Three Wild Dogs Made a Record-Breaking Trek Across Zambia, Traveling More Than 2,500 Miles in Search of Mates
Researchers said the brothers’ 9-month journey shows endangered wild dogs need connected corridors, with more than half of tracked dispersers not surviving.
- Three male African wild dogs from the Mayukuyuku Pack in Kafue National Park traversed 4,126km across Zambia to reach the Luangwa Valley, setting a record for the longest dispersal ever recorded by an African mammal.
- Upon reaching three years of age in 2025, the brothers left their Kafue home seeking unrelated mates, a natural dispersal behavior for the endangered species since only alpha pairs typically breed within a pack.
- Near Kitwe and Ndola, the brothers briefly reunited with their dispersing sisters before separating again; the sisters later suffered snare-related deaths in unprotected areas, while the brothers successfully reached the Luangwa Valley.
- Scott Creel, an ecologist at Montana State University, says the journey demonstrates the species' resilience and the urgent need for connected wildlife corridors that allow safe passage through unprotected landscapes.
- Conservationists including Matthew Becker of the Zambian Carnivore Programme argue that protecting wildlife corridors is vital for the approximately 6,600 African wild dogs remaining in the wild.
11 Articles
11 Articles
Three African wild dog brothers left their Zambian pack in 2025; eight months later, they had travelled 4,126 km, the longest recorded dispersal by an African mammal
Wildlife & Biodiversity News: Three African wild dog brothers have turned an already extraordinary journey into a record-breaking one, travelling 4,126 kilometres across Zambia aft.
Africa: 3 African Wild Dogs Travelled Over 4,000km to Find Mates - Why That's Good News for the Endangered Species
Analysis - In 2021, a three-year-old female African wild dog spent a year travelling more than 2,300 kilometres across southern Africa. She climbed in and out of the Rift Valley in Zambia, swimming rivers, crossing major highways, and slipping past towns before crossing the Zambian border into Mozambique, then on to the border of Zimbabwe. It was one of the longest journeys recorded for the species.
Conservation news
ecotopical.com‘A good way to die’: triumph and tragedy among dispersing African wild dogs
In mid-2025, a trio of male African wild dogs headed east through the open woodlands of Kafue National Park in west-central Zambia, away from the pack they’d grown up in. Roughly two weeks earlier, four of their sisters had also left the pack. One dog in each of the groups was wearing a GPS collar […]
3 African wild dogs travelled over 4,000km to find mates – why that’s good news for the endangered species
In 2021, a three-year-old female African wild dog spent a year travelling more than 2,300 kilometres across southern Africa. She climbed in and out of the Rift Valley in Zambia, swimming rivers, crossing major highways, and slipping past towns before crossing the Zambian border into Mozambique, then on to the border of Zimbabwe. It was one of the longest journeys recorded for the species. Known as EWD-1355, she began her journey from her pack’s …
Three Wild Dogs Made a Record-Breaking Trek Across Zambia, Traveling More Than 2,500 Miles in Search of Mates
The canines achieved the longest recorded movement by any African mammal. Their journey highlights the importance of having protected corridors for wildlife
AGI - Three brothers, more than four thousand kilometers and eight months through Zambia in search of a new territory and companions. It is the record journey made by three African lycaons, protagonists of the longest dispersion ever documented for a mammal of the continent. To reconstruct the path is a study published in the scientific journal Ecology by an international group of researchers led by Scott Creel, Montana State University and Zamb…
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