There are four wolf populations in North Ethiopia and the Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Programme has been monitoring all of them since 2000. These populations are very small and vulnerable to extinction. Due to a limited budget, EWCP only has one wolf monitor to cover all four populations.
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In order to improve our monitoring presence in the North, and to gather more information on these wolves and the threats they face, EWCP approached the local community in the Wollo highlands for help. We have now recruited three “Wolf Ambassadors” in these core wolf areas, who are our eyes and ears when our monitor is elsewhere.
One of these ambassadors is Tesfaye Milashu from Aboi Gara, a friend of EWCP’s since we first visited the Afroalpine range in 1999. Our Wolf Ambassadors, who have been trained and equipped with binoculars and global positioning systems, represent EWCP in local areas and monitor the wolf packs there. They are also alert to problems such as disease outbreaks or persecution.
We are working on a similar concept in the southern Arsi Mountains, home to the third-largest wolf population in Ethiopia, and hope to extend the ambassador programme into more wolf areas in the future.
