Three African wild dogs make record 2,500-mile journey across Zambia in search of mates

Three male African wild dogs have travelled more than 2,500 miles across southern Africa, making what researchers say is the longest recorded movement by an African mammal.

The nine-month journey, documented in a study published in the journal Ecology on September 13, highlights both the threats faced by the endangered animals and their ability to survive across fragmented landscapes, Smithsonian magazine reported.

African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) are an endangered species, with only about 6,600 adults and yearlings estimated to remain in the wild. The highly social animals live in packs, but only the dominant male and female typically breed. Other members either wait to become dominant or leave their packs to find mates elsewhere.

Researchers attached radio collars to wild dogs from 19 groups to track their movements. The three brothers at the centre of the study, known as the Mayukuyuku males, began their journey in mid-2025 after leaving their home in Zambia’s Kafue National Park and moving east into unprotected areas.

Four of their sisters began a similar journey about two weeks earlier, travelling through a game management area near their home range. However, their group was soon reduced to three.

The male and female groups briefly reunited in an unprotected area in September 2025. By then, the females had travelled 872 miles and the males nearly 750 miles.

Wild dogs have a remarkable ability to locate one another by scent, according to the study. The two groups separated again the following day, with the females reaching a small forested area several weeks later.

Their journey ended there. Tracking data from one collared female showed that she repeatedly moved back and forth around the same location, an unusual pattern typically associated with caring for a newborn pup that cannot yet travel with the pack or returning to an injured packmate.

Researchers believe one of the females may have been killed by a hunting snare and that the collared female probably suffered a similar fate.

The three males, meanwhile, continued travelling. By April 2026, they had covered more than 2,560 miles and reached a game management area in Zambia’s eastern Luangwa Valley.

Matthew Becker, chief executive of the Zambian Carnivore Program and a co-author of the study, said researchers believe the males have established a territorial range, although it remains unclear how many other wild dogs are in the area.

The journey is not the first remarkable long-distance movement recorded among African wild dogs. In 2021, three female wild dogs from Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park travelled nearly 1,300 miles through Zambia and parts of Mozambique.

Researchers say such journeys indicate that African wild dog populations may be more connected than previously understood and highlight the importance of maintaining wildlife corridors between protected areas.

“We can’t see these protected areas as islands and expect them to be functional in the long term; we need to think much broader than that,” said Bruce Ellender, a study co-author and conservation director at the Nature Conservancy in Zambia.

Nyambe Nyambe, executive director of the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area Secretariat, said the findings demonstrate the need for governments to protect wildlife corridors connecting important ecosystems and reduce conflicts with hunters.

“Borders should not define us in this kind of work,” he said. “If the landscape is fragmented, perhaps the future is even more fragmented.”