African wild dogs are found in sub-Saharan Africa, which includes
desert environments, flooded grasslands, tropical forests, and tropical
grasslands. It is believed that wild dogs once lived throughout Africa, but
their habitat size has shrunk to a few countries: Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana,
and Angola. The reduction in habitat has restricted many wild dogs to National
reservations and parks.
A territory for a pack can range anywhere in size from 650 to 900
square miles. Territories need to be large enough to support all of the pack
members. African wild dogs tend to be crepuscular, which means they are most
active at dusk and dawn. They can travel up to 30 miles in a day and tend to
travel six miles during a hunt. But because their territory is dwindling, food is
not as plentiful, making it necessary for wild dogs to travel further to find
food. They can reach speeds of 35 mi/h.
Different packs may have overlapping territories, but wild dogs
are unique in that they do not tend to fight amongst themselves. Thus,
territorial disputes are not likely in home ranges that encompass more than one
pack. They are also unique in that unlike most large predators they do not use
vocal calls to communicate to others where their territories lie. They do
however mark their territories through scent. They secrete chemicals to communicate boundaries however, they do not mark their territory by urinating. The alpha pair will urinate around a site when the female is in
heat, but they use urine more as a sign of dominance.
Interestingly, the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust (BPCT) is
working to discover the chemical signals emitted by African wild dogs. This organization’s
aim is to mimic these chemical signals and create artificial scents in order to
deter the dogs from areas occupied by humans, farms in particular. Killing
African wild dogs by gunshot, poison, or snaring to protect livestock is a
serious conservation issue due to the damaging impact these actions have on the
ever-decreasing dog population. BPCT hopes that African wild dogs will be
deterred to go outside the National reservations if these artificial scents are
placed on the outskirts of the parks. While the idea is encouraging, I wonder
if this will be as effective as it is for wolves, which are unlike African wild
dogs in that they are more overtly aggressive. If wild dog packs in the same
areas are usually less aggressive compared to related species, logic would
follow that the artificial markers would not have as great of a deterring effect
as it would for a more aggressive species like the wolves. It would be
interesting to compare the two!
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