Durban - A virus is suspected to have caused the deaths of 12 African wild dogs at the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park.
This leaves just 57 of these “most endangered carnivores in the country” at the park which is home to the second largest population in the country.
According to a joint statement from Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife and the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) on Tuesday, Ezemvelo veterinarians conducted post-mortems on the dogs and indications were that the entire pack had died from canine distemper disease.
The dogs were part of the Crossroads pack which lived north of the park.
Of this pack, only six survived.
“Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park has, over the years, acted as a feeder population to numerous other national parks and private game reserves around South Africa and the loss of this pack is a large blow.
“The loss of this pack reduced the national population – which includes Kruger National Park and some free roaming wild dogs – by 2.5%.
“This follows on from cases of canine distemper virus being confirmed in wild dogs from Khamab Kalahari Reserve in 2013 and more recently in Kruger National Park and Tswalu Kalahari Reserve in 2016. Canine distemper virus has been shown to infect numerous species worldwide and is not confined to carnivores,” read the statement.
The discovery was made by Ezemvelo and EWT who were routinely monitoring the pack through the use of a tracking collar fitted to the pack’s beta female.