Only about 500 alive today?
Ethiopian Wolves are an elegant long-legged wolves found only at some mountains in Ethiopia. These wolves are called into many different names because they look like fox and they also looked like wolves. But as the recent study shows, it has been stated that Ethiopian Wolves are not a family of fox but a family of wolves. These animals are the rarest canid species in the world.
Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Program
Aim to Save this Endangered Species.
Ethiopian Wolves are carnivorous animals and for that, humans feared them and some hunt them which is a very wrong idea. For the present time, there are only about 500 adults left in some scattered mountains in Ethiopia and these amounts is feared to be decreasing due to some hunting persistence, habitat loss and diseases that are transmitted from domestic dogs. The Afroalpine Ecosystem; home of Ethiopian Wolves and many endemic species are also close to completely being lost which is feared to be the end of the Ethiopian Wolves. For that, an Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Program (EWCP) was created from way back 1995 and up to present it’s still running. The conservation program was once known as the Ethiopian Wolf Project formed by Chris Hillman and Claudio Sillero in 1988.
With its uncomfortable habitat, Ethiopian Wolves can’t breed properly. And because they only have small isolated population, their species can be wiped out in just a short span of time caused by natural catastrophe or epidemic diseases like rabies. The aim of EWCP or Wolf Conservation Program is to save the surviving population of Ethiopian Wolves and study its species and sub-species to find a way to repopulate it. Way back in 2003, the feared extinction was actually close as a rabies outbreak happened. EWCP did their best to save the Ethiopian Wolves by giving vaccination to every wolf and even the domestic dogs nearby.
EWCP and other organizations are doing their best in saving Ethiopian Wolves but we can never tell as Mother Nature will eventually take its course.
We can only hope that the small population of these wolves will increase for the sake of the next generation.