African painted dogs have been spotted in the far north-east of Uganda for the first time in about 40 years, the country’s wildlife authority has said.
Also known as African wild dogs, they have been listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
“African painted dogs, which went extinct in Uganda in the 1980s, were sighted on Monday morning around the Narus River in Kidepo Valley National Park,” AFP quotes a statement from the Ugandan Wildlife Authority (UWA) sent to the agency on Wednesday as saying.
Earlier, UWA had posted some fairly blurred photos on Twitter of two dogs taken by one its rangers “before the pair skipped out of view”.
EXCITING NEWS: African Painted Dogs (commonly Wild Dogs) which went extinct in Uganda in the 1980’s were sighted this morning around the Narus River in Kidepo Valley National Park. One of our resident rangers captured these images hastily before the pair skipped out of view.
1/5 pic.twitter.com/MuMRwr68Rt
— Uganda Wildlife Authority (@ugwildlife) June 26, 2023
Local wildlife conservationist Paul Oketcho told AFP the discovery was a happy development, given Uganda has a history of not conserving such wildlife.
“Rhinos, elephants and lions are facing extinction due to poaching and mismanagement by those in charge of wildlife,” he said.