Saw these beautiful painted dogs out hunting this morning. Part of a pack of 24, one of four packs of these endangered Wild Dogs that hunt across the conservancy. This pack here is collared so they can be tracked more easily by the two Wild Dog Rangers at Lentille who have radio antennae which can track up to 3kilometres, although in this very rugged terrain it can be very tricky.
Laikipia lost its Wild Dog population in the seventies and 80s and it was generally thought then that they had vanished from the area. Happily they have made a huge comeback- Laikipia is unique in that the population is now thriving again and is now a globally important number of well over 300. It is also unique in that Laikipia has no protected game park or properly gazetted reserve land, and, whilst much of the area is privately owned ranch-land, a large area of Laikipia is Group Ranch land so that the Wild Dogs are having to coexist with the pastoralist nomadic Maasai and Samburu people and their cattle, goats and sheep. Since Wild Dogs are very efficient and fierce hunters this is not always easy.
Pastoralists and ranchers have reason to fear most wild predators including lions, hyenas, leopards, cheetah and Wild Dogs. As a result of this they have frequently killed Wild Dogs in large numbers and it was this extermination that was a prime cause of the population falling to less than 5,000 throughout Africa. Another danger is the threat of rabies. and other canine diseases, spread largely by local domestic cattle herding dogs.
Studying Wild Dogs is made difficult by their behaviour-they can travel more than twenty five miles in a day over very difficult terrain. In addition, in order to protect their young, they den in the most rugged terrain, impossible for researchers to get to by vehicle and often very difficult even by foot... we have one pack that generally dens half way down a near vertical cliff face. Trying to humanely trap and collar them is therefore a lengthy and hazardous process.
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