Wolves and People in the Highlands of Ethiopia

The Ethiopian Wolf is Africa's most threatened carnivore. Find out about the threats it faces and current conservation efforts from WildCRU researcher Dr Jorgelina Marino. 

Ethiopian Wolves are very rare and endemic to an archipelago of Afroalpine islands, where they live surrounded by hard agriculture borders, people, and dogs. Human encroachment continues to erode their shrinking ranges, locking them into further isolation. Small populations become vulnerable to stochastic effects, with competition from domestic dogs – fundamentally disease transmission – posing the most clear and immediate threat to their survival. The future of Africa's most threatened carnivore is conservation dependent, requiring a softening of these hard borders through better habitat protection, fostering coexistence, active management of disease, and eventually a metapopulation approach to manage several small, isolated populations as one.

Entry to this event is £3 (payable at the door) or free for members of the Oxfordshire Mammal Group. You will also have the option to join Oxford Mammal Group on the door for £6 and attend their talks for free.

Drop-in, no booking required.

About the Speaker

Dr Jorgelina Marino is the Science Director of the Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Programme and has been at WildCRU since 1999. She is a tutor for the PG Diploma in International Wildlife Conservation Practice taught at WildCRU and supervises various PhD and Masters students within the University and abroad. Jorgelina has coordinated the Ethiopian Wolf Working Group of the IUCN SSC Canid Specialist Group since 2005. Her research focuses on carnivores and spans across ecology and sociobiology, spatial ecology, population dynamics, wildlife monitoring and human-wildlife conflicts, mainly in Africa and South America.

Accessibility information:

For more information, please visit our accessibility webpage, or contact Chris Jarvis (chris.jarvis@oum.ox.ac.uk).