Consultoria

Wolves of Ethiopia
Why is the Ethiopian wolf the rarest canid on the planet?
Mornings on the high Sanetti Plateau of Ethiopia's Bale Mountains break cold and spare, the sun's first rays stirring not warmth, but an icy, cutting wind. I pull my neck gaiter over my chin, stomp my feet on the frozen grass, and tell myself again that this is Africa. Then, on a rocky outcrop some 20 feet away, a wolfappears. She throws back her head and yips—five quick, sharp calls that summon four other wolves, all males. They paw and stretch and lick each other's muzzles, tails wagging.
They are red, these wolves, with black-and-white tails, and white blazes on their chests. The fur on their throats is white too, and sweeps in a curve toward their eyes, giving them the look of laughing clowns. But it'sthe sassy hue of their coats that catches your eye. We're the top dogs here, their color proclaims. And they are. For these are Ethiopian wolves: the only species of wolf found in Africa.
Six pups come tumbling from beneath a rock, and their mother—the female that had called the pack together—greets them, letting them nurse for a moment. But mornings for the Ethiopian wolf are for patrolling, andthe mother and her companions are ready to go. They leave the pups to the care of a younger female and set off at a brisk trot, loping over the icy grass and silvery Helichrysum shrubs in a classic wolf beeline.
One glances at us—wildlife biologist Deborah Randall and me—giving us an "Aren't you coming?" look. Randall shoulders her pack and spotting scope. And we're off: running with the wolvesin Africa, pursuing a leftover ice age species in a chilly remnant of Africa's ice age world.
The Ethiopian wolves had their beginning here some 100,000 years ago during a global ice age when glaciers covered the peaks and plateaus of the Bale Mountains. A small number of gray-wolflike ancestors ventured into this wintry land from Eurasia. They never made it farther into Africa, for beyondEthiopia's mountain massif lay only desert. As isolated as if they lived on an island, those wolves evolved into the separate—and rare—species we're trailing.
Researchers estimate that about 600 Canis simensis are scattered throughout the highlands of the country (as their common name implies, they are found only in Ethiopia). The largest concentration—about 350 animals—lives in Bale MountainsNational Park. Their minuscule population gives them the distinction of being one of the world's most endangered canids, and they are on the endangered list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.
Here at 13,000-plus feet they share their habitat with Oromo farmers and herders, who often graze their cattle and horses inside the park. It's not unusual to see wolveshunting rodents among the browsing livestock, and the Oromo (who tolerate the wolves because they seldom kill domestic animals) have named them for this trait: jedalla farda, or horse's jackal.
The wolves are thus accustomed to seeing people every day, and many packs like this one are used to being trailed by Randall and researchers from the Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Programme (EWCP), a jointproject of Oxford University and the Ethiopian government. For Randall, they also offer the chance to collect the data for her doctoral study on the wolves' genetics.
That data became easier to collect after late 2003, when a rabies epidemic swept through the wolves in the Web Valley below the Sanetti Plateau, decimating five packs and killing all their newborn pups. During the epidemic EWCPbiologists vaccinated some of the Sanetti wolves, hoping to form a barricade against the disease. To keep track of the vaccinated wolves, the researchers clipped colored tags into the tops of their ears and outfitted some with radio collars.
"We really don't know them as individuals," Randall says as we stomp over the frozen ground. "But now that they're tagged, we can see who sleeps together,...