Three African wild dogs in Zambia have travelled more than 4 000km in search of new territory and mates, marking what researchers believe is the longest recorded movement by an African mammal.
Image used for illustrative purposes/By: paulafrench/
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The three male wild dogs, known as the Mayukuyuku males, travelled 4 126km over nine months after leaving their birth pack in Kafue National Park in mid-2025.
The journey covered roughly the same distance as travelling from Cairo to Cape Town and highlights the importance of keeping wildlife corridors between protected areas open, researchers say.
According to Mongabay, the journey is also the longest recorded dispersal by an African wild dog (Lycaon pictus).
A journey across Zambia
The three males first travelled east from Kafue National Park before heading north towards the cities of Kitwe and Ndola. They later turned back and continued east towards the Luangwa River Valley, home to a population of around 400 wild dogs.
By April 2026, the dogs had reached a game management area between South Luangwa and Lower Zambezi national parks.
Researchers believe the males may have established a new territory in the area, although more information is needed about the pack they have joined and their current movements.
“It’s the longest African mammal movement on record, and the longest wild dog dispersal,” Matt Becker, chief executive of the Zambian Carnivore Programme and a co-author of the study, told Mongabay.
The findings come from a study that tracked 19 groups of wild dogs using GPS collars. All of the groups travelled within or around seven national parks in Zambia.
Four groups also travelled to within a few kilometres of Zambia’s borders with Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi and Zimbabwe.
Wildlife corridors are vital
The journeys show how far wild dogs can travel when searching for territory, food and potential mates.
Researchers say the movements also demonstrate that wild dog populations across parts of Southern and Eastern Africa may be more connected than previously thought. Similar long-distance movements have been recorded in Botswana, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
Keeping these connections open could therefore be important for the survival of the endangered species.
“If we conserve and continue to improve these connections, a lot of species like wild dogs can make the rest happen,” Nyambe Nyambe, executive director of the secretariat governing the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, said.
The KAZA Transfrontier Conservation Area spans parts of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe and is one of the continent’s major connected conservation landscapes.
The dangers along the way
Long-distance journeys do not always have a happy ending.
One of the other wild dogs tracked by researchers, a female known as EWD-1355, travelled more than 2 300km after leaving South Luangwa National Park with her two sisters in 2021.
Her journey took her through Mozambique before she was killed by a snare in a game management area in southern Zambia.
Snares are often set to catch animals such as antelope for meat. Wild dogs can be particularly vulnerable because they may remain near injured members of their pack rather than abandoning them.
According to Becker, several dogs can therefore become trapped and die in the same incident.
Keeping large landscapes connected
The study highlights the challenges facing wild dogs as the landscapes they depend on increasingly overlap with human settlements, agriculture and other forms of land use.
Becker said conservation efforts should look beyond protected areas and consider ways for communities to benefit from wildlife and connected natural landscapes.
These could include nature-based tourism and sustainable, legal game ranching.
“We don’t need to separate people from nature,” Becker told Mongabay. “We can have these large landscapes, large, connected areas, beneficial to both.”
For Zambia’s wild dogs, the Mayukuyuku males’ extraordinary journey shows just how much space these animals need to survive and find new opportunities across the region.
