In 2019 we partnered with Painted Dog Conservation to support its anti poaching units in and around Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. Mr. Jerry Gotora from PDC joined us at the Royal Geographical Society in London to give an update on the wild dog packs of Hwange at our event in the November that year.
Wild Dogs of Hwange
17 years ago, for a brief time, there there were no painted dogs remaining wild in Hwange.
The only painted dogs in the area were at PDC’s rehabilitation centre – painted dogs which had been rescued from snares, or road accidents.
Fortunately, these dogs were given the care they needed and were able to make a full recovery, resulting in a male and female being successfully re-introduced to the wild. A team of rangers were tasked with monitoring them.
Today, there are somewhere between 150 and 200 painted dogs in the Hwange area. An incredible acheivement. There are a few more rangers too! They continue to monitor the different packs working alongside the anti-poaching team.
Humans remain the primary threat to painted dogs in Hwange. The dogs travel 12 miles a day on average and this distance makes them particularly susceptible to being caught in snares.
Since 2001, PDC has collected more than 30,000 snares from Hwange—enough to kill roughly 3,000 animals—and they have managed to keep poaching within the area under reasonable control allowing the dogs’ numbers to gently increase.
The story of the Mpindothela Pack, Hwange, Gwayi Area
The Mpindothela pack is a really remarkable pack created in 2021 from 4 females released from the PDC rehabilitation centre. The females joined up with four males from the Mathathela pack.
During 2022, tragedy struck the newly formed pack, reducing it from 8 dogs to 4 in a matter of months. The Alpha male, Khule, was lost to a lion attack. Madube and the Alpha female Chenai were both killed by cars on the road, and Peace, another male, mysteriously disappeared.
Clara took over as the Alpha female, with Chase as the Apha male and they enjoyed a period of stability. They successfully denned in July 2022, emerging with five pups, although sadly one was lost to a snare shortly afterwards.
Camille, one of the pups has since been collared, to help keep tabs on the pack as they hunt. Thanks to Camille’s collar, the team were quickly alerted when the pack prepared to den in July 2023 – they could not have chosen a worse site, by the Bulawayo to Victoria Falls Highway!
Jealous Mpofu, PDC’s senior tracker and the winner of the Tusk Ranger of the Year Award 2023, worked around the clock with his team to try and calm traffic and protect the pack from the road. He also co-ordinated with the anti-snaring team to ensure sweeps of the area were completed.
Efforts were rewarded when the monitoring team recently recorded four healthy pups around the den – wonderful news.
But in the life of Hwange’s wild dogs, where humans are the primary threat, tragedy is never far away.
We have just heard that Clara, the Alpha female, has been killed in a snare during a moonlight hunting expedition.
Jealous and his team remain committed to providing support to the Mpindothela pack and their new puppies, and will continue to monitor the pack in the hope they can survive this terrible loss.
Image: Mpindothela Pack pups (2023) with thanks to PDC
