African Painted Dogs Could Be Cooked Into Extinction By Climate Change

When people think of animals that could be driven extinct by climate change, they usually think of polar bears and, perhaps these days, emperor penguins, both of which are struggling to survive due to the lack of sea ice at the poles. But a newly published study by a team of researchers based in Great Britain finds that African wild dogs will likely go extinct too if average global temperatures increase by more than 3°C (5.4°F). The African wild dog, Lycaon pictus, also known as the painted dog or Cape hunting dog, is an endangered wild canine native to sub-Saharan Africa where it inhabits savannas and arid regions. A previous study — which took place at sites in Kenya, Botswana and Zimbabwe — found that intentional and unintentional killing by humans, as well as disease spread by domestic dogs, accounted for 44% of all African wild dog deaths at the study sites between 2002 and 2017 (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.7601" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">ref</a>). <a href="https://medium.com/gardening-birding-and-outdoor-adventure/african-painted-dogs-could-be-cooked-into-extinction-by-climate-change-570fa7978264">Read More</a>