Rabies threat to rare wolf under control

A rabies outbreak threatening to wipe out the rare Ethiopian wolf is being controlled by an unprecedented vaccination campaign, wildlife experts said on Wednesday. Dr Stuart Williams, a conservationist fighting to save the endangered animal, told IRIN it was the first time that wildlife in Ethiopia had been vaccinated against disease. There are less than 500 Ethiopian wolves - an animal as rare as pandas - left in the wild, the majority living in the remote mountainous areas of southern Ethiopia. “This is a very significant step and sets a precedent for wildlife conservation in Ethiopia,” added Williams heads the Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Programme (EWCP). The rabies outbreak occurred in late October, and according to experts threatened the entire wolf population in the Bale Mountains area, 550 km from the capital Addis Ababa. Although 50 wolves have been lost, currently some 40 wolves in 10 packs have been caught and vaccinated ensuring their survival, Williams said. Only 70 per cent of a pack need to be vaccinated to fight rabies and the campaign – which started in November - will continue until March, he added. The animals - which evolved from the grey wolf about 100,000 years ago during the last ice age and are about half the weight of their grey cousins - are first trapped and sedated before being vaccinated and then released. Dr Williams says the vaccination campaign has provided abundant scientific and technical data which will prove vital for the future study of wildlife in the country. Ethiopia’s wildlife has come under increasing pressure in recent years due to massive deforestation and from farmers turning over land to agriculture. But the main threat to the endangered wolves is from diseases, such as rabies, caught from domestic dogs and by mating with them which wipes out the gene pool. The last rabies outbreak occurred in 1991 when three quarters of the 300 wolves in the Bale Mountains were wiped out. It has taken a decade for their numbers to get back to 1991 levels, Dr Williams said.