Wild Dogs – Lessons from a Stone

The African Wild Dog

Originally Written for Medium

The Piercing Gaze of An African Wild Dog
burrard-lucas.com

Among the many species of creatures that are in jeopardy of fading into extinction, there isn’t much information out there on the plight of the African Wild Dog (AWD). These incredible canids once roamed freely throughout much of Sub-saharan Africa but are now predominantly confined to small parts of Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Tanzania, Mozambique, and South Africa. But the countries where they are still found comprise a much larger area than the patchwork of comparatively small national parks and game reserves held within them. In looking at a map of protected AWD habitat relative to the geographic area in which they are found today, one can quickly see the small and disconnected patchwork of sanctuaries, wildlife parks and reserves where the species can go about its business without the perpetual threat of encountering humans and the associated dangers that have already brought the species to its knees. It’s like connecting the dots to form a blotchy and incomplete geographic space where they are safe, with a gauntlet of hundreds of miles of unprotected and hazardous African bush between protected areas. That would be fine and is what these incredible canids are built for if it didn’t mean that they’ll eventually have some sort of encounter with man or the many hazards that are associated with mankind. Worse yet, they have no way of knowing where these protected areas lie, so these places where they can seek sanctuary are largely ineffectual. If they did much good, the species wouldn’t continue to decline at such an alarming rate.

I used Copilot to provide a summary showing the historical versus current range of the AWD and provide an explanation of these maps along with relatively up-to-date information as to their continued decline over the past 100 years.

Click on any image or screenshot to view it in its entirety.

Current Versus Historical Range
animalia-life.club

For African Wild Dogs that are fortunate enough to have been born into or ultimately find themselves living within sanctuary boundaries and tending to new generations, there is the still the neverending risk that they’ll eventually venture outside of these habitats of relative safety. When this occurs, more often than not they are killed before landing safely in another. Unfortunately, and not unlike any animal, they can’t read signs or comprehend borders. Worse yet, the areas between these “safe zones” comprise the bulk of where most AWD’s spend their lives. It is, for all African species, the majority of their overall living space. The risks include but are not nearly limited to being hit while crossing roads, dying at the hands of poachers, or being shot for straying too close to a native farmer’s goats or cattle. Put differently, these are far-ranging apex predators and whether they remain within a given national park or any other form of sanctuary set aside for the protection of African wildlife and their habitat, it is simply a roll of the dice. Most AWD’s spend their entire lives traveling and maintaining pack territories well outside the boundaries of the relatively small areas which provide the very habitat that have been set aside for their survival. The larger the protected area, the greater the likelihood that they’ll remain.

It is when you look at Africa as a whole that you see just how small these protected areas are relative to its overall landmass. In our conquest to populate the African continent, we made an attempt at creating a few wonderful spaces and they do fall into some of the best habitats for many African species, but for Africa’s wildlife and their predilection for widespread travel and vast migrations, they are far too small.

When I began following the plight of the African Wild Dog four or five years ago, the estimated population remaining at that time was a staggeringly low 17,000. As a lover of dogs and their wild counterparts, I had no idea that the AWD was already so close to extinction, and I was overwhelmed with a deep sense of both sadness and anger. The reason for the sadness is obvious, but the anger was more complicated. How could we, as the supposed caretakers of the planet, have allowed such a massive decline in a species which looks very much like its close cousin, our beloved domestic dog?! If the population data as reflected above provides us with a reasonably accurate estimate, then there are now just 6,000 AWD’s remaining in the wild, or roughly a third of the population which existed just a half-decade ago. It doesn’t take a genius to see that it has become the “Eleventh Hour” and saving them now would require a complete workover to catapult them into the forefront of public consciousness in the same way that mankind came together to save itself when faced with the COVID pandemic. This is the sense of urgency that I spent a year on Quora trying my damndest to advocate for threatened and bighly endangered species only to find that the overwhelming majority of people who are supposedly committed to this very thing are still lost in talking about wildlife conservation without so much as lifting a finger to get involved in a way that their time and purported compassion results in “moving the ball down the field”. While they’re discussing the issue of the demise of keystone species all over the world, the very creatures they’re hoping to save are, each day, moving inexorably closer to oblivion. In other words, many “Red Listed” species will reach the point of extinction while these “talking heads” are still talking about it.

As was the case with the American bison, historians today have no concrete number as to the pre-white settlement population of buffalo roaming all over what would become the United States, but best guess estimates range from between 40 and 60 million animals. For the AWD, the number a century ago is estimated to have been in the “hundreds of thousands” roaming all over Africa. That there are estimated to be just 6,000 remaining today is beyond heartbreaking. It means that we, as the most powerful species on earth, haven’t learned a damned thing. Please let that resonate for a moment before continuing to read any further.

The primary reason as to why so many species of both flora and fauna are in serious trouble the world over is related to loss of habitat due to human encroachment. In Africa, humans and their activities such as burning, logging, farming, and mining have quickly spread throughout this magnificent continent once teeming with hundreds of animal species, large and small, roaming freely over hundreds of millions of acres of wilderness. Many African creatures are larger than creatures found anywhere else on earth and these large animals require continent-sized areas in which to thrive. More and more creatures cease to exist in and around regions of development and the entire African continent has become fragmented and discontinuous in the span of just two-hundred years. The entire landscape changed, beginning with European colonialism and followed by the Industrial Period when railroads connected towns and towns became cities, while nations became nations, and boundaries began to exist everywhere in a place that had never known boundaries.

Among other things, loss of habitat coupled with poaching, meat hunting, and legalized trophy hunting of many of the large ungulate species (herbivores), results in a major loss in food resources while apex predators like the African Wild Dog, lion, leopard, cheetah, and hyena quickly decimate what’s left of the remaining herds and other prey species that are caught in their own struggle for ecological survival. Whether predator or prey, they share the same fate from accidental human interaction through legalized hunting, poaching (which continues to run rampant even today when measures are in place to help curb the animal parts and trophies trade). The anecdotal analogy of the “thumb in the dyke” in an ill-fated attempt to keep billions of gallons of water from slashing its way downstream and taking with it everything in its path, seems appropriate. There aren’t nearly enough resources to fight the poaching problem head-on. Worldwide bans on the “animal parts” trade have helped, but from what I know of the issue, it has been like placing a bandaid on an arterial bleed, or fixing a single dent on a car ravaged by hail.

We are living in a time when most people are aware that Mother Earth is gravely displeased with our goings-on and the collateral damage left in our wake on our way to drastically overpopulate the planet to a point that defies our own logic and reasoning. It would seem that Ted Kyzinsky’s manifesto on “Industrial Society and its Future” wasn’t far off the mark. I read his manifesto when it was first published by the New York Times in 1996, while he was still hard-at-it making bombs to be unleashed on those he viewed as the creators of technology and unimaginable future technologies which were having or would ultimately have a drastic impact on the relatively controlled world he had known. In a nutshell, his manifesto blames humanity for taking technology too far and well past the point of diminishing returns, to a level where it controls us and no longer does the converse exist. It is worth reading and is even more relevant today than it was then. I obviously don’t condone his means for getting his point across, but as a prognosticator of the future of mankind, he was spot-on. There was a part of him that was truly sociopathic, but it shows that even a madman with a high IQ may have seen the world more clearly than many of us. He knew what was coming, and what the world has been up to since his demise proves it.

I fail to understand how global society can continue on its social media-driven path while allowing for the wholesale extinction of some of the world’s most beautiful, intelligent, and fascinating animals. I am not a member of any of the social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram (“Instant Gratification”). You will never hear me “tweet” about anything. There’s simply too much at stake to get lost in such nonsense. It would be an altogether different matter if social media didn’t function as a perpetual diversion from things of greater importance and these same platforms were put to better use in disseminating important information such as that which could be used to save our dying planet.

I do not think humankind has proven itself to be responsible enough to be the world’s top apex predator while also charged with being the planet’s caretaker. There’s a fundamental conflict of interest associated with such a responsibility. I suppose that many of you reading this will find that to be a harsh blanket statement, but someone needs to be an oracle for creatures who, while incredibly intelligent, simply don’t speak our language (though some of their languages have proven to be far more intricate, elegant, and complex than our own). I just don’t meet enough people who would risk the relative ease of their lives to do whatever it takes to save some of these creatures, including the African Wild Dog. If we refuse to do what it takes to save the AWD from almost certain demise, what does that say about our relationship with the most historically significant and beloved creature we’ve so carefully cultivated over a thousand centuries – the domestic dog?! Will we eventually turn our backs to “man’s best friend”, as well?!

There are, of course, certain wildlife conservation groups that have been charged with the monstrously huge task of saving these animals from the rest of us, but these groups are vastly understaffed and underfunded and are just not militant enough to address the very significant issue of poaching. I don’t care if a poacher is some person from a native tribe trying to make ends meet. Whatever his reasons, his actions border on evil. Get some funding out there so he can be given a job protecting these species in lieu of annihilating them.

There are now close to eight billion people populating the globe and fewer than 6,000 African Wild Dogs (650 breeding pairs). This statement should serve as a “shock and awe tactic” to compel people to do something as opposed to just sitting around and talking about it. But my plea will likely die along with the creatures it is intended to protect. When a population of any animal gets too small to be viable (no longer sustainable because there aren’t enough individuals remaining to formulate a healthy gene pool), there is no going back. When the number of animals for a given species has reached this point, there is little that can be done, particularly if that species has proven itself unfit for captive breeding. Some animals are simply too wild and require continent-sized areas in which to thrive. Perhaps they don’t breed in captivity as a way of saying, “We are simply too good to submit to your machinations and would rather die than live out our once free-ranging lives in captivity!”.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you feel as guilty as I do for being a human being and, however unwittingly, taking part in the destruction of our planet, perhaps you’ll do some research of your own and find a wildlife and wild places organization you feel good about supporting. It may just be the most important thing you’ve ever done.

Here is a list of places to start. To expand it, just click.

African Wild Dog Conservation Organizations

Photos.willbe.com (Burrard-Lucas Photography)

Recent Information on the African Wild Dog (AWD)

Originally Posted to Quora

According to the site Enviroliteracy, the following screenshot shows number of the African Wild Dogs (AWD’s) remaining, as of March of this year, to be around 7,000 individuals with just 1,500 listed as adults.

The key to understanding the relationship between being formally listed as endangered (the AWD made the ICNU “Red List” list twenty-five years ago) and attempting to predict how long a given species has left in based solely upon scientific research, the most important of which has to do with the minimum number of breeding pairs required to maintain a healthy gene pool (for that given species). Obviously, no one can be certain but studies have indicated that the number hovers around 300.

Science has already spent decades researching endangered species of all kinds, with more research going into some than others. “Higher-order” mammals, whether sea or land-based, seem to get the most attention. It makes sense that we would be the most concerned about the creatures with which we have the most in common. Social behavior, language, habitat, overall intelligence, and other characteristics. This research has led to a much greater understanding of the creatures we most respect and admire. Because they are generally at the top of the food chain and would be the most harmful to the ecosystems surrounding them were they to disappear, endangered predators and species that are strong bio-indicators garner the most attention. Though not as heavily studied as certain bears, tigers, lions, wolves, whales, and some porpoises, the African Wild Dog certainly warrants ample consideration. The ecosystems in which they are found and the other creatures within them would topple, creating a domino effect and many other species would be brought to the brink of extinction, or worse, simply disappear not long after the demise of the AWD.

There is more pressure than ever on those of us who truly care to redouble our efforts such that more people around the world join the fight to protect existing AWD habitat and push for the creation of additional habitat by funding conservancy programs to procure lands which are adjacent to the patchwork of existing protected areas and national and state run wildlife preserves. The concept is already at work in other parts of the world through organizations such as the Nature Conservancy. The point is is that there are real world mechanisms in place to acquire additional lands on behalf of endangered species. I don’t see why, with appropriate funding, the same concept can’t be put use in parts of Africa where the AWD still has a toehold. Perhaps it’s already happening and I’m just unaware of such doings.

I wake up each morning with an anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach with grave concerns for this planet and its inhabitants knowing in my heart that it may already be too late for turning things around. There really isn’t much time remaining for the world’s most endangered species, twenty, perhaps thirty years. But then I have a talk with myself over a cup of coffee and realize once again that we’ve got an immense obligation to threatened species everywhere and that no matter how bleak things may look, we must have the resolve to fight our best fight and if it should come to it, go down swinging.

How do poachers usually get caught in places like Africa or India, and what are their reasons or excuses for doing it?

Originally Written for Quora

First, I’ll add that poaching isn’t something that only takes place in faraway lands. It is a significant problem right here at home, in the US.

As with most conservation issues, it’s like peeling an onion with each layer getting closer to the core. On the face of it, many of us view poachers as bed men doing evil deeds, but it can be far more complicated than that. If you look at the problem of the black market for animal pieces and parts as being an evil entity with its roots stretching far and wide, you’ll find that once you get far enough out from the root ball, you’ll reach the poaching aspect of the illegal trade. Things are a bit different in the different areas around the world where poaching exists. You may even find that poachers can sometimes be good people doing evil deeds. In Africa and India, for instance, some of the poachers are poor farmers or herdsman from the neighboring tribes and villages. The gravitational pull for those who become poachers is quite strong in terms of putting food on the table for their families. Poachers receive a small fraction of what a given animal is worth to a wholesaler within his other country and that fraction is miniscule as compared with what those same pieces and parts are fetching at the end of the line, where they are sold to dealers in countries like Japan. But as little as a poacher makes on their end, it is more than they can possibly make on their crops and livestock alone. So the incentive is extremely tempting. Add to that that there are cultural differences which make it easier to kill these animals than we in the West can comprehend. In many cases, tribesman are histlorically accustomed to hunting many of these now threatened and endangered species. I can’t say that the paradigm is the same in every impoverished country, but it is certainly similar. I would anticipate that the poaching problem is bad enough that if a particular poacher is caught or killed there’s another right behind him awaiting his turn to carry the AK.

On the other side, you’ve got guys who are paid some paltry sum to put their lives on the line protect these animals from being poached. In relation to the size of the territory they are responsible for, the number of paid rangers is very small. It is not unusual for a poacher and ranger to know one another or even belong to the same tribe and live in the same village. Graft is a very real problem for a ranger who simply gets paid to look the other way. Of course, the rangers aren’t nearly all on “the take”. But the point is, on this level of the problem, it is more complicated than it might appear to be. That being said, friendly or not, these poachers are a cog in what comprises the wheels of poaching and they must be stopped. More funding is needed so that park rangers aren’t so easily tempted to break the laws that they’re paid to enforce. There are state sponsored anti -poaching organizations and there are the smaller game management entities that are generally not-for-profit associations that operate on shoestring budgets and their anti-poaching personnel are completely out-numbered by “the bad guys”. Being a ranger for this kind of conservation effort comes with serious dangers and many rangers are simply killed in the night while out on patrol. They could use the help of privately owned mercenary companies that have been in place contracting to the US military in the neverending wars in the Middle East.Though this is an expensive option, it is possible to obtain the funds necessary to get these wildlife advocacies the help they need if the right people get involved.

The way to solve the overall problem is to work it from both ends towards the middle. There are already international laws in place to put an end to world trade in animal pieces and parts, but they are not as effective as they should be because the law-breakers aren’t punished to the fullest extent of the law. Often, they are simply fined while being allowed to continue. Corruption runs amok. Laws “without teeth” are of little value in the fight to put an end to trafficking in animal parts.

While not perfect, the poaching problem in the US has been reduced, with steep fines and substantial jail time levied on offenders. Still, highly organized poaching is the same most organized crime and can be fairly sophisticated in their cryptic ways and means of evasion.

The best thing we as simple citizens of the world can do is see that our people on the front lines are closely backed and that related anti-poaching programs ascend the ladder from being grassroot efforts to amply funded organizations with appropriate structure and enough “boots on the ground” to make a palpable difference. Make no mistake, this has gone from being a back-burner issue to one of serious urgency with mind-blowing consequences if we don’t act, in earnest, in the here and now.

What role do zoos and conservation groups play in helping increase the Dhole population, and are there any success stories?

Originally Written for Quora

I’m going to use this question about the dhole, a wonderful but little known animal that inhabits parts of Asia but is 75% absent from its original habitat, to make a point that no one seems to want to hear. The first thing I noticed in this National Geographic story are the words used to define the story category: “Photo Ark”. To me, that’s a great way to think about endangered species, particularly the ones that have little to no chance of recovering from their current status and made the Endangered Species list decades ago. To send out the message that Nat Geo is compiIing a photographic ark obviously means something. I have posted a couple of screenshots so you can read the basics on the dhole and see what they look like. Like most caniids, I am drawn to their handsome, wolf-like features. Though wildly different upon initial inspection, the dhole has similar features to all sorts of wild dogs found all over the world. I must admit that while I have at least a general understanding of most canids, sort of a “working knowledge”, other than the name “Dhole”, I knew very little about them as a species.

Of course, the second thing that struck me was just how few of them remain, 4,500 to 10,500 individuals. This is roughly half the number of African Wolf Dogs which, as the name suggests, can be found in South Africa and just a handful of countries to the north. It’s historic range was throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. Dozens of creatures are down to similar numbers, numbers that have been holding onto existence using tooth and claw and every bit of their instinct to thrive when conditions are stacked heavily against them. How would we view our own chances if there were just 20,000 of us remaining following what could have only been apocalyptic events to bring our kind to the knife’s edge of being? With this and other posts, I’m trying my darndest to wrap some “shock and awe” perspective around what’s happening to the planet. It is abundantly clear that even with biological scares like (in recent history) HIV, Influenza, COVID, Ebola, Bird Flu, Hantavirus, West Nile, and on, that we’ve become numb to the potential for something as big to come along as the Black Plague (aka Black Death, 1346 – 1353) which killed 25 to 50 million people in just seven years. Granted, times have changed, but COVID should be a reminder of how we had to enlist the help from doctors and scientists from all over the world to bring to bear their collective knowledge to come up with a solution while the clock was ticking on something which quite easily could have been much worse. This clearly reflects the extents to which we will go to save ourselves but, even then, nothing seems to shake us as we look to others to save our lives.

Credit Wikipedia

Credit Wikipedia

If that same effort, say, over a six year period, were put into saving threatened and endangered species, I believe we could have turned things around for some of the most ecologically important species. It’s amazing what we can do when pressed hard for results.

In the mid-60’s, my grandmother took me the one of the larger zoos back East and even as a child of preschool age, I was imprinted by seeing what were clearly wild animals stuck in cages and steel and concrete mini-habitats. I went some thirty years before I took a chance because my girlfriend at the time had never been to a zoo and had a strong desire to visit one. I really liked this girl and thought I could set my feelings aside for one day. I know that most people don’t feel the same way I do on many fronts. Besides, I was just a young child during that first ill-fated foray. Who was I to stop her from having an experience that millions of others enjoy every year?! The Denver Zoo was known for having a very good wolf exhibit and I had been fascinated by wolves for my entire life, reading numerous books and catching every documentary I could find on the subject. I thought I could “tough it out” for one day at one of the most progressive zoos in the country. But almost from the get-go as we were buying tickets, I began to get “cold feet”. I had lied to myself in an effort to make someone else happy. I managed to fake my way through the other exhibits (as I did not wish to have a negative impact on her experience) until we got to the wolf enclosure and, as much as I wanted to spend a few moments admiring them, I began to shed some uncontrolled tears while doing my best to quell my reaction and keep her from seeing it (I must be a decent actor because she didn’t notice).

What got to me the most was due to simply knowing too much about wolves to see them in captivity. They are an iconic symbol of everything that is pure and wild. The alpha male was probably around six years old and 120 pounds of sheer and magnificent masculine beauty. Predominantly light grey and white (grey wolves, aka, timberwolves come in a variety of colors from various shades of grey to reddish brown to all white, and all black) he was what most people think of when they hear the word “timberwolf”. It was just my girlfriend and I at the exhibit and he and I locked eyes as I watched him pace back and forth on a 6″ deep x 12″ wide groove the wolves had cut by pacing along the fence line at the front 30-feet of the enclosure. These are animals that have home ranges of up to 500 square miles and regularly travel between 20 and 50 miles in a single day. Talk about pent up energy which leads to stress, anxiety, and depression. His angst was palpable as was, I’m certain, my own. Today, some thirty years later, I can still sense his pieycing, highly intelligent eyes looking straight into my soul. I distinctly recall marveling at his masterfully efficient gait as he paced. I honestly believe he could feel my sadness and empathy for his situation. I require a lot of personal space to be comfortable and mile upon mile of open space in order to recreate and live happily. As much as I wanted to stay and observe both he and his incredible pack, we were there for just ten or fifteen minutes. When we were done at the zoo, we spent the evening having dinner and talking about a new class my girlfriend was about to start teaching. She was a chemistry professor at a Christian college in Denver. I do not remember what it was that ended the relationship other than the fact that I’d soon be moving to Durango but we weren’t together long enough for her to hear of my aversion to zoos. She had had a good time and that was all that I had cared about. The someday for telling her my genuine feelings never came. My current and by any and all means, final wife, and I feel almost exactly the same about wild things and wild places and our mutual love of nature is one of our primary connections. We prefer dogs to kids.

It has been another thirty-plus years and I’ve not been to another zoo, not even to take my daughter when she was young but all too impressionable. She’s twenty-six now and I don’t believes she’s gone to one of her own volition. She is her father’s daughter. The same goes for aquatic theme parks, though her mother once took her to the grand opening of a Sea World, near San Antonio. While knowing of my feelings on the subject, she took our then seven year-old daughter without informinng me of her plans (taking her out of state without informing the other parent was a clear breech of our parenting plan). Suffice it to say, it had the desired impact on me. What some people will do in the name of pure vindictiveness.

Between zoos and many of the conservation programs which work with them, we have literally researched many important species to death (or, followed them as they made their debut onto the threatened or endangered species lists) with just five to thirty years remaining on their respective clocks. Make no mistake, I am all for research and education, but when it comes to the treatment of the creatures involved, there must be limits.

I want to be clear. I am certainly not opposed to conservation programs. That would be nothing short of just plain stupid. They need to continue but without a reliance on zoos. Almost like the separation of church and state, they should continue on parallel path with more aggressive conservation efforts put in place to expedite the issues around key species that are almost gone and putting a real end to poaching and outright slaughter, and habitat loss as it relates to prioritized species. As an example, the American Wild Horse and the African Wild Dog. rhinos, highland gorillas, the Big Cats, wolves, elephants, and, of course, the dhole. These are but a few of the species that can still be salvaged but action needs to take place in the present, not after we’ve researched these animals for yet another ten years. I’m sorry, but they may no longer be here to study. Education and study efforts should be ongoing but targeting the next wave of species that are clearly in trouble, mostly having to do with loss of habitat. Establish new programs surrounding the next wave of creatures that will one day soon require intervention. I see it as a two-pronged approach. Long-term research and education on creatures not yet in their 11th hour, and short-term aggressive conservation measures to provide absolutely necessary aid to species in dire need of our help. In the end, we cannot save every species but we can still save many. We just don’t have the kind of conservatiion programs in place to ramp things up as it becomes necessary to save the most endangered species today. And last but not least, these programs must be afforded “teeth” so that when it becomes necessary to fight for the animals they’re trying to protect they are able to react with more than just words.

For the sake of discussion, let’s say that my childhood reaction to zoos and what I think of them is valid. I realize that zoos have enabled us to study many species that would otherwise be diffucult to study in the field, but for how long and at what cost? After so many decades -long studies have aready gathered the necessary information surrounding the long-term survival of many keystone animals, I believe we’ve got to put an end to zoos. We are long past the point of diminishing returns. If we take all of what I’ve said above as fact, we need to take an urgent look at this huge and amorphous issue and put some definition around it. To take a sound, pragmatic approach to mitigating the vast expanse of damage we’ve already done. We need to set worldwide protocols and place definitive timelines (deadlines) around the species that are at the highest risk but could still be saved. And. we need to be able to fire back when fired upon!

This is extremely difficult for me to even say, but in looking at wildlife conservation as a whole, there simply isn’t enough time remaining relative to current funding levels and tactics to save every species on the endangered species list. It’s already too late for certain species. We need to take a much more pragmatic view based on what is truly possible. What could be accomplished if we went at this global problem much more aggressively and if we did all the right things from this point forward and started today?! We won’t know until we engage the problem head-on, in a highly structured manner, and provide hard push-back to anyone or anything that gets in the way.

In the meantime, we can look for the most proactive wildlife programs currently operating and find out what we can do to help expedite things in real time with an emphasis on the word “NOW”! When it comes to species that have been on the endangered species list for decades, there simply isn’t enough time remaining for what amounts to political diplomacy.

Please pass this along as it applies to some of the spaces you follow or contribute to.

Thank you.