Three male African wild dogs in Zambia have travelled more than 4,000 kilometers, about 2,500 miles, in search of new territory and mates, according to a new study. This nine-month odyssey, about half the distance between Cairo and Cape Town, reveals how these endangered animals connect populations and ecosystems that are far apart within Southern Africa and potentially beyond, researchers say.
“It’s the longest African mammal movement on record, and the longest [recorded] wild dog dispersal,” study co-author Matt Becker, chief executive of the Zambian Carnivore Programme, told Mongabay.
The trio of African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus), litter mates known as the Mayukuyuku males, left their birth pack in Kafue National Park in mid-2025. They travelled east out of the park, then north toward the industrial cities of Kitwe and Ndola, then doubled back before heading east toward the Luangwa River Valley and its 400-or-so-strong wild dog population.
By April 2026, the pack had traversed 4,126 km (2,564 mi) to reach a game management area (GMA), a partially protected buffer zone, between the national parks of South Luangwa and Lower Zambezi.
“We think they’ve actually established a [territorial] range, but we haven’t quantified who they’re with and how many dogs there are,” Becker said.
The Mayukuyuku males were among 19 wild dog groups the team tracked using GPS collars fitted to individuals. Some journeys ended in tragedy.
A female wild dog, nicknamed EWD-1355, set off with her two sisters from a pack in South Luangwa in 2021. After travelling more than 2,300 km (1,400 mi), including through Mozambique, EWD-1355 was killed in a hunter’s snare set in a GMA in southern Zambia to catch animals like antelope for meat.
It’s unclear what happened to her sisters, but snares are often laid in sets, Becker said. Dogs are reluctant to leave injured pack mates, and several can be trapped and killed in a single event, he added.
All 19 tracked groups moved within or around seven national parks in Zambia. Four groups separately reached within a few kilometers of neighboring Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, and Zimbabwe.
Researchers previously recorded similar wild dog migrations in Botswana, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe, suggesting most wild dog populations in Southern and Eastern Africa remain connected, the authors write.
“If we conserve and continue to improve these connections, a lot of species like wild dogs can make the rest happen,” Nyambe Nyambe, executive director of the secretariat governing the Kavango-Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area, who wasn’t involved in the study, said in a statement.
With much of the landscapes where wild dogs live and disperse changing, Becker called for improved conservation models, such as ones that provide economic benefits through nature-based tourism or that produce meat sustainably and legally through game ranching.
“We don’t need to separate people from nature,” he said. “We can have these large landscapes, large, connected areas, beneficial to both.”
Banner image: A pack of endangered African wild dogs moving along a small dirt track in Kafue National Park., Zambia. Image courtesy of Scott Creel.
