Waterberg Wild Dog Initiative

The Waterberg Wild Dog Initiative (WWDI) is a community-driven, non-profit organization aiming to conserve the free-roaming African Wild Dog population in the Waterberg, Limpopo, South Africa.

The WWDI works alongside the community to provide education and raise awareness about the population, monitor and collect data on the population, implement projects to mitigate threats to their conservation, and promote the ecotourism potential of African wild dogs in the Waterberg.
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By engaging the community with the conservation efforts, the WWDI hopes to create a sustainably safe environment for the Waterberg Wild Dogs.


During denning seasons, the WWDI assists with coordinating ecotourism projects that generate funds from visitors paying to see the wild dog pack and distributed the funds back to the landowners impacted by the pack denning on their property and the surrounding properties. The model leverages the opportunity to observe free-roaming wild dogs while they are relatively stationary during the denning season and uses the funds generated to mitigate the impact of the wild dogs on the properties around the chosen den site. These periods also provided an opportunity to increase awareness and appreciation for the Waterberg Wild Dogs and to learn new information about them that can be shared with the local community and interested researchers.


The WWDI’s efforts are helping get the information needed by the community to better understand the Waterberg Wild Dog population and using this information to support the community conserving the packs. By prioritising the conservation of the Waterberg Wild Dogs, we’re prioritising the efforts of a community who is invested in the dogs.

These efforts and successes show that a community-driven initiative and a co-existence framework can support the conservation of free-ranging African wild dogs in the Waterberg.