Welsh scientists join race to keep Ethiopian wolf from door to extinctionOct 18 2006
Western Mail
A team of Welsh scientists is coming to the rescue of the last group of wolves in sub-saharan Africa.
The beautiful, long-legged, bushy tailed Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis) is the most endangered carnivore in the world with only around 500 left.
They live in packs in isolated highlands 10,000ft above sea level in northern and southern Ethiopia.
For many, the call of the wolf is the original call of the wild but persecution, loss of habitats and recent outbreaks of rabies means the howl of the Ethiopian wolf might never be heard again.
Now a new study by experts from Swansea University working with colleagues in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Oxford and California offers hope of a lifeline.
They are working on a 'low coverage' vaccination strategy that could be an important model for conserving other endangered animals around the globe.
Outbreaks of rabies in 1993 and 2003 in the Simien and Bale mountains where the wolves live have pushed numbers down to extinction point at an estimated 500.
African conservation experts have found out giving vaccinations is not easy.
Ethiopian wolves live in some of the most inaccessible mountain enclaves in the world and it was thought impossible to carry out the sort of blanket vaccination that was deemed necessary for an effective campaign.
But the joint study is using computer simulations to explore the possibility of low-coverage or 'targeted' vaccination.
The scientists are using data from observations in Ethiopia about where the wolf packs travel and about interaction between different packs.
The idea is to work out the most effective way of delivering rabies vaccination to around 30% to 40% of the animals - enough to prevent them being completely wiped out and for new generations to build up wolf pack numbers again.
The mathematical modelling for the study, working out the odds of wolf survival, is being done by the ultra-powerful supercomputer Blue C based at Swansea University's Institute of Life Sciences.
The computer is a predecessor of IBM's Deep Blue which in 1997 became the first computer to defeat a reigning World Chess Champion when it defeated the brilliant strategies put up by a crestfallen Gary Kasparov.
Information on the valleys that different wolf packs use and interaction between different packs is being fed into the wardrobe-sized computer as part of the project.
Mike Gravenor, reader in Epidemiology at the Institute of Life Science at Swansea University, said, 'We use mathematical models to investigate how the structure of population will affect the spread of a disease.
'In certain populations, a reactive vaccination strategy may be too late to prevent a large outbreak.
'However, the wolf populations are structured into family packs with intricate social organisation acting as constraints to the spread of disease.
'For computer modelling exercises such as this we must rely on long-term field observations.
'Here, the study is driven by outstanding data collected over 20 years of efforts to monitor and conserve this species undertaken by the Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Program and the Frankfurt Zoological Society.'
It is hoped that the further development of oral rabies vaccines that can be given in food will in future make it easier to vaccinate the remote wolf populations.
Another member of the project, Dr Dan Haydon, from the University of Glasgow, said, 'Theoreticians have devoted a lot of effort to working out how to vaccinate populations in ways that prevent epidemics getting started, but this requires coverage that is impractical in wild populations.
'We've looked at vaccination studies that don't prevent all outbreaks, but do reduce the chances of really big outbreaks - ones that could push an endangered population over the extinction threshold. These strategies turn out to be effective and a lot more practical.'
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