Wild dogs are notorious for moving outside of reserve boundries - they require a vast amount of land on which to traverse and hunt and unfortunately often find themselves in a human-wildlife conflict situation, by hunting on commercial farms that do not welcome the presence of such successful hunters. Although an extensive eductaion program is underway by the Endangered Wildlife Trust, to work with farmers to prevent them from persecuting wild dogs, the challenges are steep.

This pack of 4 wild dogs were reported by a hunting farm just outside the Greater Kruger area whose owner was very unhappy at the rate at which his prized antelopes were being caught by the pack. We followed up on the pack of wild dogs tirelessly, who remained out of site and out of reach for weeks on end, avoiding our attempts to locate and collar them. Finally a helicopter was bought in to locate the pack from above. The alpha male was darted and sedated for a GPS tracking collar to be placed. This would allow the EWT team to more easily located the pack in future. Unfortunately the rest of the pack disappeared and so the decision was made to try and move them a later date, so as not to break up the pack.

As it was, the pack moved off the hunting farm soon after the alpha male was collared and EWT continue to monitor the pack, with the GPS tracking collar allowing for a faster reaction when the pack move into dangerous areas.