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ARKive - African wild dog video - Lycaon pictus - 15a

This is a video of what I believe to be one African wild dog being reintroduced to the pack after a tracking collar was placed on him/her.  This is the pack's reaction to the foreign object.

That's mine! Territorial Behavior in African Wild Dogs

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!

https://www.eriezoo.org/PDFS/Animal%20Fact%20Sheets%20for%20Website/African%20Wild%20Dog.pdf

http://library.thinkquest.org/16645/wildlife/wild_dog.shtml

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/African_Wild_Dog

http://www.kalahari-predator-conservation.com/en/predators/african-wild-dogs

http://www.restek.com/Technical-Resources/Technical-Library/Editorial/editorial_A013

Last of a Dying Breed

An Endangered Species

Once wild dogs were a dominant predatory group across much of Africa. They roamed the great savanna, and played a crucial role in the ecosystem; culling the weak and sickly, maintaining the cycle. During and in some cases, prior to colonization, African wild dogs have been viewed as a threat to the local human inhabitants. This is especially the case following the ‘settling’ of Africa, during which the wild dogs were treated in much the same manner as the wolves of Europe; hunted, poisoned, and encroached upon to the point of extinction. 

Accordingly, there are less than 5,000 wild dogs left in all of Africa. Most populations are restricted to national parks which provide some degree of protection, yet isolate the groups, and risk increasing homogeneity in the gene pool. Moreover, they need enormous areas of several hundred square miles to range, and if the wild dogs venture out these few protected areas, they often come into conflict with people.
Of importance is not to view this as a simple problem faced by wild dogs which can be amended by human intervention. For example, people living in the Samburu Heartland have lost livestock to predators, that include African wild dogs. Fearing for their livelihoods, farmers and ranchers have to protect their own interests, which inevitably results in the direct targeting of any and all predatory species which pose a threat. This is essentially the same problem faced in the United States where efforts to reintroduce native wolf species have met strong resistance by ranchers, and local community residents. 

Conservation Efforts

Through study and potentially understanding of the species in terms of migratory patterns, hunting preferences it may be possible to enhance the degree to which this species may be protected. The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), along with several other partners including the Samburu-Laikipia Wild Dog Project (SLWDP), local communities and NGOs, is working to strengthen and expand wild dog conservation throughout northern Kenya. However, given the travel patterns of wild dogs -easily travel 25 miles a day in search of prey over difficult terrain- it is incredibly challenging to study their habits. To expedite this research, AWF, with funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Dutch Government (DGIS), has employed 12 scouts from five different communities. AWF supplies these experienced trackers with the necessary equipment, and in addition, has initiated critical dialogue between local communities who live in wild dog areas and key researchers to ensure that landowners are well-informed about the research.

Other efforts which have been used in the US to facilitate coexistence of ranchers and wolves may well be applicable to the case of the African Wild Dogs. For instance, fladdery techniques and perhaps even conditioned taste aversion which have been shown to deter wolves from preying on livestock may be generalizable to wild dog populations in Africa. 

                                                       (African Wild Dog, Snared; help stop the war on the worlds species.)

References:

http://www.awf.org/content/wildlife/detail/africanwilddog

http://www.predatorconservation.com/wild%20dog.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/African_Wild_Dog

Pack Structure and Communication

African wild dog packs are typically dominated by a single monogamous breeding pair. The alpha female typically has a litter of 2 to 20 pups, which are cared for by the entire pack (cooperative breeding). This is the only breeding pair of dogs in the pack. The entire pack is involved in the welfare of the pups; the hunting members regurgitate meat for the nursing female and pups. The dogs are highly social, and share food and provide assistance to weak/sick members. 

Social interactions are common, and the dogs communicate by touch, actions, and vocalizations.

Their large range of vocalizations includes a short bark of alarm, a rallying howl and a bell-like contact call that can be heard over long distances. Elaborate greeting rituals are accompanied by twittering and whining. The dogs constantly maintain physical contact or relatively short inter-individual distances while resting. Unlike wolves, they typically disperse in groups. Lone dogs and peripheral pack members are rare. Compared to wolves, aggression is generally muted; additionally the dogs do not howl. Cooperation is the key to survival and reproduction.

 The vocal repertoire of the African wild dog is one of the most complex in Canidae, with some sounds unique to the species. Vocalizations provide a useful window on larger patterns of behavior, particularly among the dogs. Short-range vocal communication accompanies many social interactions and appears to play an important role in intra- and interpack dynamics, and in forming and maintaining social bonds between pack members. Depending upon the motivational state and level of arousal of pack members, sounds issued by individuals can give rise to cascading group effects.

When filtering through bush in search of prey, pack members frequently become separated and sometimes call to reunite. Long distance contact calls are common in packs and assume the form of pulsed trains. These sounds known as "hoos" are low-pitched and short, and given in bouts of varying length and intensity. They are delivered with the head held slightly lower than the shoulders, a gaping mouth, and often on the run.

http://www.arkive.org/african-wild-dog/lycaon-pictus/video-08d.html
http://www.awdconservancy.org/natural%20history.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/African_Wild_Dog#p00f8633
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/african-hunting-dog/

Evolutionary Background

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Subphylum: Vertebrata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Carnivora

Family: Canidae

Genus: Lycaon

Species: Lycaon pictus

http://wooferhouse.net/Links/MolecularEvolutionOfTheDogFamily

African Wild Dogs are in the Carnivora order, which originated 40-60 million years ago and includes the dog, cat, hyena, civet, mongoose, seal, weasel, and bear families. About 50-60 million years ago, the Canidae deviated from other families in the Carnivora order. The Canidae family includes the wolf-like canids, red fox-like canids, the South American canids and others, which departed from one another approximately 7-10 million years ago. The African wild dog is considered a wolf-like canid, however it’s genus, Lycaon, is separate from the wolf and jackel genus, Canis. The African wild dog is said to be more social than its close relative, the gray wolf. The gray wolf is also closely related to the domestic dog, jackel, and coyote. The African wild dog and gray wolf’s most common ancestor is the Fennec fox.

http://wooferhouse.net/Links/MolecularEvolutionOfTheDogFamily

There are African wild dogs in both the southern and eastern regions and the classification of these populations is oftentimes debated. Girman et al. (1993) first believed that there was enough evidence to classify the southern and eastern wild dogs into two different subspecies. However, new evidence has been uncovered and Girman and Wayne (1997) now argue that wild dogs in the two regions should not be divided into subspecies. Certain wild dog populations have been found with segments of genotypes that can be found in both southern and eastern wild dogs. This evidence suggests that the ancestors of the animals in the two separate areas have shared genes before. 

The unique lineage of the African wild dog is oftentimes an argument for why there should be more effort in conserving this endangered species. (Stay tuned for a later post on the endangerment and conservation efforts of the African wild dog.)

Girman, D.J., Kat, P.W., Mills, M.G., Ginsberg, J.R., Borner, M., Wislon, V.,

Fanshawe, J.H., Fitzgibbon, C., Lau, L.M., &  Wayne, R.K. (1997). Molecular genetic and morphological analyses of the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus). Journal of Heredity, 84, 45.

            http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7903676

Girman, D.J., & Wayne, R.K. (1997). Genetic perspectives on

wild dog conservation. The IUCN/SSC CAnid Specialist Group, Chapter 2.

http://www.canids.org/PUBLICAT/AWDACTPL/2genetic.htm#Taxonomy

http://academic.reed.edu/biology/professors/srenn/pages/teaching/web_2010/ERGsite/phylogeny.html

http://wooferhouse.net/Links/MolecularEvolutionOfTheDogFamily 

Puppies!

On average the pack size of African wild dogs includes 10 to 20 members. Only the alpha male and female mate, but the entire pack is needed to help care for the vulnerable pups. These wild dogs prepare the dens for their pups before they begin mating in February. The dens are used year after year and are frequently made from warthog or aardvark shelters. Females reproduce for about 8 years total.

The alpha female’s pregnancy lasts about 72 days and she can give birth to up to 19 pups, but more often the litter size is 7-10 pups. The litter size depends on the size of the female. The mother stays with the blind, naked pups constantly and is the only one to nurse them. She is fed regurgitated meat by the rest of the pack. At 3 weeks, the pups’ eyes open and they start eating regurgitated meat. The pups’ fur, which is black and white at birth changes to black, white, and tan.

As they mature, the pups are brought by the pack to the killed prey. They are allowed to eat first until they turn 1, at which time the hierarchy is reorganized. When the female pups have reached adulthood, they leave the pack to find a different one or to create one of their own. The male pups upon reaching adulthood, generally stay with the pack that they were born into. However, if there are more than 3 male pups in a litter, it is possible that they will leave the pack, too. Once the sisters find a new pack, the hierarchy is reorganized again.

The survival rate of African wild pups is only 44 %. The causes of death include disease, vehicles, and lion, hyena, and other wild dog attacks. There are many organizations working to increase the survival rate of African wild dogs, but this will be discussed in a later post on conservation efforts.

Picture from http://www.zooborns.com/.a/6a010535647bf3970b0148c7d35169970c-popup

Other references:

http://www.animalinfo.org/species/carnivor/lycapict.htm#Mortality

http://www.honoluluzoo.org/african_hunting_dog.htm

http://www.kalahari-predator-conservation.com/en/predators/african-wild-dogs

https://www.eriezoo.org/PDFS/Animal%20Fact%20Sheets%20for%20Website/African%20Wild%20Dog.pdf

Hunting Tactics of the African wild dog

The sun beats upon thorns protruding from the branches of spare few acacia trees. The dry morning air of the savanna fills with excited chirps and twitters. The high pitched chatter climaxes in a greeting ceremony. Nostrils flare and tails wag as the African Wild Dogs kiss one another; running shoulder to shoulder before pausing to leap over and dive under each other. A frenzy begins to overcome the entire pack until all the dogs are jumping and play fighting with each other, increasing their energy as they prepare to go on the morning hunt!

The African wild dogs are one of the most successful hunters in all of Africa, catching prey 70 to 90 percent of the time. For a contrast, lions are only marginally successful catching their prey around 30 to 40 percent of the time. The dogs' diet may consist of Thomson's gazelles, impalas, and puku antelope as well as smaller prey such as wildebeest calves, rats and birds.

The dogs' hunt in a relay form, taking turns running after the prey. In this way the lead dog may change several times as the gazelle makes cuts where the following dogs may than move diagonally to close the distance. In addition the dogs have high endurance and are capable of running up to 37 miles per hour for up to 3 miles.

During the hunt the pack communicates by making high-pitched vocalizations or squeaks. Various inflections have specific referents allowing the pack to coordinate their hunt more effectively. In addition they can also signal their pack mates by moving their very large ears to show what direction to go or what to do.

Prey is dispatched in a particularly ravenous way. The dogs' disembowel their prey and tear it apart while it remains alive. Note that this is a highly effective method of killing the prey as pack size has been documented upwards of 100 members. That many mouths, snapping and rending makes quick work of anything unfortunate enough to be weeded from the herd.

Reference: 

http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/t-wild_dog.html

http://www.predatorconservation.com/wild%20dog.htm

http://www.awf.org/content/wildlife/detail/africanwilddog