SOURCE: The Guardian
DATE: July 20, 2017
SNIP: Rising temperatures are making it too hot for African wild dogs to hunt and the number of their pups that survive is plummeting, according to a new study. The research is among the first to show a direct impact of increased heat on wildlife that appears well adapted to high temperatures.
“When people think about climate change affecting wildlife, they mostly think about polar bears,” said Prof Rosie Woodroffe, at the Zoological Society of London and who led the new research published in the Journal of Animal Ecology. “But wild dogs are adapted to the heat – surely they’d be fine? So it is shocking and surprising that even right on the equator these effects are being seen. It illustrates the global impact of climate change.”
African wild dogs need large hunting ranges to survive, about 800 km squared for the average pack of nine, equivalent to the area of New York City. But the projected rises in maximum daily temperatures due to global warming are ominous, said Woodroffe: “It’s really scary. It is possible that some of these big areas will become too hot for wild dogs to exist.”