• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Africa’s Most Endangered Carnivore Has Been Around For Over 1 Million Years

November 18, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

Africa is home to a rich array of carnivorous animals, from ferocious felids like lions and cheetahs to smaller creatures like foxes and mongoose. However, many such predators are also some of the continent’s most endangered – perhaps none more so than the highland-dwelling Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis).

An ancient African species…

You’d be forgiven for thinking an Ethiopian wolf was a fox from a distance – like their fellow canids, they have reddish fur with some white patches. They are definitely wolves, however, though slenderer and more long-legged than the gray wolves many of us are familiar with.

Advertisement

Social animals in all areas but hunting, packs of wild Ethiopian wolves are found in only six populations throughout Ethiopia, where they are endemic and restricted to alpine regions over 3,000 meters (9,843 feet) above sea level. That’s thought to be largely down to their diet, which consists of giant mole rats.

One of the most iconic African species, fossil records have led recent research to estimate that the Ethiopian wolf first appeared on the continent at least 1.6 to 1.4 million years ago. In that time, the species had likely previously encountered serious challenges to its survival during periods of climate change – but it persisted.

…that’s now under threat

Now, the Ethiopian wolf is at risk again. It’s classed as an endangered species on the IUCN Red List, with recent monitoring data estimating that just 454 adult wolves in 99 packs remain across an area of 2,700 square kilometers (1,042 square miles), and the population is still declining.

Unlike historical periods of decline, however, the threats this time around are thought to have a lot more to do with human activity – primarily, our domestication of dogs and the resulting spread of disease.

Advertisement

“The most immediate threat is posed by viral diseases transmitted by domestic dogs, with large packs and the social nature of wolves increasing the risk of epizootics resulting in large demographic fluctuations,” write the authors of the 2024 study describing the latest Ethiopian wolf monitoring data.

“In the Bale Mountains, the largest population, outbreaks of rabies and canine distemper virus (CDV) have reduced local populations by up to 75 percent and their recovery has been delayed when disease extirpated whole breeding units or packs.”

There are other human-related threats too. The wolves’ natural habitat in the Ethiopian highlands has made an attractive target for agricultural expansion; according to the Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Programme (EWCP), 60 percent of the land suitable for the wolves has already been converted for use in agriculture.

In these circumstances, the future of the Ethiopian wolf is “conservation dependent”, the study authors write. To ensure their survival will require “better habitat protection, active management of disease, fostering of coexistence, and eventually, conservation translocations to manage several small, isolated populations as a metapopulation.”

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Cricket-Manchester test likely to be postponed after India COVID-19 case
  2. EU to attend U.S. trade meeting put in doubt by French anger
  3. Soccer-West Ham win again, Leicester and Napoli falter
  4. Was Jesus A Hallucinogenic Mushroom? One Scholar Certainly Thought So

Source Link: Africa’s Most Endangered Carnivore Has Been Around For Over 1 Million Years

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • “Potential Impact On Saturn”: Astronomers Appeal For Help As Video Appears To Show Object Hitting The Gas Giant
  • What Is Prosopometamorphopsia? The “Exceedingly Rare” Condition That Made A Patient See Faces As Dragons
  • Are We In An Enormous Void? It Could Explain What’s Wrong With Our Model Of The Universe
  • Woylies Boing Back Into Western Australia Thanks To Groundbreaking Wildlife Project
  • North America’s Oldest Pterosaur And Turtle Fossils Found In Arizona’s Petrified Forest
  • Proposed “Dark Dwarfs” Near The Galactic Center Could Reveal The Nature Of Dark Matter
  • Watch: 18-Kilometer-High Ash Cloud Looms Over Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki After “Explosive” Eruption
  • “ShipGoo001”: Mystery Of Entirely New Lifeform Discovered Coating A Great Lakes Ship
  • Rare White Humpback Whale Calf Filmed By Drone Off Australia’s East Coast
  • Who Was Buried At Cave Of Salome: A Female Disciple, Jesus’ Midwife, Or A Princess?
  • “Hidden” Changes To US Health Data Swapping “Gender” For “Sex” Spark Fears For Public Trust
  • Easter Island Was Never As Isolated As We Thought – Study Puts That “Strange Argument” To Bed
  • If Birds Are Dinosaurs, Why Are None As Big As T. Rexes?
  • Psychologists Demonstrate Illusion That Could Be Screwing Up Our Perception Of Time
  • Why Are So Many Enormous Roman Shoes Being Discovered At Hadrian’s Wall?
  • Scientists Think They’ve Pinpointed Structural Differences In Psychopaths’ Brains
  • We’ve Found Our Third-Ever Interstellar Visitor, Orcas Filmed Kissing (With Tongues) In The Wild, And Much More This Week
  • The “Eyes Of Clavius” Will Be Visible On The Moon Today, Thanks To Clair-Obscur Effect
  • Shockingly High Microplastic Levels Found On Remote Mediterranean Coral Reef Island
  • Interstellar Object, Cheesy Nightmares, And Smooching Orcas
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version