African wild dog population status in the Selous-Nyerere landscape, southern Tanzania: Insights from camera trap surveys

Despite being one of the world’s most endangered carnivores, there is a deficiency of recent information on the status of African wild dog ( Lycaon pictus ) in some of the few landscapes where viable populations are thought to still occur. One example is the Selous-Nyerere landscape in southern Tanzania, a critical stronghold for the species that has not been studied since the 1990s. We use data from seven camera trap surveys deployed over 4,674 km 2 in Selous Game Reserve (GR) and Nyerere National Park (NP) from 2020-2022 to provide an update on wild dog status in the landscape. We identified a total of 222 wild dogs, of which 38% were male, 38% were female, and 24% were of unknown sex. We applied spatially explicit capture-recapture (SECR) modelling to the data from 2,565 km 2 of Selous GR to estimate an over-dispersion adjusted population density of 2.14 ± 0.45 adult and yearling wild dogs per 100 km 2 (95% confidence interval: 1.42 – 3.21). This study demonstrates the ways in which camera trap data can be used to improve our understanding of wild dog populations in data-limited settings, but also highlights some limitations of this data type for the species. Our findings suggest that the Selous-Niassa ecosystem is one of the most important remaining populations of wild dogs in Africa. Although this study did not directly investigate mortality, we recommend long-term monitoring and a number of conservation actions to tackle the species’ apparent threats in the landscape, and help secure this stronghold into the future.