Remembering African Wild Dogs

By Megan Shersby

Published: Tuesday, 09 November 2021 at 12:00 am

About Remembering African Wild Dogs

The latest and sixth instalment of this landmark book series aims to shine a light on its most misunderstood subjects yet. These beautiful canines are one of the world’s most endangered mammals. There are only about 6,600 African wild dogs (also known as painted dogs, painted wolves or African hunting dogs) left in the wild, due to habitat loss, conflict with humans, diseases, bushmeat traps, and conflict with other predators such as lions.

However, this extreme vulnerability is not widely recognised. A survey by Remembering Wildlife found that nearly half of respondents wrongly thought there were more than 10,000 left in the wild. Respondents also had trouble telling the difference between wild dogs and hyenas.

Remembering Wildlife founder and producer Margot Raggett said: “The African wild dog is one of the most misunderstood of mammals and it was shocking to understand through our research the level of ignorance both about them and also about how few are left. The opportunity to not only raise awareness but also raise funds to protect them, is just what this series is about. We don’t want to just remember them in picture books.”

As with the other books in this collection – Remembering Elephants, Remembering Rhinos, Remembering Great Apes, Remembering Lions and Remembering Cheetahs – Remembering African Wild Dogs features images donated by leading wildlife photographers including Marsel van Oosten, Jonathan & Angela Scott, Frans Lanting, Greg du Toit, and Charlie Hamilton James. It also features 10 winning images selected from thousands of entrants to a competition launched earlier in the year.

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Ahead of the publication of the book in early November, Remembering Wildlife made its first major donation ($25,000 USD) from this instalment to a project which successfully translocated 14 African wild dogs from South Africa and Mozambique to Liwonde National Park and Majete Wildlife Reserve in July.

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About the Remembering Wildlife series

The Remembering Wildlife series was created by wildlife photographer Margot Raggett, with the aim of making the most beautiful book on a species ever seen, publishing Remembering Elephants in 2016 after she witnessed the devastation of elephant poaching in Kenya. Remembering Elephants was a great success and is now in its third edition. All proceeds from the book went towards elephant conservation and anti-poaching causes, and the series has since aimed to do the same for many other species.

Since this first book Remembering Wildlife has worked with nearly 200 photographers, sold more than 32,000 copies. It has also donated more than US$1.1m (£850,000 GBP) to 54 projects across 24 countries and raised awareness of the threats facing some of our most iconic endangered species.