By Graham Hemson

At the end of September EWCP field staff discovered a dead wolf in the Web Valley swiftly followed by seven more by mid October. On 10th October our worst fears were confirmed with rabies diagnosed. EWCP staff supported by Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Authority have mobilised to the area in a desperate attempt to control the outbreak and limit it to the Web Valley.

Only 500 wolves remain on seven isolated mountain tops, 300 of these live in Bale of which the Web Valley is at the core. Rabies is a devastating disease in wolves and if left unchecked may kill ¾ of the population in Bale. Wolves die horrible painful deaths after losing control and infecting their pack mates consigning their family to the same fate. The virus was likely passed to wolves by a dog brought by migrant herders seeking better pasture in the highlands and coming from outside EWCP’s cordon sanitaire around the park. Once into the population the close knit family bonds of wolf society mean the virus spreads very rapidly through wolves. Carcasses are consumed by feral dogs, hyaenas and other carnivores furthering the penetration of the virus into the food chain.

Fortunately for the EWCP the Web Valley is connected to the other large wolf populations in Sanetti and Morebawa by two narrow isthmuses of wolf habitat. Our competent team, led by Claudio Sillero, is already on the ground capturing wolves in these areas to vaccinate them against rabies in an attempt to control the spread. This action has been sanctioned by the IUCN Veterinary and Canid Specialist Groups and the Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Authority.

We urgently need support to shore up our efforts and to keep our people, vehicles, horses and equipment going for as long as five months in the field. The intervention will require significant resources from EWCP and we will be approaching our donors and friends for additional help.

While we are always prepared to intervene in an emergency such as this we need to change from being reactive to proactive. This epidemic has reinvigorated our drive to instigate an oral vaccination programme for wolves to ensure that these disasters do not occur again.