**5. Conclusions and future directions**

298 Modern Telemetry

Several studies have suggested that a major reason why very few wild-dog reintroduction programs have succeeded to produce viable populations is because the game reserves were too small to include the whole home range of this species. Our findings provide support for this argument. In this study, the reintroduced wild-dog pack had a home range that was larger than the boundaries of the game reserve, indicating that these animals needed to use not only the entire reserve but also adjacent areas. Moreover, the center of activities (i.e., core areas) of the reintroduced wild-dog pack represented ~29% of the whole game reserve. Interestingly, most of the telemetry locations recorded in this study were situated in the southern region of the game reserve (Fig. 3). Different factors may be attracting wild dogs to this part of the game reserve and its neighbouring habitats. First, there is a private-game reserve (Phinda Game Reserve) that presents a similar wildlife diversity (including wild dogs) than that of Mkhuze Game Reserve, with the addition of lions. Wild dogs are social animals, so it is possible that they were interacting with conspecific animals occurring in the private game reserve. Second, the habitats preferred by wild dogs are more abundant in the southern border of the game reserve. In this study, we found that the wild-dog pack selected for *Terminalia sericea* savannah (3,334 ha) and *Acacia nilotica* low closed woodland (1,742 ha) habitats. These two habitats only represent ~14% of the whole game reserve, with most of the *Terminalia sericea* savannah habitat being located at the southern border of the reserve. Conservation efforts and future wild-dog reintroduction programs should consider the protection and restoration of these two habitat types in other parts of the Mkhuze Game

Another factor that may have contributed to the failure of this wild-dog reintroduction may be competition for prey with other mammalian predators. Several studies have shown that wild dogs will avoid areas with high prey density if competition (or mortality due to) with predators such as hyaenas and lions is high (Creel & Creel, 1996; Mills & Gorman, 1997). In Mkhuze Game Reserve, there are no lions, but hyaenas are abundant. Thus, it is possible that although some habitats were available to wild-dogs, in practical terms, they were not accessible to them. For example, we found that one of the habitat types that wild dogs preferred was low closed woodlands dominated by *Acacia nilotica,* small bushes and deciduous tree species. This type of habitat is ideal for antelope species such as impala and nyala, but it may be sometimes too dense to prevent wild-dogs pack hunting coordination to be effective. However, *Terminalia sericea* savannah, the other habitat type preferred by wild dogs, is characterized by dense vegetation. Although hunting should theoretically be more efficient in this habitat type because the ability of other competitor species (e.g., hyaena) to locate and steal prey from wild-dog packs is reduced, *Terminalia sericea* savannah only represents ~9% of the total game reserve. Other studies have found that wild dogs preferred deciduous and thorn woodlands (Creel & Creel, 2002) as well as forest and open-woodland (Andreka, 1996). In this study, we found that river floodplain, riverine forest and woodland habitats dominated by tall *Acacia* trees were avoided by wild dogs. Low-thicket habitats can be dense in many areas of Mkhuze Game Reserve. Although many avian and small-bodied mammalian species may benefit from dense vegetation, large-bodied herbivores (common prey of wild dogs) are usually not able to find sufficient grazing area in this type of habitat. This may explain why wild-dogs tended to avoid low-thicket habitats in the game reserve. Two decades ago, a successful reintroduction of a mammalian carnivore species in Africa was considerable unfeasible. Today, however, sufficient evidence exists suggesting that planned and well-documented reintroductions of mammalian carnivores are possible (Hayward et al., 2007a, 2007b). In part, this is because the results of other reintroductions

Reserve.

The examination of habitat selection and home range patterns is an essential first step in the management of any wildlife species whether they are abundant, rare or endangered. The main goal of this chapter was to demonstrate how radio-telemetry data could be used to provide previously unavailable insights into the habitat selection and home range patterns of two mammalian carnivore species inhabiting human-dominated landscapes. In Case 1, the use of radio-telemetry data helped us to show that the presence of anthropogenic food sources in human-use areas and along roads is altering home range and habitat-selection patterns of red foxes inhabiting Prince Edward Island National Park (Prince Edward Island, Canada). In Case 2, radio-telemetry data were used to quantify home range and habitatselection patterns of a wild-dog pack reintroduced in Mkhuze Game Reserve, South Africa. In this case, our analyses not only helped us to quantify these patterns, but also to provide some insights into the reasons why this wild-dog reintroduction program failed. Radiotelemetry data clearly showed that the game reserve was smaller than the home-range of the wild dog pack and that the two habitat types that are preferred by the wild dogs only represent 9% of the total area of the reserve.

The advent of satellite technology, such as global positioning systems (GPS), has allowed wildlife researchers to collect telemetry data on a temporal scale that was not previously practical. Observations can now be obtained many times per day for many months with GPS devices. Although GPS applications have certainly transformed wildlife telemetry, they are not without problems. GPS-collars can be very expensive and experience failures in the field during data collection and trade-offs between GPS location collection intervals and unit longevity lead generally to fewer monitored individuals and shorter study durations compared with radio-telemetry (Frair et al., 2010; Gau et al., 2004; Hebblewhite et al., 2007). Another problem associated with GPS-telemetry is that a decreased interval between recorded locations results in an increased level of autocorrelation in the resulting data. Although some researchers consider that autocorrelation in telemetry data is not a problem, others still disagree with this statement and argue that is really necessary to account for GPS errors in wildlife telemetry studies (Frair et al., 2010). In contrast with GPS-telemetry, radiotelemetry is inexpensive, accuracy is adequate for many types of investigations and it is possible to carry out studies for a relatively long time period. For instance, if the budget for the investigation is low, the use of radio-telemetry technology may be the only choice. This is the case of many developing areas of the world where ecologically-sensitive issues are present and is often very difficult for researchers or wildlife managers to acquire GPScollars. Another important advantage of radio-telemetry technology is that radio-collars can be implemented on almost all animals for which GPS telemetry devices are too heavy. Having said this, it is important to mention that radio-telemetry technology can be timeconsuming and limited by weather conditions. Thus, interpretations should be constrained within the accuracy and precision of the equipment and personnel involved in collecting the radio-telemetry data.

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It is clear that emerging technologies such as GPS-telemetry open new avenues in wildlife telemetry and ecological research because they can provide more detailed information regarding fine-grain movement patterns. Ultimately, however, technologies are just tools in the hands of researchers. The choice of a given telemetry technology should be based on the kind of questions that one is trying to answer or investigate. In this chapter, the key focal points of our case studies were very specific, have clear conservation/management applications and dealt with medium-bodied size carnivore species. Additionally, in both case studies, the study areas were small which facilitated field work and our ability to track all collared animals daily without much effort. Therefore, in both case studies examined here, radio-telemetry technology was more than adequate to identify the habitat types that were avoided or preferred by the carnivore species under investigation. Clearly, the advent of GPS technology will allow ecologists and wildlife managers to develop more sophisticated and rigorous methods to assess home range and habitat-selection patterns. However, what is really needed at this point is to develop new methods or approaches to extract a maximal amount of information from data obtained from less-sophisticated technology such as radio-telemetry.
