Table 1.
Framework for evaluating short-term success of the wild dog reintroduction to Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique.
Fig 1.
The location of the Gorongosa-Marromeu landscape (bottom panel) within the Sofala province of central Mozambique (black shading in top right panel) on the east coast of Africa (black shading in top left panel).
In the bottom panel, different protected areas are shown with solid lines indicating official protected area status and dashed lines for buffer-zones and adjacent forestry areas overlaid on human population density (number of people per 1 km2). The human population density data were collected by Gorongosa National Park’s Department of Scientific Services. Letters refer to (A1) Mountain section of Gorongosa National Park, (A2) core area of Gorongosa National Park, (B) buffer area of Gorongosa National Park, (C) forestry areas, (D) Coutada 12, (E) Coutada 11, (F) Coutada 14, (H) Marromeu National reserve and (G) Coutada 10.
Fig 2.
Group association dynamics of the reintroduced wild dog founders in Gorongosa National Park between June 2018 and September 2020.
The reintroduction of two founder packs (Gorongosa and Pwadzi) resulted in two further pack formations, two successful dispersals and three ongoing dispersal events (one of these is a female with pups she had after dispersing). The number of males and females in Gorongosa and Pwadzi packs show the pack size at the time of release.
Fig 3.
Annual time series of the wild dog population in Gorongosa National Park from one year prior to their reintroduction (in 2017) until 2020.
Counts were taken in June of each year representing the midpoint in the annual breeding season. Bars represent the total number of individuals in the population (primary y-axis) with the solid line representing the number of packs (secondary y-axis).
Table 2.
Descriptive patterns of annual population dynamics for the reintroduced wild dog population in Gorongosa National Park between June 2018 and September 2020.
Fig 4.
Comparison between wild dogs (n = 102 kills) and lions (n = 108 kills) in Gorongosa National Park between June 2018 and September 2020 in relation to (a) Jacob’s electivity index and (b) the proportion of each prey in the diet.
Fig 5.
The 95% total territory area (light grey) and the 50% core territory area (dark grey) for wild dogs in Gorongosa National Park (solid black line) between June 2018 and September 2020 overlaid on the human population density raster for the Gorongosa-Marromeu landscape.
Panels represent different groups of wild dogs: (A) Gorongosa pack, (B) Pwadzi pack, (C) Cheza pack, (D) Mopane pack, (E) Mucodza dispersal group and (F) Xivulo dispersal group. The diamond symbol represents the enclosure release site for the two founder packs (Gorongosa and Pwadzi packs).
Fig 6.
The difference in woodland and floodplain habitat use by wild dogs and lions in Gorongosa National Park between June 2018 and September 2020.
Error bars represent intergroup variation in the proportion of GPS fixes while three stars indicate highly significant differences (i.e. p < 0.001) in habitat use between and within these two carnivore species.
Fig 7.
Territories of wild dogs (solid line) and lions (dotted line) in Gorongosa National Park between June 2018 and September 2020 for the (A) 95% total territory areas and (B) the 50% core territory areas.
The boundary of GNP is shown as thin black line with the maps overlaid on that of human population density for the Gorongosa-Marromeu landscape.