Partners for Wildlife

Botswana Predator Conservation Program

Botswana Predator Conservation Program is working to save:

African wild dog (Lycaon pictus)
African endemic, large social canid species considered the most endangered carnivore in Africa after the Simian jackal. Estimated entire population is 5,600 with a World Conservation Union (IUCN) listing as Endangered.

Habitat
The Okavango Delta is a freshwater ecosystem identified as a World Heritage Site and a RAMSAR site by the IUCN. Approximately 14,000 km2, currently divided into areas designated as Wildlife Management Area or Game Reserve, but surrounded by rural human populations and livestock grazing areas.

Critical threats to wildlife

Habitat loss
Conflict with expanding human population and its domestic livestock

Dr. Tico McNutt, left, is director and founder of the Botswana Predator Conservation Program.

African wild dogs, also called painted wolves, once roamed over much of Africa up to 1982. By 1996, viable populations could only be found in Tanzania, extreme northeastern South Africa, across most of Botswana, parts of Zimbabwe, and tiny areas of Namibia, Angola and Zambia.

Wild dogs are extremely social pack animals, the stronger animals often sharing food with the old, infirm and young.