This concept was first initiated in the mid-90s, following an international workshop among wild dog experts, as a means to set up a second viable population of wild dogs in South Africa outside the Kruger National Park.

Its central focus was to set up a series of small wild dog populations that were managed as one large population by moving individuals among sites. In the past few years the metapopulation grew from fewer than 40 wild dogs in two sub-populations to more than 200 wild dogs at eight sites - including those at Venetia.

"Crucially, Ringo and Pattern are the only pack members that are not related to each other. Should one of them die this would leave the pack with no more viable breeding opportunities.

"One possible outcome of this is that the pack would eventually splinter and disperse ... and in the worst-case scenario we could find in-breeding taking place," said Davies-Mostert.

Only 20% of wild dogs in the Kruger National Park ever made it past four years. This meant that the chance of one of the Venetia alpha dogs dying in the near future was very high, she said.

After much deliberation among members of the Wild Dog Advisory Group - who jointly advised members of the national metapopulation on management issues - it was decided that the best way to solve the potential problem at Venetia was to completely swop out all of the dogs of one sex so that the males and females were no longer related.

"Given the make-up of the pack at the time (nine adult males, four adult females and nine pups) we realised it was going to be easiest to swop the females. After careful consideration we decided that the best option was to take some females from Hluhluwe/ Umfolozi Park and Thanda Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal."

It was hoped that they would attract the Venetia males to the boma where researchers could bond the new pack before releasing them back into the reserve.

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