Recent paper by Montana State researchers about African wild dogs receives international attention
by Montana State University
October 8, 2026
A recently published paper in the journal Ecology by Montana State University ecology professor Scott Creel and several of his current and former students has received international attention for its revelations about highly endangered African wild dogs.
The paper, “Extraordinary movements connecting distant ecosystems by African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus),” was published Sept. 13. Since then, its findings have been highlighted by media outlets including the BBC, Reuters, Mongabay, The Guardian, The Conversation and CNN. It also was featured prominently by the eminent journal Science.
The paper tells the story of several groups of highly endangered African wild dogs that recently made long-distance movements across all of Zambia, linking all the ecosystems that still hold wild dog populations and into several adjacent countries.
“This is very good news,” said Creel, who has studied the species for 35 years. “African wild dogs are endangered because they are naturally sparse. They never reach high population densities under any conditions, so the population in any single protected area is always small. As a consequence, we have seen wild dogs go locally extinct in several national parks in front of our eyes.”
Read the Ecology paper: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecy.70504