Don't Fence Me In: Researchers Devise Bio-Boundary for African Wild Dogs
NORTHERN TULI GAME RESERVE, Botswana--The African wild dogs are about 80 feet (25 meters) away as Craig Jackson slips out of his Land Rover with a softball-size wad of tinfoil. He unwraps the dank sand--reeking of ammonia and other unidentified compounds--and plunks it on the ground. The sand was collected hundreds of kilometers away on the Okavango River Delta where two pack leaders, Yollo and Chinaca, had left their scent-laced urine. Over the past year, Jackson, a biologist, and his colleagues working on the Northern Tuli Wild Dog Project, have shown that strategically placed urine--called Bio-Boundaries--can help restrict the movements of these notorious fence-breakers in order to keep the endangered canines on protected land. "The fact that we've been able to contain these dogs is amazing," Jackson says. [More]