemper and human-wildlife conflict. They are unfortunately blamed for leopard and hyena kills of livestock and are often shot or poisoned by the farmers. Wild dogs are not usually a target for poachers for bush-meat, but are far too often caught by snares. If an individual becomes caught in a snare, the pack will return to the snared wild dog and this puts other pack members at risk of becoming caught by other hidden snares.
Can we save the Wild dog from extinction?
It is important that we raise awareness and educating people of the threats the African Wild dogs face and support all conservation efforts to protect these highly social and intelligent canines. Conservationists are working to engage local communities and mitigate human-wildlife conflict. We need to support the men, women and dogs that operate on the front line to protect wildlife from the devastating effects of poaching. With conscious effort from everyone we can help save the African wild dog from extinction.
Here at UBUNTU WILDLIFE TRUST we are dedicated to the conservation of Africa’s biodiversity and committed to the war against poaching so we are supporting the incredible work of the SANPark’s KRUGER NATIONAL PARK Anti-poaching K9 CENTRE. If you would like to consider supporting our current projects for the Kruger k9 Anti-poaching centre you can donate via our website.
Come back next Friday for more interesting facts, #factfriday !
Resources
- African Wild Dog conservation status- https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/12436/166502262
- Ellie E Armstrong, Ryan W Taylor, Stefan Prost, Peter Blinston, Esther van der Meer, Hillary Madzikanda, Olivia Mufute, Roseline Mandisodza-Chikerema, John Stuelpnagel, Claudio Sillero-Zubiri, Dmitri Petrov, Cost-effective assembly of the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) genome using linked reads, GigaScience, Volume 8, Issue 2, February 2019, giy124, https://doi.org/10.1093/gigascience/giy124
- Fraser-Celin, Valli-Laurente, Hovorka, Alice J., Hovork, Mark, & Maude, Glyn. (2017). Farmer-African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) relations in the eastern Kalahari region of Botswana. Koedoe, 59(2), 1-10. https://dx.doi.org/10.4102/koedoe.v59i2.1366
- Katherine R. Forssman, Courtney Marneweck, M. Justin O’Riain, Harriet T. Davies-Mostert, and Michael G.L. Mills “Pup Provisioning in the Cooperatively Breeding African Wild Dog, Lycaon pictus, is Driven by Pack Size, Social Status and Age,” African Journal of Wildlife Research 48(1), (1 April 2018). https://doi.org/10.3957/056.048.013005
