![]() They dodged traffic on busy village roads, tiptoed past lions, humans and other enemies and competitors, and crossed roiling waters that teemed with crocodiles. They navigated woodlands, grasslands, scrublands, farmlands, scrambled over steep escarpments, skittered down mud-slicked gorges and traversed the legendary East African Rift three times. They lit out from their natal home range in the Luangwa Valley in eastern Zambia, crisscrossed Zambia and parts of Mozambique, skirted the edge of Zimbabwe and finally made their way back into central Zambia and settled in Lower Zambezi National Park in Zambia, where evidence suggests they remain to this day. Over the next nine months, the dogs traveled some 1,300 miles, which, according to the scientists who tagged them, is more than twice the previous record for the species. If they did not seize the chance to trade the security of their birth pack for new opportunities elsewhere, they might well die as they had lived: as subordinate, self-sacrificing maiden aunts with no offspring of their own.Īnd so, in October of last year, the sisters set forth on the longest and most harrowing odyssey ever recorded for Lycaon pictus, a carnivore already known as a wide-ranging wanderer. At 3 years old, they were in the prime of their vigor, ferocity and buoyant, pencil-limbed indifference to gravity. They were African wild dogs, elite predators of the sub-Saharan region and among the most endangered mammals on Earth. ![]() The three sisters knew they had to leave home.
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