New Guinea Singing Dog Canis hallstromi
Not classified (but likely critically endangered)
Extant (resident)
West Papua, Papua New Guinea.
Thought for decades to be extinct in the wild, the New Guinea singing dog populations hang on to survival in the remote mountains and forests of New Guinea. They were last spotted in 2017 near the Grasberg gold and copper mine in West Papua.
Elusive and likely now critically endangered, New Guinea Singing Dogs are rapidly disappearing and have no formal protection or conservation in place. Help them survive and fight against #palmoil #deforestation in #WestPapua, #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife
Elusive and likely critically endangered, New Guinea Singing Dogs are rapidly disappearing and have no formal protection. Fight against #palmoil #deforestation in #WestPapua and #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife
Tweet
Editor’s note: Regardless of the human debates over the classification of this animal – they exist in our world and are therefore very important to protect.
Appearance & Behaviour
Their muzzles are short and narrow giving them a fox-like vulpine appearance. They have a narrow body and a short bushy tail. They possess softly furred triangulate ears that stand erect or curved forwards in a conch shell shape. Their fur ranges from tawny russet brown on their backs and flanks; with their tummy, abdomen and paws a whitish or buff colour.
Past sightings have been single dogs or pairs. From this, it is inferred that New Guinea singing dogs don’t form wild packs. Scientists have described the dogs as being wary of humans, highly intelligent, independent, mobile foragers who forage alone or in pairs.
New Guinea singing dogs are named for their melodious and haunting howl. The howling sounds much different from dingoes, grey wolves and coyotes. Howls can last between 3 to 5 seconds and show abrupt changes in frequency.
Threats
Although these dogs have not been formally classified and their threats studied, it can be inferred that they face the same threats as other species in West Papua and Papua New Guinea who struggle with the anthropogenic threats: timber and palm oil deforestation, poaching and hunting, pollution run-off from mines and palm oil plantations, habitat enroachment and competition for food sources with humans.
Chorus howling
New Guinea singing dogs sometimes howl together, a phenomenon known as ‘chorus howling’.
Much like choral singing, one dog starts howling and others join in afterwards with the song being melodically synchronised, with the howling ceasing together afterwards. This phenomenon is common during dawn and dusk.
Hear their singing in the video
Habitat
New Guinea singing dogs live in mountains and swampy mountain regions of Papua New Guinea at an altitude of 2,500 to 4,700 meters. They live amongst mixed forest, beech and mossy forest and alpine grasslands. It is assumed that they once were living across the entire island of New Guinea but their habitat has been reduced dramatically by multiple human pressures.
Diet
Indigenous peoples in Papua New Guinea and West Papua report that New Guinea singing dogs feed on mid-sized marsupials (wallabies, cuscus, tree kangaroos), birds, rodents, fruits, poultry, dwarf cassowaries and other ground-dwelling birds. Although they are opportunistic hunters and scavengers for food with non-specific dietary requirements. They are agile climbers and have been reported to steal the eggs and food of Papuan eagles. Papuan eagles are reported by Indigenous peoples to kill New Guinea singing dogs if they are discovered close to their nests.
Mating and breeding
The New Guinea singing dog possesses an annual seasonality, and if not impregnated will have a second estrus within a few weeks after the end of the first. Sometimes they will have a third.
Males in captivity participate in raising the pups, including the regurgitation of food. Female New Guinea singing dogs are protective of their young and will aggressively attack male dogs if they can sense danger for their pups.
Trilling
During times of mating and high arousal these dogs have been known to trill. A sound with a bird-like character is emitted during high arousal lasting around 800 milliseconds.
These sounds are not made by other canid species. However a Dhole kept in Moscow Zoo was reported to make a similar sound. When kept in captivity along with domestic dogs, they are known to mimic barking and other behaviours.
Origins
Much has been debated about the taxonomy of the New Guinea singing dog (also known as the New Guinea highland dog). Some scientists consider this wild dog to be a species in their own right, others argue that this wild dog species is an ancient relative of the Australian Dingo or a species variation of the domestic dog Canis familiaris.
“The fossil record indicates the species established themselves on the island at least 6,000 years ago, believed to have arrived with human migrants. However, new evidence suggests they may have migrated independently of humans. While the taxonomy and phylogenetic relationships with related breeds and Australian dingoes is currently controversial and under review for both New Guinea singing dogs and highland wild dogs, the scientific and historical importance of the highland wild dog remains critical to understanding canid evolution, canid and human co-evolution and migrations, and human ecology and settlement derived from the study of canids and canid evolution.”
New Guinea Highland Wild Dog Foundation (NGHWDF)
New Guinea singing dogs (NGSD) are distinctive among the Canidae because of their unique and characteristic vocalisation, isolated habitat, and status as a rare representative of wild dogs. Their scarcity, combined with the knowledge that none have been captured or exported since the late 1970s, supports the hypothesis that NGSD are extinct in the wild. We have analysed the nuclear genome of the first dogs captured from the highlands of Papua in approximately 50 y. We provide DNA-based evidence for an ancestral relationship between highland wild dogs (HWD) and captive NGSD suggesting that the founding population of the NGSD is not, in fact, extinct and that HWD should be resourced for conservation efforts to rebuild this unique canid population.
PNAS
In 2017 the New Guinea Highland Wild Dog Foundation announced on their website that they had found around 15 individual dogs in the remote wasteland of the Grasberg gold and copper mine in West Papua.
DNA analysis of excrement has shown that these dogs have a genetic relationship with other dogs found in Oceania, including the dingo.
A 2020 study demonstrated that this group of wild dogs have a much greater amount of genetic diversity than the captive and bred New Guinea Singing Dogs (which are inbred). This indicates that the wild population is healthy, however the size and distribution of the wild population is not known.
New Guinea singing dogs have no formal protections in place and are not considered important enough to be classified in the IUCN Red List.
The #Boycott4Wildlife disagrees with this silent elimination of these important ancient creatures from the public’s consciousness. If you wish to raise your voice for New Guinea singing dogs, join the #Boycott4Wildlife.
You can support this beautiful animal
There are no known formal conservation activities in place for this animal. Make sure that you #Boycottpalmoil and #Boycott4Wildlife in the supermarket and raise awareness of these beautiful ancient dogs in order to support their survival! Find out more here
Further Information
The IUCN has declared that this animal is not worth classifying – this means that New Guinea singing dogs and what happens to them becomes invisiblised and they are even more threatened than other species in West Papua and Papua New Guinea.
New Guinea Highland Wild Dogs Foundation
‘The New Guinea singing dog, once thought extinct, is alive in the wild’, Mongabay (2020)
New Guinea Singing Dogs, Wikipedia.
Surbakti, S. et. al (2020), ‘New Guinea highland wild dogs are the original New Guinea singing dogs’, PNAS. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2007242117.
New Guinea Singing Dog on Vimeo
How can I help the #Boycott4Wildlife?
Contribute in five ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.
3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.
4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Palm Oil Detectives 
Hello Palm Oil Detectives. I am James “Mac” McIntyre, Director of the New Guinea Highland Wild Dog Foundation. It was our team that traveled to Papua Province , 3 times, and generated the information you so succinctly related in your article “Papua New Guinea: Species Endangered by Palm Oil Deforestation” We have recently returned from another successful expedition to this area during the month of October, 2022. The biological samples are now in the hands of our collaborating scientists at Texas A&M awaiting analyzation. We are on-board with your plight( It is our plight too)if we can be of more assistance with you please do not hesitate to contact us.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi James I am very excited to connect with you here and I was so happy to get your message. I have just emailed you back to your email address you left in the reply. Hope you are having a nice weekend, speak soon POD
LikeLike