The Serengeti wildebeest migration is one of Africa’s best-known animal journeys, yet the longest African round-trip migration on record, by blue wildebeest, is 650 kilometers (about 404 miles), according to the UN Convention on Migratory Species. A study published in the journal Ecology found that three wild dog brothers in Zambia traveled 4,126 kilometers (or about 2,560 miles) in eight months. A very different trip has now gone far beyond that. It was the longest recorded dispersal by an African mammal.
Small isolated populations are prone to extinction, and several small populations in the Serengeti, the Lower Zambezi, and Zambia’s Liuwa Plain have already been lost. Dispersal is a one-way trip to find mates and new territory. Migration is a round trip between seasons, so the two are different behaviors and the numbers are not a like-for-like comparison. Even so, the distance the brothers traveled is far greater than that of any documented African migration. Wild dogs are pack animals and typically only the alpha male and alpha female breed. This can cause young dogs to look for mates elsewhere. Despite the name, they are not closely related to domestic dogs. The brothers were from the Mayukuyuku pack in Kafue National Park in western Zambia. Seven related young dogs, three males and four females, left the pack within two weeks of each other, lead author Scott Creel of Montana State University wrote in The Conversation . Each group set off on its own path. The collared brothers kept going by themselves and reached the Luangwa Valley in eastern Zambia . They appear to have been there ever since and seem to have met females, since they no longer roam around. Creel works with Matt Becker and the Zambian Carnivore Programme. The collars record each dog’s position by satellite every few hours. That shows where packs live, when young dogs leave home, where they go, and where they die. The researchers say this type of intensive fieldwork helps them learn where animals are likely to die, and why. The journey was dangerous. One of the biggest dangers is wire snares set for bushmeat. Young dogs are also inexperienced and pass through areas with lions, other packs, and rivers full of crocodiles. The team found that more than half the dogs they tracked did not survive. African wild dogs are among the world’s most endangered large carnivores. The tracking shows that dispersing dogs have traveled between every major wild dog population in Zambia. Zambian dogs have also crossed into Mozambique and Malawi, and to within a few kilometers of Zimbabwe , the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Angola.
For more than 16 years, the team has been studying over 500 African wild dogs from over 50 packs per year and fitting GPS collars. In 2021, one female, EWD-1355, traveled more than 2,300 kilometers in one year. In June of 2022, she died in a wire snare.
About 40 percent of Zambia has some form of legal protection for wildlife, and corridors such as the Luangwa Valley remain highly effective, the researchers note. However, reaching another population is not the same as joining it. Wild dogs usually fight, sometimes fatally, with unfamiliar dogs, so joining a new group often fails.
Creel expects more young dogs to disperse as protected populations rebound, but he says that will be good news only if their routes are safer.
