If the dogs are within range, Szykman jumps back into her jeep to rendezvous with them before they awake. Szykman, a research fellow of the Smithsonian National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C., is tracking the dogs for the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Predator Project.

The African wild dog, Lycaon pictus, also called the painted wolf or the Cape hunting dog is the victim mainly of human persecution. The dog is listed as endangered by the World Conservation Union (IUCN). Lycaon pictus once roamed most of sub-Saharan Africa. Now only about 5,000 dogs can be found in isolated pockets.

In 1997, 2000, and 2003, wildlife managers reintroduced several packs of wild dogs from elsewhere in South Africa at Hluhluwe-iMfolozi in hopes of rebuilding the species.

Wildlife officials, ecologists and scientists like Szykman are watching and studying the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi reintroduction because such programs are integral to Lycaon's survival.

Adult wild dogs, with round saucer-like ears and a "painted" black, white, brown, and yellow coat, weigh up to 55 pounds (25 kilograms) and stand about 2 feet tall (60 centimeters) with the delicate build of a greyhound.

"This is one of the most intensely social animals out there," said Szykman, a behavioral ecologist. "The entire pack-sometimes up to 20 dogs-always hunts, plays, walks, and feeds together. They never leave an animal behind and are always reinforcing social bonds."

Efficient Killers

Each pack has only one breeding pair, and the rest of the pack helps raise the annual litter-up to 20 pups, one of the largest litter sizes of all carnivores. Lycaon pictus hunts in packs and kills by disemboweling, a technique that never helped their reputation among humans.

Szykman's job is particularly tough because wild dogs are tough to track. These nomads travel up to 20 miles (30 kilometers) daily, with vast home ranges, 200 to 300 square miles (600 to 800 square kilometers) on average.

"As a discipline, the science of reintroduction has been poorly studied," said Steven Monfort, Szykman's collaborator and a research veterinarian at the Smithsonian's Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal, Virginia.

"Reintroduction is a black box. Governments set aside land, and other people dump animals in there, which makes them feel good. If the animals increase, the reintroduction is a big success. If they decrease nobody knows what went wrong," Monfort said.

The Predator Project monitors the physiology and stress-via hormone levels-of the wild dogs before and after the reintroduction.

The dogs' radio collars provide only limited contact. A proposal is in the works to develop a satellite-tagging system so that Szykman and Monfort can track the animals year-round and mark their range, including proximity to humans and other threats.

Competing with Lions and Hyenas

The researchers also hope to expand the use of satellite collars to hyenas and lions to understand how competition with these predators affects the dogs' reproduction and survival. "If you fence in a reserve or surround a wild area with human settlement then you need to adjust the species levels to maintain healthy populations of dogs, hyenas, and lions which are all interacting on overlapping turf," said Monfort.

To measure the dogs' hormone levels, Szykman searches for scat. Back in Monfort's lab they are analyzed for the byproducts of corticosteroids-hormones released from the adrenal gland during stress.

A little stress, an adaptive response that provides the body with additional energy, is not bad. But continuous stress-possibly caused by reintroduction or by competition with or proximity to other predators-could undermine the immune system, leaving the dogs susceptible to rabies, canine distemper, and other diseases carried by nearby domestic dogs.

"Wild dogs are probably the hardest of the African carnivores to reintroduce-they are nomadic, social, and require tremendously large areas to roam," said Joshua Ginsberg, co-author of the IUCN African Wild Dog Status Survey and Action Plan, and currently the director of the Asia Program for the Bronx-based Wildlife Conservation Society in New York.

Insurance Against Disease

"Reintroduction is exciting because it beats captive management. But in the long term, it is useless unless it results in larger, well protected reserves or changes patterns of land use," said Ginsberg. "These wild dog populations won't be self sustaining unless the land area is large enough."

To Scott Creel, a behavioral ecologist at Montana State University in Bozeman, reintroduction is the right approach for South Africa.

"There is a long history of reintroductions there," said Creel, co-author of The African Wild Dog: Behavior, Ecology and Conservation. "They have a good idea of what works and what doesn't."

Hunting decimated the wild dog population in South Africa except for Kruger National Park where there are approximately 300 to 500 dogs. Though Creel is also not convinced that the reintroduced wild dog population will thrive without hands-on management, he supports the effort because reintroduction of these animals at smaller satellite parks and private reserves raises the national wild dog population and is an insurance policy if disease hits.

Already the luck of Lycaon pictus is changing. In the past, ranchers often just shot the dogs on sight. Now when somebody sees the dogs outside the reserve, Szykman gets a call about their location.