Handling and Survivorship of African Wild Dog (Lycaon pictus) in Five Ecosystems

Abstract

Populations of the African wild dog, Lycaon pictus have declined throughout their range in sub‐Saharan Africa during the last 20 years. It has been hypothesized that handling of wild dogs led to local extinction of a study population in the Serengeti‐Masai Mara ecosystem. In this paper we compare rates of mortality and disappearance in handled (n = 305) versus unhandled (n = 135) dogs to test the hypothesis that handling leads to increased mortality of Lycaon. We examine data from five ecosystems in which Lycaon have been handled. Our data show that there is no effect of handling on the longevity of Lycaon in any ecosystem studied. Given these data, a more parsimonious explanation of the decimation of the Serengeti‐Mara Lycaon population would be that disease alone was responsible for the population collapse and that researcher handling of Lycaon was correlated with, but not causal to, this mortality.