Wondering About African Wild Dogs

African Wild Dog Photo Credit Pexels from Pixabay

The Serengeti is renowned for being one of the few relatively intact large ecosystems remaining in the world. Sure, it isn’t without its problems, nowhere, not even protected areas (PA’s), are exempt from the onslaught of effects from humans either directly on the ground or through climate change but in general the health of the Serengeti is robust.

So why is it in this well balanced, large ecosystem that we don’t ever see African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) on the Snapshot Serengeti cameras? Of course, African wild dog numbers everywhere are low even within (PA’s) but they are part of the carnivore guild alongside lion, leopard, hyena, cheetah in most of the big PA’s like South Africa’s Kruger National Park and Botswana’s Okavango Delta. So why not the Serengeti National Park (SNP)?

Not so long ago wild dog were present in the SNP in small numbers. In 1970, when studies began, there were an estimated 95 individuals in 12 packs. They were studied sporadically until 1991 when all 12 packs had seemingly died or disappeared. Here in lays the mystery, what killed them?

At the time the rapid disappearance of the wild dogs coincided with a renewed period of research that saw individuals from several packs immobilised and fitted with radio collars. The research community at the time were baffled and a hypothesis was proposed by Roger Burrows that implemented researchers handling of the dogs as being causal to their decline, the theory being that the stress imparted to the animals made them susceptible to rabies which eventually killed them. It is a controversial hypothesis and has had the research community at each other’s throats for the last 25 years. Some argue that invasive handling of study animals is un-ethical and can lead to tragic outcomes (as hypothesised by Burrows for the African wild dog) others argue that collaring and taking blood samples from study animals is vital to understanding processes which effect conservation management.

A recent paper by Jackson et al, “No evidence of handling‐induced mortality in Serengeti’s African wild dog population” an open access paper published in Ecology and Evolution, revisits the question and aims to shed new light on the argument with research.

I am not trying to weigh in on the argument, my expertise is inadequate for that but I thought it was an interesting take on the question of wild dog in the Serengeti and it used data generated by Snapshot Serengeti, all be it in a small way, to help with its argument.

Surrounding the eastern side of the SNP are two PA’s, the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA, a multi use area occupied by a large population of Maasai pastoralists) and Loliondo Game Controlled Area (LGCA, a multi use area with some settlements, hunting and tourist concessions.) One would argue that these areas are not as pristine as SNP itself with a good dose of human impact but the wild dogs have been studied here since 2005 and as of 2017 there was an estimated population of 120 individuals in 10 packs.

Collaring has shown that the wild dogs do venture back to the Serengeti plains from time to time (proving there is no physical barrier to dispersal) but that they do not settle there, choosing instead to stay in an environment where one would imagine it was harder to survive on the periphery of human habitation. Our own Snapshot Serengeti work comes in to play here to prove that even with an extensive network of cameras that have been in operation for several years no wild dog has been recorded in SNP.

So what do Jackson et al imagine could be the route cause if not the direct handling leading to stress related rabies outbreaks hypothesis.

The team have studied wild dogs for over a decade in areas adjacent to SNP that arguably have an equal or higher rabies risks (think of the domestic dogs associated with people) to the SNP. They have used the same invasive methods of study as the SNP researchers including using intervention to fit collars, take blood and in one incidence an attempt at relocation back to SNP. They believe that they have the perfect scenario in which to test the hypothesis.

They found, in contrast to the earlier study which saw the entire population disappear, that 12 month survival rate in handled wild dogs was 87.6% and in a group of 67 wild dogs captured and translocated back to SNP, held for almost a year in translocation enclosures, a long term stress situation, 95.5% survived over 12 months. Incidentally, most of the relocated dogs did not stay in the SNP, returning to the adjoining PA’s. One pack did remain but not in the former study area of grassland plains but rather in a rugged area just outside the original study area.

The team argues that the wild dogs in both NCA and LGCA have been subject to handling just as much as the original study yet have shown a population increase, secondly, there has been no repopulation of the original study area either naturally through dispersal nor through attempted reintroduction something that arguably should have happened if the only reason for the die off was human induced.

Instead they believe that the demise of the wild dog coincided with a rise in lion and hyena numbers on the plains of the Serengeti. Wild dog are killed by these predators but perhaps more importantly they also have their hard earned prey stolen from them by larger predators. Their theory is that the competition from increasing lion and hyena numbers as well as out breaks of rabies and canine distemper saw the death of some packs and the dispersal into the adjoining PA’s of the rest. Compared with the endless grassy plains of the Serengeti, the NCA and LGCA are much more varied terrain with a mixture of hilly, rocky areas as well as open woodland and open grassland. This kind of mosaic gives wild dogs a much better chance of avoiding larger more dominant predators and so their chance of survival is greater.

So could this be why we see no wild dog in our camera traps. Whatever the reason it highlights that even with what we imagine as well protected areas the space we have left for wildlife is minimal and to protect a wide range of biodiversity we should be doing more to protect a wide range of ecosystems and habitats.

If you want to read the Jackson paper you can find it here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ece3.4798

There are links within the paper to the original Burrows work so you can get a feel for both sides of the story.