By Natalie Blachford | Project Leader
Better late than never – wolf pups spotted on Sanetti Plateau!
Thanks to your generous support, our Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Programme has been monitoring our wolves on Sanetti Plateau, within the Bale Mountains National Park, and has spotted the first pups of the season!
Interestingly, Ethiopian wolves are like clockwork with their family planning. In the Web Valley, every August for two weeks, they engage in energetic courting and mating, and 60-62 days later dominant females pup in carefully prepared dens. All the neighbouring packs give birth at the same time, suggesting a behavioural and physiological mechanism at play, synchronising breeding.
Despite only being 25km away, the wolves on Sanetti Plateau come into heat and reproduce a whole two months later than those in Web. However, probably due to last autumn’s unusually wet raining season, the pups didn’t show up before New Year, as expected.
Dr. Sandra Lai, who joined the EWCP last year, has been gearing to watch dens, deploying camera traps to capture in fine detail what it takes to raise a litter, but the wolves kept her waiting…
Finally, nearly three months out of sync, the pups showed themselves on Sanetti, 4,200m above sea level and facing harsh dry season weather. Sunny warm days contrast with freezing nights, as low as -12°C.
Sandra and the monitoring team spotted activity around the BBC Pack den, but with no sign of the pups’ pretty, dark faces as yet. Instead, they found three pups in Batu Pack and two in Garba Guracha Pack. Amazingly, Guracha’s dominant female – the leader of nine-ten adults – has been the breeder since 2014!
A total #GirlBoss, Sandra says…
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