African wild dogs are a unique and endangered species that are important to their ecosystem. They play an important role in eliminating sick and weak animals, helping maintain natural balance and ultimately improving prey species (Tagley, 2019). Known for being highly efficient predators, they help regulate prey species that play a role in shaping vegetation. This species are also highly intelligent and social animals, that heavily rely on a pack ranging from 6 to 20 (Tagley, 2019). Since they are very social and caring within their pack, they are known to assist weak or ill members and share food. Communication between wild dogs consists of touch, actions and vocalizations, mostly involving sniffing and muzzle licking greetings. However, when they are excited, such as before a hunt or just after a kill they will give a high-pitched twitter (African Wildlife, 2013). When on the hunt, they have a wide variety of prey, including gazelles and other antelopes, warthogs, wildebeest calves, rats, and birds, where targeted prey rarely escapes (AWF, 2018). However, lions and hyenas are considered to be predators and competitors to african wild dogs, since they hunt for the same prey, but often kill off african wild dogs when in contact (Canids, 2018).
African wild dogs are typically located in savannas, grasslands and woodlands of South Africa (Nathab, 2019). Prey are widely available in these areas, where these dogs hunt at least once a day or more depending on the pack size. Typically, the dominant male and female are responsible for reproduction in the pack, passing on the strongest genes to the new littler (Hesc, 2018). These areas are also suitable for these wild dogs to reproduce and create a den. In this den, the dominant female can have a litter size between 10 to 20 pups, where they are confined for about three months. The dominant female heavily relies on the assistance of the pack to care for her and her pups, until the pups can walk on their own (Hesc, 2018). Since the gestation period for this species is about 2 months, if threats were reduced, the dominant female can quickly increase the pack size significantly. However, this puts a huge strain on the dominant female since she is the only female reproducing for the whole pack. Also, depending on how well the rest of the pack feeds and cares for her and the pups in the den, can affect reproductive capacity as well. When young wild dogs reach the age of reproduction, some of them branch off joining new packs.
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However, this is hard to do since many packs are largely spread out from each other. While the African wild dogs once roamed the mountains and deserts of most of sub-Saharan Africa, its modern range is restricted to Southern Africa and southern East Africa (Helmstine, 2019). However, this species has a large range when it comes to denning and finding food, in Kruger ranged over 80 square kilometers when denning, but 885 square kilometers after denning (Hesc, 2018). Today most of the remaining wild dogs that live in Southern and southern East Africa are widely separated from each other, limiting their chances to spring off from pack to pack to increase their overall population size. Without the african wild dogs, the prey population they feed on will be unchecked and increase, the vegetation near them would also be reduced since there are fewer predators regulating their population. The surrounding environment and ecosystem will be unbalanced, reducing biodiversity, creating a chain of booming prey population, while degrading the habitat and vegetation.
Wild dogs were previously distributed throughout sub-Saharan Africa, but they disappeared from 25 of the 39 African countries in which they occurred numbering half a million, currently only about 3000 to 5 00 wild dogs (600 to 1 000 packs) remain, however the estimated decline of this species size is uncertain due to their tendency of population fluctuations (Hesc, 2018). Their modern range is restricted to Southern Africa and southern East Africa, where human population density remains low deserts of most of sub-Saharan Africa. The main causes of the decline within this species is due to habitat loss, human-wildlife conflict, and disease. Mineral extraction and the expansion of agriculture across Africa are big contributors towards habitat loss, increasing competition between wild animals, including African wild dogs (Sheppard, 2018).
Due to this, roads are built and habitat fragmentation comes to play, increasing road mortality rates for this species and breaking apart their habitat further. The growing human population with the expansion of agriculture also plays a huge role in the decline of African wild dogs, since they are increasing into their habitat. This increases the chance of conflict over natural resources and retaliatory killings by farmers as a result of livestock predation (Sheppard, 2018). This increases conflict between humans and wild dogs, since this species has less land to roam and prey to hunt, giving them the only option to prey on farm animals. However due to the increase of agriculture and domesticated animals, increases the chances of wild dogs to obtain infectious, invasive, non-native and viral diseases (Sheppard, 2018). A single infected wild dog can pose a huge threat to their pack and outside packs as well, which can potentially wipe them out in a single outbreak. In 2016, 12 wild dogs have died from canine distemper virus at the South Africa's Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve, where only 57 remain wild dogs remain (Kertes, 2016). This shows how vulnerable they are to disease, which can potentially wipe out their whole population in this reserve, given that their recent population is below 60.
A proper action plan to help African wild dogs to recover is to secure their protected space. Since they have a large capacity to cover range up to 800 square kilometers, this species needs an increased wide range of land in order to survive. Today, wild dogs rely heavily on large protected areas for their survival, however these protected areas are poorly controlled and managed. Properly managing and maintaining these protected spaces can greatly benefit these wild dogs, where they can be free of or reduced being exposed to habitat loss due to human activity, human-wildlife conflict, and disease. Wild dogs can now have the opportunity to roam over their desired range within their protected space, without having to fear of tight competition between animals due to habitat loss and fragmentation by humans.
Secured protected areas can also give this species the opportunity to be away from human conflict over livestock predation, giving them land to hunt for prey. Also, the risk of disease is greatly reduced since they will be far away from agricultural settlements with domesticated animals, which are one of the biggest reasons they catch harmful diseases. These protected areas will also be located in areas where these wild dogs thrive in, such as savannas, grasslands, and woodlands, where they can create dens in mating season, while being near prey to hunt. This can be done by safeguarding wildlife reserves and corridors that connect them, allowing wild dogs to live and roam freely in this space. African wild dog packs can greatly increase within this protected space, giving young wild dogs the opportunity to branch off into other packs, improving their species. The World Wildlife Fund has a similar conservation plan to this, where they have worked with governments in southern and eastern Africa to secure protected areas more efficiently and the corridors for endangered African wildlife (WWF, 2019). In KAZA (Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area), spans political boundaries connecting critical wildlife habitat in Namibia, Angola, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe, where they also focus to protect wild dogs (WWF, 2019).
So far, they have been quite successful with their conservation plan, since they hold some of African’s greatest treasures, such as the Okavango Delta and Victoria Falls, which holds many unique species such as Africa’s elephants. However, it can be quite difficult to manage every endangered species within these political boundaries, especially when they are all connected. Many tracking devices or surveillance equipment must be implemented in order to keep an eye out for this many endangered species, including African wild dogs. Many experts in this field would need to be hired in order to maintain the effectiveness and process of this plan. However, due to the range of African wild dogs tend to travel, can make it quite hard for a monitoring team to assess their progression. In order to improve on this, tracking devices should be given to the dominant female and male of a pack since they pave the way for their entire pack. This plan can be quite costly though, considering how much equipment, experts, and resources will be needed in order for this secured protected area can thrive and protect these endangered species.
Much more research will need to be done in order to identify the range of African wild dogs traveled. Also, researching the threats these wild dogs have inside of the protected area as well, since maybe they are not the only endangered predator species in this protected space. However, the scale of the threats presented would be much less compared to their threats outside of protected areas and unsecured protected areas, such as habitat loss, human wildlife conflict, and disease from domesticated animals.
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