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Black-backed jackals in Namibian livestock areas rely mostly on wild prey

Black-backed jackal hunting for food on sandy ground at Cape Cross, Namibia
Conservation · Human–wildlife conflict

Black-backed jackals (Lupulella mesomelas) are frequently blamed for losses of sheep and goats in southern Africa. A study published in July 2026 tested how closely that perception matches what jackals actually eat in a livestock-dominated landscape in central-eastern Namibia.

Researchers collected suspected jackal scats between 2019 and 2022 in four communal conservancies in the Okakarara District. The samples were genetically confirmed as black-backed jackal before their contents were analysed. The team also compared jackal diet close to and farther than 10 kilometres from known African wild dog denning areas to test whether the larger carnivore changed the food available to jackals.

Wild ungulates supplied 48.8% of estimated food biomass

Small mammals and beetles were among the food items found most frequently, but they contributed relatively little biomass. Biomass estimates are useful here because a small prey item can appear frequently in scat while still contributing much less food mass than a large ungulate. Wild ungulates made up the largest share of the estimated food biomass at 48.8 percent. Livestock, mainly smallstock such as sheep and goats, contributed 15.9 percent.

When the researchers compared the diet with spatial estimates of how widely different potential food sources used the landscape, smallstock appeared to be consumed less than expected from those availability proxies. African wild dog den proximity had no detectable effect on jackal diet.

The authors conclude that black-backed jackals in these Namibian communal conservancies obtained most of their dietary biomass from wild ungulates, while livestock contributed a smaller share. They suggest that maintaining abundant wild prey could help reduce livestock depredation and support coexistence with carnivores in livestock-producing landscapes.

Sources and image credit

  1. Munyandi, E., Cristescu, B., Verschueren, S., Mbidzo, M., le Roux, N., Marker, L., & Schmidt-Küntzel, A. (2026). Mesocarnivore diet in a human-dominated landscape with abundant livestock and low large carnivore occurrence. Wildlife Research, 53(7), WR26008. https://doi.org/10.1071/WR26008Primary peer-reviewed study, published 15 July 2026

Image: Giles Laurent — black-backed jackal hunting for food at Cape Cross, Namibia; representative image. Source: Wikimedia Commons. · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

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