The Botswana Wild Dog Research Project began in 1989 with support from the Frankfurt Zoological Society - Help for Threatened Wildlife (Project 1056/87) in response to international recognition of the need for a greater scientific understanding of Lycaon. Because Botswana is home to a large percentage of the world's remaining wild population and because conflict with domestic livestock has been identified as an important problem, the government of Botswana eagerly endorsed the research. The study area is located in the north-east terminus of the Okavango Delta, encompassing the eastern part of the Moremi Game Reserve. The area is approximately 3,000 square kilometres and is home to an estimated 150 to 200 wild dogs. The focus of the field research has been to continuously monitor a sample of free-ranging wild dog packs in this part of northern Botswana. The results of 9 years of research (and that of concurrent studies in Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and South Africa) are an impressive archive of information on the wild dog. Accumulating information about habitat requirements, social and hunting behaviour, dispersal patterns, causes of mortality, reproductive patterns, population genetics, and disease contributes to a valuable cache of knowledge. The research also exposes a fascinating and captivating social predator characterised by an extraordinary co-operative and non-aggressive nature- compelling evidence against the image of wild dogs as merely dangerous and vicious killers.
In 1993, the Botswana Wild Dog Research Project began research to assess the prevalent attitudes towards wildlife in northern Botswana and the social factors that affect community conservation and wildlife resource management. The aim is to provide information on the nature of attitudes and behaviours toward wildlife in local communities in an attempt to quantify the overall impact, both social and ecological, of community approaches to wildlife resource management. Ultimately, the research will contribute to a body of knowledge upon which citizens of Botswana can develop and pursue their own realistic development strategies for an increased standard of living and create management objectives that focus on the conservation and sustainable use of their country's rich natural biodiversity.
J.W.
McNutt ('Tico'), PhD. and Lesley P. Boggs, MA. are the founders and directors
of the project. Tico received his Ph.D. in Animal Behaviour from the University
of California at Davis in 1995. Since 1980 he has worked in field biology and
consulting, primarily studying avian predators in North America, Chile, Argentina
and Pakistan. In 1989 he began the Botswana Wild Dog Research Project to identify
the behavioural and population characteristics of this highly social predator.
Lesley has an M.A. in Development Anthropology from McGill University in Canada,
where she is currently working on a doctorate. She has worked as a consultant
in a conservation and natural resource management in Canada, Madagascar, South
Africa, and Pakistan, and initiated the work on wildlife conflict issues in
rural communities in northern Botswana as an extension of the Wild Dog Research
Project in 1993. Tico and Lesley live in a research camp with their son Madison
outside the Moremi Wildlife Reserve.
Support
for the Botswana Wild Dog Research Project comes primarily from the Frankfurt
Zoological Society-Help for Threatened Wildlife (Project 1056/87). Additional
financial support has come from The World University Service of Canada, Conservation
International, the Endangered Wildlife Trust, the Zoological Society of Philadelphia,
the International Institute for Environment and Development, Elefriends of Australia,
and numerous private contributors. To provide support for the project or to
find out how to contribute to the conservation of the African wild dog contact
the