3.3. Contact structure: wild dogs
Wild dogs in Australia might act as a reservoir of rabies if an incursion of this exotic disease occurred. The presence of a wildlife reservoir would make rabies eradication difficult and have far reaching economic and social implications (Sparkes et al., 2015).
Existing data to inform rabies spread modelling in wild dog populations are scarce. In a scoping review of wild-living dog ecology and biology in Australia to inform parameterisation for disease spread (Gabriele-Rivet et al., 2019b), lack of data on density and contacts are major research gaps in the literature: only a small number of recent studies on these topics (14 and 12, respectively) was found, with few quantitative estimates. Even for home range, only 24 studies were identified that provided usable evidence. Information from equatorial and tropical climate zones of northern Australia – a high-risk area for a rabies incursion – to inform disease spread is even more limited. Within these zones, no studies reporting information on contact rates were found, and only one study reporting wild dog home range was identified.
In the case of wild dogs, measuring home ranges and inferring contact rates is challenging, particularly in the context of the equatorial and tropical climate zones of northern Australia. Gabriele-Rivet et al (2020) used a camera trap survey to monitor the wild dog population in the NPA. Wild dog density and home range size estimates were derived via maximum-likelihood, spatially explicit, mark–resight models. Densities varied from 0.135 animals/km2 (95% CI = 0.127–0.144) during the dry season to 0.147 animals/km2 (95% CI = 0.135–0.159) during the wet season. Although densities were relatively uniform during the year, suggesting a stable population, estimated home range sizes were highly variable (7.95–29.40 km2). Of note, these home ranges are comparable to some of the estimated HRs of roaming domestic dogs in the NPA (Dürr and Ward, 2014; Hudson et al., 2017; Bombara et al., 2017a).