Community Opinions about African Wild Dog Conservation and Relocations near the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

Abstract

Conservation of the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) in human-dominated landscapes faces many challenges. Understanding human opinions of wild dog conservation is important to inform management decisions. Questionnaire surveys, including both open and closed-ended questions, were administered by researchers through face-to-face interviews of 297 respondents in the eastern part of the Serengeti ecosystem between January and February 2012. Our results indicated that most local people believed that wild dogs were extinct in the Serengeti ecosystem. According to the local people, wild dogs should have a high conservation priority. Moreover, tribe and gender are important demographic variables that explain the negative or positive perceptions of attempts to relocate wild dogs from the Loliondo Game Controlled Area to the Serengeti National Park (SNP). We conclude that future conservation interventions should focus on the interface between community knowledge and modern conservation science.