African Wild Dogs still under fire
By Tawanda Kanhema

THREE African wild dogs were struck and killed by speeding motorists inside Babwata National Park in north eastern Namibia last week, dealing a blow to Namibia’s fast shrinking wild population now believed to be less than 300 wild dogs.
The dogs, two adult females and one pup, were reportedly killed in separate incidents by motorists who were driving above the regulated speed limit for traffic on national parks roads.
Stretched thin over a vast landscape, now almost entirely punctuated by high speed traffic and rifle wielding farmers, Namibia’s population of African Wild Dogs (lycaon pictus) is precariously close to extinction, with under 300 wild dogs left in the country, and their population is declining at an estimated rate of 10 percent each year.
According to research conducted by the Windhoek-based Wild Dog Project, which is involved in the conservation of the highly endangered species, Namibia’s African wild dog population will decline by 99% from its pre-agricultural levels within the next five years if no efforts are made to preserve the few remaining wild dogs.
Wild dog researcher and conservationist Robin Lines, who is the Director of the Wild Dog Project, a non-governmental organisation affiliated to the Namibia Nature Foundation, this week called for stricter measures against people involved in the killing of wild dogs and the reintroduction of wild dogs to their natural habitat.
“Among other short term conservation measures, there is an urgent need to conduct a comprehensive survey of captive stock and impose an interim moratorium on the ongoing persecution and killing of wild dogs,” said Lines, adding
“There is need for environmental organisations to increase their support for interventions to set up a founder population of wild dogs which can then be reintroduced to their former range under protected status.”
Lines said that there was need for extensive awareness campaigns in local communities to prevent the wanton killing of wild dogs, especially by farmers and speeding motorists, who account for the bulk of wild dog mortality.
The African wild dog, a distant cousin of the domestic dog, is a cursory predator, and does not prey on domestic livestock as believed by farmers throughout southern Africa, who have reduced the African wild dog population from 500,000 at the beginning of the century to just 3,000.
“Unsustainable conversion of productive and profitable wildlife areas in north eastern Namibia to livestock farms is contributing to habitat degradation and loss of wild prey and uncontrolled persecution of wild dogs,” says Lines,
The takeover of wild dog habitat by livestock farms, he says, undermines population viability and pushes the declining dog population even closer to extinction.
There are concerns among environmentalists that the protected areas for wild dogs in north eastern Namibia are too small to protect fewer than five breeding packs from persecution, therefore exposing the dogs to hostilities.
In the long term, conservation of Namibia’s less than 300 remaining wild dogs hinges on the reintroduction of wild dogs to large protected areas within areas they previously inhabited like Etosha National Park.
Environmentalists say Namibia needs greater support for wildlife based land uses in areas adjacent to areas where wild dogs are kept to reduce the constant conflict with farmers and communal societies, who jealously guard their livestock from all predators, irregardless of whether they prey on livestock or not.
Also crucial to the conservation of livestock, according to Wild Dog Project, is the Promotion of species-based tourism concentrating on wild dogs and increased support for education and training of community outreach officers to reduce conflict on farmlands and increase environmental awareness.

Lines said Wild Dog Project would consider implementing conservation strategies similar to those developed and implemented by the Painted Dog Conservation Project based in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe.

The Painted Dog Conservation Project, initiated by conservationist Greg Rasmussen in 1988 and managed by Peter Blinston, has managed to incorporate commnunities living in areas adjacent to national parks into its conservation programmes, and significantly reduced human induced mortality of wild dogs.