3 African wild dogs travelled over 4,000km to find mates – why that’s good news for the endangered species

In 2021, a three-year-old female African wild dog spent a year travelling more than 2,300 kilometres across southern Africa.

She climbed in and out of the Rift Valley in Zambia, swimming rivers, crossing major highways, and slipping past towns before crossing the Zambian border into Mozambique, then on to the border of Zimbabwe.

It was one of the longest journeys recorded for the species.

Known as EWD-1355, she began her journey from her pack’s home range in eastern Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park, becoming one of thousands of wild dogs we’ve studied and tracked in Zambia over a period of nearly 20 years.

Since EWD-1355’s journey, we have recorded other extraordinary journeys.

One group of three male wild dogs covered even further – they walked 4,126km to connect with female dogs, a record for any African mammal.

I’m a conservation scientist, and have studied African carnivores for 36 years.

Together with Matt Becker and the Zambian Carnivore Programme , I’ve spent more than 16 years studying over 500 African wild dogs from over 50 packs every year, fitting them with GPS tracking collars.

Read more: Migrating animals face collapsing numbers – major new UN report African wild dogs ( Lycaon pictus ) are one of the world’s most endangered large carnivores .

Only around 6,000 remain.

Despite the name, they are not closely related to domestic dogs, having split off from the rest of the 34 species of canids more than 3 million years ago.

Small, isolated groups of any endangered species are highly vulnerable to local extinction because there are fewer individuals to withstand inevitable changes and threats to a population.

In the case of wild dogs, most do not breed – only an alpha male and alpha female typically breed in each pack.

Over recent decades, we have seen several small wild dog populations in the Serengeti, the Lower Zambezi, and most recently, western Zambia’s Liuwa Plain blink out.