Reintroducing the Wild Dog
Snack Time
One of the neat carnivores I got to work with in South Africa that we don’t experience much in Tanzania is the African wild (or “painted”) dog. These endangered carnivores live and hunt in highly social packs which, like wolves, are dominated by an alpha male and female. African wild dogs used to roam the Serengeti, but vanished in the park in the early 1990s due in part to diseases such as rabies and canine distemper contracted from domestic dogs.
During my first field season, I was fortunate enough to watch a pack of these animals being re-introduced into the park, and several more releases have taken place since. In total, over 60 wild dogs are now recolonizing Serengeti — we haven’t seen any in our camera trap areas yet, but there are rumors that they might be wandering through soon!
Serengeti from Above
The best part about having a new season of photographs for me is the chance to “visit” Serengeti from the comfort of my own office. My research plans for 2016 don’t involve any trips back to Tanzania (mostly, I’ll be finishing up some experiments down in South Africa instead), so leaving Serengeti this last year was a very bittersweet experience. On the plus side, I did manage to grab a lift on one of the small bush planes that fly across the park, and the views were spectacular!
Dive into Season 9
We promise that this one was worth the wait – hot-off-the-press Season 9 is one of our largest seasons yet, with over a million images (okay, okay, 300,000 some-odd “capture events”) to explore from our last year in the field! Head on over to www.snaphshotserengeti.org to join the search!
As we move through this new season, we’ll be updating regularly to share results that are emerging from our recent analyses, describe the brand new teaching tools we’re developing using this data to introduce young scientists to the world of research, and let you meet some of the branch new faces joining the Snapshot Serengeti team. Don’t forget to ask questions, post cool and unique pictures, and follow us on Facebook and through our Zooniverse discussion boards!
Thank you again for all of your effort in looking through these photos — this project wouldn’t be possible without you.
Snapshot Serengeti 