Ethiopian wolf  (Canis simensis)

The Ethiopian wolf has been reduced to a handful of mountain ranges due to pressures on the habitat, particularly conversion to agriculture (2). As populations have become increasingly isolated by the fragmentation of their habitat, the likelihood of local extinctions has increased. Rabies and distemper transmitted from domestic dogs to the wolves, and hybridisation resulting from breeding with domestic dogs further threatens the survival of this species (4) (6).

Determined conservation efforts are needed in order to ensure the long-term survival of the remaining Ethiopian wolf populations. The Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Programme (EWCP) is a joint long-term project between the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at Oxford University, the Born Free Foundation and the Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Organisation, under the aegis of the IUCN Canid Specialist Group (4). The EWCP carries out vital conservation measures in the field, working closely with local people, and undertakes population monitoring and other needed research. Some of the activities undertaken so far in the Bale Mountains include assistance with park management in Bale, vaccination and sterilisation of local dogs, education programmes and tourism development (4), and the EWCP team has now expanded its activities to all wolf populations in the north of the country (7).

In October and November 2008, the EWCP team undertook an urgent programme to vaccinate Ethiopian wolves from an outbreak of rabies in the region. Without action, it is believed that two-thirds of all wolves in the Bale area would die, a decline that would leave the global Ethiopian wolf population at perilously low levels. It is only thanks to years of intensive research that this vital vaccination plan was possible (7).