Gorongosa National Park to Karingani

In 2018, through the Wild Dog Range Expansion Project, the first Wild Dogs (a.k.a. Painted Wolves) were introduced into Gorongosa National Park and a year later, Karingani Game Reserve received its first pack. Both Mozambican reserves were identified as feasible spaces for Wild Dog reintroductions but no one could predict how well these packs would do. The packs settled into their new homes, went on to den and raise their pups, and we watched on as the new Mozambican arrivals reached adulthood and dispersed from their natal packs to start new packs of their own.

Two key targets in the Wild Dog Range Expansion Project, a project spearheaded by the Endangered Wildlife Trust, is to continually increase Wild Dog safe space and population numbers in Africa. With the success from Mozambique, we are now able to utilise Wild Dogs from the respective reserves and allow them to become Wild Dog pioneers in new safe space that has become available through large restoration efforts. On 09 March, five male Wild Dogs from Gorongosa National Park were flown to Karingani Game Reserve and placed in temporary holding – this is the first ever internal Wild Dog relocation in Mozambique. The next phase of the project will be to capture and place three female Wild Dogs from Karingani Game Reserve in the adjoining compartment, with the hope that they bond with their new acquaintances. When there is evidence of cohesion between the two groups, they will be allowed to interact and strengthen that bond before being flown to their new home. Gorongosa National Park (GNP) in Mozambique is perhaps Africa’s greatest wildlife restoration story. In 2008, a 20-year Public-Private Partnership was established for the joint management of GNP between the Government of Mozambique and the Carr Foundation (Gorongosa Restoration Project), a US nonprofit organization. 

In 2018, the Government of Mozambique signed an extension of the joint management agreement for another 25 years. By adopting a 21st Century conservation model of balancing the needs of wildlife and people, Gorongosa is protecting and saving this beautiful wilderness, returning it to its rightful placeas one of Africa’s greatest national parks.GNP has been described as one of the most diverse parks on Earth, covering a vast expanse of400,000 hectares. In recent years, the Gorongosa Project, with the support of Mozambique’sNational Administration of Conservation Areas (ANAC), has ensured the protection of a recovering population of lions in this system, successfully reduced key threats, and has beenrecognized as one of National Geographic’s “Last Wild Places” and by TIME Magazine as one of the “World’s Greatest Places – 2019”.