African wild dogs have the largest home ranges of any African carnivore — habitat fragmentation that prevents pack movement creates welfare and conservation crises for this highly social species.
Wild dogs confined to insufficient territory by habitat fragmentation face food insecurity, pack stress, and increased conflict with human communities. Packs that cannot range freely cannot sustain the cooperative hunting that feeds all members, including dependent young. Social isolation of pack members through snaring or human conflict kills individuals whose absence disrupts cooperative care for pups. The welfare of wild dog populations is fundamentally a landscape-scale problem — individual welfare is inseparable from the spatial context in which packs can function.