In the ongoing effort to protect endangered species, every success story counts. This one belongs to the African wild dog, also known as the ‘painted dog’.
A specific population in the southern part of Zimbabwe was hunting both inside and outside nearby livestock areas, causing some conflict. Earlier this month, this pack of endangered canines was successfully relocated into the Sapi Reserve, managed by Great Plains, as part of Project Rewild, a long-term initiative focused on restoring ecological balance and biodiversity through carefully planned wildlife translocations. A major milestone for wildlife conservation in the third quarter of 2025 was the successful release of 17 painted dogs — eight adults and nine pups —into the Sapi Reserve. This achievement marks an essential step in rebuilding predator diversity and stabilising painted dog populations in the region.
Protecting the African wild dog through Project Rewild translocation to Sapi Reserve, Zimbabwe.
By Dereck Joubert, National Geographic Explorer-at-Large and Co-Founder of the Great Plains Foundation
“The first one to say, or even hum ‘Who Let the Dogs Out’ pays a fine to the Great Plains Foundation!” was my stern directive to the small team sitting waiting in the shade for over four hours for their next move.
This all began some time ago when we heard that a population of painted dogs in the southern part of Zimbabwe was hunting both inside and outside nearby livestock areas, causing some damage.
We opened discussions just short of them being declared vermin. We offered to help. Help in this case was as it has been with elephants, giraffe, impala and zebras – moving them and releasing them, giving them a second chance.
A very engaged team at Zimbabwe Parks could not have been more helpful. The stakes are high, and no one wants to see threatened and endangered species reduced, but human/wildlife conflict is real and needs to be tackled quickly.
At the same time, Thomas Mutonhori, an ecologist working for Great Plains in Zimbabwe, told us about the Greater Mana painted dog population and their decline, most likely due to inbreeding. Connecting those dots didn’t take a PhD, so we immediately started planning an audacious new project. It involved capturing, containing and then airlifting a pack to the Sapi Reserve next to the Mana Pools National Park.
General Patton once said that he had never known a battle to go according to plan, but never knew a battle won without a plan.
So, we had a plan.
Then the plan went sideways.
As our vets arrived, one dog gave birth virtually at their feet. The widely discussed opinion was to leave the pups, who were probably never going to survive, and move the adults.
Not our style!
So, we changed plans to an air-conditioned King Air and placed the puppies carefully into a cooler box for their two-hour flight to their new home.
Key to the success of this was an idea I had been noodling with for months. The big issue with painted dog releases in the past is that no matter how long you hold them, as soon as you open the gates (don’t say it), the dogs bolt, for miles, for days.
But if we designed a replica den and held them through the birth of puppies, they might associate that den with ‘home.’ That was the plan. The dogs pre-empted that by a day!
Anyway, vet Dr. Jacqueline and Joshua, conducted a seamless exercise, and we finally had the dogs in the larger pen. But we struggled to get the mother of the puppies in through the small den opening. As I looked around at the robust shoulders of guides and rangers and then at the den opening, the calculus was not working. Beverly leapt over and straight into the den to help. She had to guide the mother through the hole from inside and place the half-sedated carnivore securely in her den.
Jacqueline replaced her to receive puppies and then applied a drug reversal and beat a hasty retreat.
Success.
But how does one measure success?
©Wildlife Films 2025. Dr. Jacqueline – monitoring the translocated painted dogs in transit to their new home in the Sapi Reserve within the greater Mana Pools ecosystem.
©Wildlife Films 2025. Beverly Joubert pictured with the translocated African wild dogs as they were placed in the vehicle for transport to the boma.
The first level was when we took off with the dogs in a plane. But Patton was right. Our plans changed. Again. Two more females gave birth a little later! Who we thought was the Alpha Female was not. This time we watched through hidden cameras as the three females ironed out who was the Alpha, who then captured and adopted all the surviving pups. Two weeks ago, we sat and waited, looking at a hole in the fence. The whole one side of the pen had been taken down at dawn, and we ran back and hid, fully expecting the dogs and puppies that had been in this enclosure for three months to bolt.
They didn’t. We waited.
Four hours later, with much back and forth at the invisible line of the old fence, two adventurous puppies were the first to trot out to investigate the outside world they had never seen.
Then chaos erupted. Well, it was more like sheer joy and excitement as dogs leapt everywhere, over each other, rolling, playing just a few paces from their ‘captivity’ but free, and I quietly checked off a new level of success.
The questions remaining were whether they would now bolt or not, whether they would remember how to hunt and if they would even understand a river!
Within an hour, they saw an impala and gave chase! Within a few hours, they had settled and slept a few miles from their pen. That same evening, they came back ‘home’ to make the first of their kills near our research camp.
At that moment, we all felt as though we could breathe freely, and from then on, they had to run with the wind in their faces, hunt along the floodplains, and venture into the vast 280,000 acres of the private Sapi Reserve and beyond to Mana Pools or anywhere else. These dogs must play in their new river, meet their future mates, and strengthen their fragile bloodlines.
What we do know is that while this battle for their lives is not yet won, and plans will change again, we have given them a fighting chance, and we achieved this with your help.
The attached video is a testament to that help and a record of what is, for us, a momentous turning point for this small population of precious animals in a far corner of the world.
It is the latest phase of our rewilding efforts, and we are preparing for the next. Watch this space.
For more information on Project Rewild, or to explore opportunities to get involved, please contact us at info@greatplainsfoundation.org
