The researchers also hope to expand the use of satellite collars to hyenas and lions to understand how competition with these animals affects the dogs’ reproduction and survival. Monfort has proposed the development of a satellite-tagging system so that Szykman and Monfort can track the animals year-round and mark their range, including how close they come to humans and other threats. The dogs’ radio collars provide only limited contact. If numbers fall nobody knows what went wrong,” Monfort said. If the animals increase, the reintroduction is a big success. Governments set aside land, and other people dump animals in there, which makes them feel good. “As a discipline, the science of reintroduction has been poorly studied,” said Steven Monfort, a research veterinarian at the Conservation and Research Centre in Front Royal, Virginia. They travel up to 30 kilometres daily, with vast home ranges, 600 to 800 square kilometres on average. Lycaon pictus hunts in packs and Szykman’s job is particularly difficult because wild dogs are tough to track. They never leave an animal behind and are always strengthening social bonds.” Each pack has only one breeding pair, and the rest of the pack helps raise the annual litter, up to 20 pups, one of the largest litter sizes of all African animals. “The entire pack, sometimes up to 20 dogs, always hunts, plays, walks, and feeds together. “This is one of the most intensely social animals out there,” said Szykman, a behavioural scientist. Wildlife officials and scientists like Szykman are watching and studying the reintroduction because such programs are integral to Lycaon’s survival.Īdult wild dogs, with round saucer-like ears and a “painted” black, white, brown, and yellow coat, weigh up to 25 kilograms and stand about 60 centimetres with a delicate build. In 1997, 2000, and 2003, wildlife managers reintroduced several packs of wild dogs from elsewhere in South Africa to this park in the hope of rebuilding the species. Now only about 5,000 dogs can be found in isolated pockets of the continent. Lycaon pictus once roamed most of sub-Saharan Africa.

The dog is listed as endangered by the World Conservation Union. The African wild dog, officially named Lycaon pictus, and also called the painted wolf or the Cape hunting dog is the victim mainly of human hunting. Szykman, a researcher at the Smithsonian National Animal Park in Washington, D.C., is tracking the dogs for a park project. If the dogs are within range, Szykman jumps back into her four-wheel drive to catch up with them before they awake. Just before dawn at a National Park in North Eastern South Africa, Micaela Szykman stands on a hill with a radio transmitter held in the air, listening for signals from the radio collars of African wild dogs. You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40 which are based on Reading Passage 3 below. On The Trail of Africa’s Wild Dogs IELTS Reading Passage with Answers READING PASSAGE 3 Nowadays they are mostly found in Southern Africa, particularly Botswana, Namibia, and Zimbabwe.3.1 Oh hi there! It’s nice to meet you. Location: they once ranged across the deserts and mountainous areas of much of sub-Saharan Africa. Some San hunters smear the dogs’ bodily fluids on their feet before a hunt, believing it will give them the animal’s boldness and agility. The San of Botswana see the African wild dog as the ultimate hunter and traditionally believe that shamans and medicine men can transform themselves into wild dogs. Their preferred targets are greater kudu, Thomson’s gazelle, impala, bushbuck, and wildebeest.ĭid you know: although not as prominent in African folklore as other carnivores, wild dogs are respected and revered in several cultures.

They typically weigh around 30 kg.ĭiet: they are specialist antelope hunters – catching them by chasing as a pack until their prey is exhausted. Size: they stand around 0.75 m tall with a length of around 1.5 m. It’s thought that the unique patterns on each individual help in identification – allowing them to recognise each other at distances of up to 100 metres!

The colours of their coats are some of the most varied across all mammals. With a total population of around 6,000, African wild dogs have been listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List since 1990.Īppearance: African wild dogs are easily recognised by their colourful coats – giving them their other name of ‘painted wolves’. Name: the African wild dog ( Lycaon pictus) is a member of the dog family native to sub-Saharan Africa.

Wild dogs in africa