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Can tourism save the number two endangered species in Africa?
By Joanna K. Wood ’06
STAFF WRITER

Would you pay $59.00 to see a pack of Cape Hunting Dogs? That’s what one Sweet Briar conservationist hopes will save the second most endangered species in Africa.

Associate Professor of Environmental Science at Sweet Briar College Dr. Robert Alexander, one of the world’s leading experts on the economics of wildlife conservation, is striving to rescue and revive the African wild dog species Lycaon pictus by working with landowners in Kenya to develop tourism sites for the animal.

“African Wild Dogs are in their own genus of Lycaon, of which they are the only member,” clarifies Alexander. “They are just that much more valuable genetically speaking than a species that has many other closely related species.”

Alexander has collaborated with two biologists at the Mammal Research Institute in South Africa and a third biologist with the South African National Parks and Endangered Wildlife Trust to find land for ecotourism.
In a recent paper, “The Cost Efficiency of Wild Dog Conservation in South Africa,” published in Conservation Biology, Alexander explains the bio-economics of tourism conservation.

How could ecotourism revive the population? “During the three month den period, there is almost a 90 percent guarantee that a person will see these wild dogs,” explains Alexander.

At this time the location of the wild dogs is predictable because the lead female and male dogs raise their young.

Presently, the only viable population exists in Kruger National Park with barely several hundred individuals spread among 20-30 packs in recent years.

Together they have developed a bio-economic model that provides financial incentive for landowners to keep and sustain wild dogs on their land.

Unlike elephants, slaughtered for their ivory, these dogs are endangered because they threaten livestock.
Alexander and his colleagues realized that they needed to overcome the financial benefits to killing the dogs, and have incorporated this premise to establish financial inducements to not hunt the dogs.

The model explains the costs and benefits of sustaining the wild dogs in relation to the ecological factors, such as how quickly the dogs populate.

In the study, Alexander’s group examines three types of property owners – ranchers, tourism owners, and game hunters – to determine who would most likely benefit from sustaining the wild dogs.

Alexander found that ranchers would suffer the greatest economic loss. Tourism owners, however, have the greatest to gain. And game hunters who already stock the dog’s prey of impala and kudu on their land stand to profit as well.

“Improving the conservation status of wild dogs on ranch land, however, is likely to require significant efforts aimed at increasing tolerance among landowners,” explain the conservationists.

Conservation efforts extend from maintaining the dogs themselves but also to conserving genetic diversity that proves essential for the health and viability of the animal.

Perhaps ecotourism could rescue the endangered. However, Alexander and his group’s recommendations must pass through the red tape at Kruger National Park before any wild dogs can be saved.