Asiatic wild dog spotted in Assam region decades after local extinction

In a breakthrough for wildlife conservation in Assam, a study by the Wildlife Institute of India has confirmed the presence of dholes, or Asiatic wild dogs, in the Kaziranga Karbi Anglong Landscape, a region where they were believed to be locally extinct since the 1990s.

“A total of six photos were captured of a single individual on October 31, 2022,” said Ruchi Badola, dean of the Wildlife Institute of India, and one of the authors of the June 2025 paper that documents the first photographic evidence of dholes in the landscape in decades.

The individual dhole was captured multiple times on the same route, located within the Amguri corridor, around 375 metres from the National Highway 37. The nearest human settlement is about 270 metres away.

The camera record highlights the critical role of wildlife corridors in supporting the movement and survival of elusive carnivores like dholes in fragmented, non-protected landscapes, said the study.

“This was the only instance where we captured a dhole on camera in the landscape during the study period,” said Badola who conducted the study with co-authors Mujahid Ahamad, Jyotish Ranjan Deka, Priyanka Borah, Umar Saeed and Syed Ainul Hussain. The study, published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa, was funded by the National Tiger...

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