Three male African wild dog brothers have completed a record-breaking 4,125-kilometer (2,563-mile) journey across Zambia in search of breeding partners. The trek, which ended in April, set a record for the longest documented overland journey by any land animal on the African continent, according to a study published in The Scientific Naturalist.
The young animals navigated crocodile-infested rivers and avoided threats from lions and humans during their journey. Traveling a distance just 401 kilometers (249 miles) shorter than the width of the United States, the trio completed the trek in less than nine months.
Scott Creel, a professor of conservation biology and ecology at Montana State University, monitored the journey from 15,000 kilometers away using satellite GPS tracking collars. Creel co-authored the study detailing their movements, which rewrote scientific understanding of how distant populations of the social species interact. Creel said that checking the tracking data each day on his laptop left him thinking the journey was extraordinary.
African wild dogs are lightweight but lethal predators that live in highly social packs. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the species is endangered, with fewer than 700 packs and under 1,700 adult individuals remaining worldwide.
Researching the species is difficult because pack territories cover hundreds of square kilometers. Within each group, breeding is usually limited to a single dominant male and female. Other members must either stay and wait for a chance to inherit a dominant role or leave the group to find partners in a process known as dispersal.
Tracking the record journey
The three brothers, aged three years old, left the Mayukuyuku pack in Kafue National Park in western Zambia on August 6, 2025. Creel explained that when no breeding opportunities exist in neighboring packs, wild dogs simply choose a direction and travel, adapting as events unfold.
Creel, working with the Zambian Carnivore Programme, has spent 16 years studying more than 500 African wild dogs across 50 packs using satellite GPS collars. The departure of the brothers was expected. Out of 19 pups that reached adulthood in the pack, only three were needed for breeding, leaving low reproductive chances for males in a large group. Four of their sisters had dispersed two weeks earlier.
Within a month of leaving, the males traveled hundreds of kilometers toward central Zambia, turning back whenever they neared large cities such as Kabwe. When leaving protected parks and moving into human-populated areas, the dogs altered their travel behavior.
Creel hypothesized that the animals entered a travel mode, replacing their usual balance of movement, rest, and hunting with rapid, linear travel to avoid danger. He believes this behavior evolved as a response to encounters with lions.
Reunion in Copperbelt and movement to Luangwa
In mid-September 2025, the males reunited with three surviving sisters in the northern Copperbelt Province, nearly 1,200 kilometers from their starting point, locating them using scent. After spending a single day together, the brothers spent the next six months following a winding path west to the Luangwa Valley in eastern Zambia. The forested region holds one of the continent's largest wild dog populations, where the trio settled. Creel noted that while remote terrain prevents confirmation, the males likely mated with local females.
The long-distance movements of the Mayukuyuku brothers and other collared individuals connected all resident wild dog populations across seven national parks in Zambia. Similar dispersal movements extended across international borders. The sisters crossed into Mozambique, another group of Mayukuyuku dispersers moved north into the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and a group from another pack traveled east into Malawi.
Creel described this level of connectivity as impressive and unexpected when he began his research decades ago. He stated that wild dog populations will only recover if they remain connected, expressing optimism that natural movements can sustain the species despite expanding human populations.
Poaching snares and conservation challenges
The journey also highlighted severe threats to the species. A few weeks after reuniting with the brothers, one of the three surviving sisters became trapped in a wire snare in a forest. Attached to trees by poachers targeting large herbivores such as zebras and wildebeest, the wire snares tighten on captured animals, penetrating flesh up to eight centimeters deep.
Creel explained that snares kill whatever animal passes through the brush opening next. He said that seeing the damage caused by snares makes it hard not to become emotionally involved, adding that he could not imagine how painful the injuries must be. Even animals that bite through their wounds to break free often die later from injuries.
Because wild dogs do not recognize wire traps and refuse to abandon injured companions, tracking data showed the remaining two sisters returned to their dying sibling. One sister stopped moving permanently, and researchers later recovered her GPS collar, which had been cut with a knife. The fate of the remaining uncollared sister remains unknown.
Creel recalled that when he began working in Tanzania nearly 40 years ago, he and his wife removed up to 500 snares over a few days. He warned that the problem has intensified and stated that if snaring is not resolved, there will be nothing left to save.
Addressing the issue requires economic solutions alongside law enforcement, Creel noted, because rural poverty drives residents living at the end of long dirt roads to set snares. A 2025 study co-authored by Creel found that illegal bushmeat hunting depletes herbivore populations, forcing wild dogs to range farther for food and increasing their exposure to wire traps. Creel added that it is difficult not to feel empathy for the animals, noting that 8.3 billion humans share the world with nearly eight million other species.
