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Bronx Zoo News & Events

Meet your new four-legged best friends! ©WCS/photo by Julie Maher; video by Luke Groskin

An African Safari in the Heart of
New York
Grab your binoculars and a wide-brimmed hat for an African safari unlike any other on this side of the Atlantic! The Bronx Zoo’s African Plains has grown a lot livelier since a pack of African wild dogs began settling into a new habitat. Just down the trail from our giraffes and around the bend from our cheetahs, the dog pack rounds out this predator-prey exhibit at the heart of the zoo.

The African Wild Dog exhibit features an open field, a sand pit, and a pond, where our pack enjoys roaming, digging, and swimming—all favorite activities of this species in the wild. A glass-fronted viewing pavilion offers visitors the chance for up-close encounters with the dogs. The exhibit also highlights the work of WCS conservationists to protect this endangered species throughout its remaining range on the real African plains.

What Makes a Wild Dog Wild?
Think you’ve already seen a wild dog or two roaming around your own neighborhood? African wild dogs are no back-alley canines. These charismatic animals have large, round ears, a musky smell, and a mottled coat of brown, black, and white. Their unique coloration gives them their alternate name: painted dogs. African wild dogs express themselves with lots of different noises, from growling to howling to squeaking (a sign of happiness!) Because they spend their lives in a close-knit pack that ranges from 2 to 30 individuals, cooperation is key to getting along.

African wild dogs are an endangered species, with only 3,000–6,000 still existing across Africa. They have been removed from 90% of their former range and are considered extinct in 25 of the 39 countries they once inhabited. The main threats result from people’s impacts on the landscape—such as development, which has led to habitat fragmentation; lack of prey, which causes conflicts with farmers over livestock; and contact with human settlements, which increases the threat of distemper and other diseases from domestic dogs.

©WCS/Julie Maher

Leading the Pack
WCS is working in Botswana, Kenya, and Tanzania to conserve African wild dogs. Our scientists study the species’ requirements and work with local communities and authorities to better protect these rare animals. WCS will soon sponsor a summit for scientists and wildlife managers to create a plan for the conservation of African wild dogs and cheetahs across the continent.

At the Bronx Zoo, our Mammal Department staff are collaborating with their colleagues in the field on a project to prevent distemper, a grave disease threat to African wild dogs in nature. The project aims to compare the effectiveness of a vaccine taken orally with one that is injected, and the dogs at the Bronx Zoo are the study subjects. Currently, the great majority of zoo animals are vaccinated through intramuscular injection. However, if both types of vaccines are proven to provide equal protection, WCS field scientists will treat pieces of meat with the medicine, and tempt dogs in the wild to ingest the vaccinated food. These trials have a twofold purpose: To improve the care of our wild dogs at the zoo—Gateways to Conservation for their kin in nature—and to reduce the health risks of those cousins in the African bush.

Learn more about our ongoing wild dog conservation work in Africa by visiting
African Wild Dog Conservation