Chike Etumudor

November 23, 2015

GIS: Resource Management Paper

Dr. Amy Frazier

The Endangered Ethiopian Wolf

Introduction

When talking about endangered species, the Ethiopian Wolf is most definitely

an animal of interest. The Ethiopian Wolf is in dire need of extended efforts of

conservation and preservation. The main reason for this is because there are only

about 300 Ethiopian wolves living throughout the Ethiopian Highlands. The

Ethiopian Wolf is the world’s most endangered wolf species and Africa’s most

endangered carnivore. The Ethiopian Wolf is one of Africa’s most threatened animals

and the main purpose of this project is to better understand the reasoning on why the

Ethiopian Wolf has diminished in numbers over time and to find potential new ways to

help the species gain in numbers.

Ethiopian Wolves are pack animals. They usually live in large packs which

consist of female and male wolves (Wikipedia 2). Within a pack, there is usually only

one breeding female within the pack with either 1 to 5 hunter wolves. (Wikipedia 2)

When becoming pregnant, female Ethiopian Wolves have a litter of pups usually

amounting to about one to six (Wikipedia 2). The wolf pups are fed with a combination

of milk and food caught by the hunter wolves. (Wikipedia 2)

There are two subspecies of the Ethiopian Wolf. These subspecies include Canis

Simiesis (a subspecies located in the Simien Mountians and in the Northwest Rift Valley)

and Canis Citernii (a subspecies located in the Bale Mountains and the Southeast Rift

Valley)(Tallents 27). The difference between these subspecies is that Canis Citernii has

must longer nasal bones than those of Canis Simiesis (Tallents 29).

When talking about the Ethiopian Wolf, there are many threats concerning the

species’ well-being. Such threats include enlarging human population, habitat

deprivation from farming within the area, and high amounts of disease caused by free

roaming dogs. (Marston 104) Out of all of these threats toward the animal, the most

detrimental is disease (Atickem 105). Rabies has stricken the Ethiopian Wolf in

immense amounts. The rabies disease is transmitted through saliva and/or blood

transmission. This most certainly means that stray dogs located within the area tend to

roam into the populations of the Ethiopian Wolf. Canids are usually territorial mammals

and when these stray dogs roam into perimeters of the Ethiopian wolves, conflict ensues.

One notable element that is worthy of mentioning is that as of 2011, there has

been 2 Ethiopian Wolf populations that have become extinct. One location is situated at

Mount Choke (Scientific American Blog Network). The main reason on why

extinction occurred in this area is habitat loss, small population (less than 10 wolves

was the last documented number), and the possibility of fierce competition for food

and water by copious Golden Wolf populations (Wikipedia 2). Another location of

extinction occurrence is on Mt. Choqa located in the North Highlands of Ethiopia

(Wikipedia 4).

Study Area

The Ethiopian Wolf has very specific habitat requirements. They dominate in

habitats that are between three thousand to five thousand meters above the tree line

(Atickem 403). The main reasoning on why the Ethiopian Wolf dwells in high altitudes

is because of the wolves’ diet. The diet of the Ethiopian Wolf consists mostly of Afro-

Alpine rodents (Gottelli 238). Alpine rodents usually are found at high altitudes and this

is the main reason why the Ethiopian Wolf feed on Alpine rodents. Out of the Alpine

rodents located in Africa. Its favorite meal is the Giant Mole Rat (Gottelli 237).

The country of Ethiopia has a very mountainous landscape throughout the entire

region. The wolf species’ dwell in six mountain ranges throughout the country of

Ethiopia. These mountain ranges include the Simien Mountains, North Wollo Highlands,

South Wollo Highlands, Guassa Menz, Arsi Mountains, and the Bale Mountains

(Wikipedia 3). My area of my Digital Elevation Models are approximately 9900000000

square meters.

The hydrology of Ethiopia is very vast. Many rivers and tributaries lie within the

country. Since the majority of Ethiopian Wolves live in the Bale Mountains, water

sources must be widely available for these animals. The major rivers located in the Bale

Mountains are The Web, Wabe Shebele, Welmel, Dumal and Ganale (Ashenafi 125).

Also located in the Bale Mountains are two small tributaries that are located inside

of the Bale Mountains itself. These tributaries include the Wabe Shebele and Yadot

(Ashenafi 130).

Methods

Before starting my project, I needed to decide what I was going to do for my

project. The analysis that I decided to do was a site suitability analysis. First, I needed to

find data for my project. The data that I’m using in order to obtaining in order to do this

project comes from a website. I went to Google and searched for shapefiles for the

locations of the Ethiopian Wolf. The website that I found that provide me with usable

data is www.iucnredlist.com. This website that I used comes goes into depth about

endangered and threatened species of the world. I proceeded to look for either a shape

file of a layer that showed the location of the Ethiopian Wolf. Once I was able to find an

appropriate shapefile, I imported the shapefile into ArcGIS. Once the shape file was

imported into ArcGIS, the data was displayed. The data that the shape file gave me

showed me where current Ethiopian Wolf populations are located.

Now my next objective was to find Digital Elevation Models of my selected area

that I was analyzing. I went to www.usgs.com and looked at the earth explorer to find

the appropriate Digital Elevation Models that I needed. I was able to find ASTER Digital

Elevation Models that fit the area that I was looking at. After executing this, I was able

to import the Digital Elevation Model’s into ArcGIS. After undertaking this, I needed to

re-project my Digital Elevation Models to a projection that made sense. The total number

of Digital Elevation Models I needed was 11. I chose to re-project all of my Digital

Elevation Model’s to a Universal Transverse Mercator projection (Arc_1960_37N). I

wanted to eliminate the lines between the Digital Elevation Models and smooth the area

of interest that I was looking at. So I had to open the Arc Toolbox to make a mosaic with

all of my Digital Elevation Models. Once I made my Digital Elevation Models into a

mosaic, I had to reclassify my mosaic of my Digital Elevation Models accordingly. I

decided to reclassify my Digital Elevation Models into 3 classes. These classes were

separated into increments of 1500 meters.

For this project, I wanted to find out if distance to a water source was a factor of

why the Ethiopian Wolf is becoming endangered. I found a raster file with water sources

located with the country of Ethiopia and surrounding countries from

landcover.usgs.gov/global_climatology. At first, I was only to find a raster file showing

only large bodies of water (Ex: lakes, oceans, etc.). After I was able to obtain a viable

raster file showing streams and rivers located throughout the area, I wanted to run a

distance to water source using ArcGIS. I found out through the literature that the

Ethiopian Wolf’s cousin, the Grey Wolf, will only travel on average of 30 miles to a

water source. I performed a Euclidean distance through ArcGIS. Then, after performing

a Euclidean distance on my raster file, I needed to reclassify my Euclidean distance raster

file. I decided to reclassify my raster file into 5 classes. I needed to find out how many

meters are in 30 miles. I went to google.com and found a conversion tool. I found out

the 30 miles are equal to 48280.3 meters. For my reclassification, I broke up my classes

into increments of 50000 meters.

Another factor that I wanted to perform when doing my Site Suitability Analysis

was to find out how steep the slopes are in two different locations. The two sites that I

decided to analyze are where the largest populations are situated. One site located in the

Bale Mountains is where over half of the population of remaining Ethiopian Wolves

(approximately 350 wolves) are found (Wikipedia 2). The other location that I decided to

study the slope is where approximately 100 wolves are found (Wikipedia 2). In ArcGIS,

I went to the Arc Toolbox and ran the slope tool. From this point, I need to reclassify the

slope accordingly. I decided to reclassify the slope into 3 classes. I did not change the

values between break points when I ran the reclassification.

The last factor that I wanted to do for my Site Suitability Analysis was Aspect. I

wanted to see how what specific direction the slopes were facing in the environment of

the Ethiopian Wolves. ArcGIS to perform an Aspect analysis on my study area.

The final operation that I did for the Site Suitability Analysis was I combined all

of my factors together into on map. These factors included Aspect, Slope, Distance to

water, and Altitude. I had to add a weight to all of my factors accordingly. I used Raster

Calculator to perform this operation. The process that I executed when putting my data

into raster calculator was, first, I ranked all of my factors from importance. The most

important factor for my Site Suitability Analysis was Altitude. Other factors I included

listed from most important to least important include: Distance to Water Source, Slope,

and Aspect. In order to produce a viable map, I needed all of these factors together. The

equation that I used when adding these factor is as follows: (.4*Altitude Raster) + (.3*

Distance to water source Raster) + (.2*Slope Raster) + (.1*Aspect). When doing this, I

was able to put weighted ranks on the importance of each factor of my Site Suitability

Analysis.

Results

When running my reclassification of my mosaic of the Digital Elevation Models,

I was able to find definite results. Ethiopian Wolves only live in altitudes between 3000

and 4500 meters above sea levels. The reclassification does not show any Ethiopian

wolves outside this specified altitude. Most of my study area shows altitudes of 1500 and

4500 meters above sea level. There are a few regions on the outskirts of my study region

that consists of altitudes between 0 and 1500 meters above sea level.

Figure 1: Reclassification of a mosaic of multiple Digital Elevation Models.

When executing my distance to a water source analysis, the results were that since

there are ample water sources located throughout the region in which the Ethiopian Wolf

dwell, Ethiopian wolves have a very large source of water. All streams, rivers, and other

water sources are within fifty thousand meters from where Ethiopian Wolves are found.

This most certainly means that the lack of water is not a contributing factor of why the

Ethiopian Wolf is diminishing in numbers. Ethiopia is not an arid region so the presence

of water source are widely available throughout the entire country.

Figure 2: Distance to water source categorized in intervals of 50000 meters.

The results of running the slope analysis in ArcGIS is that the slopes associated

with the Ethiopian population located in the Bale Mountains do not have a presence of

steep slopes. All of the slopes throughout the entire region is relatively shallow. The

slopes located in the Simien Mountains have very steep slopes throughout the whole

region. I did not find in the literature on what kind of slopes that the Ethiopian Wolf

prefer. Since Ethiopian Wolves are more prevalent in the location inside of the Bale

Mountains, I concluded that Ethiopian Wolves are more suitable in dwelling in areas of

relatively low slopes.

Figure 3: Population of Ethiopian Wolves within the Bale Mountains.

Figure 4: Population of Ethiopian Wolves located in the Simien Mountains.

The results of performing an Aspect analysis in ArcGIS of the differentiating

slopes located in the Bale Mountains show that most of the slopes within the area are

south facing slopes. The same test was executed on the site located in the Simien

Mountains. The results show more of a variability of direction that the slopes are facing.

Figure 5: Ethiopian Wolf site located in the Simien Mountains.

Figure 6: Ethiopian Wolf Site located in the Bale Mountains.

My final map shows the ideal areas in which the Ethiopian Wolf is found. The

red color shown in the map is the Ethiopian Wolves ideal environment. All other colors

follow suit correlated with my legend of my map.

Figure 7: Final Site Suitability map of ample suitable area for the Ethiopian Wolf.

Discussion

According to my collaboration of my factors included in my Site Suitability

Analysis, there are very few points lie within an ideal region. Ideal regions are shown

with sections within the study area are colored with orange and red colors indicating

extremely suitable locations. This, more than likely, means that these findings could be

leading to the decline of the Ethiopian Wolf species as a whole. Many of the mountain

ranges in which the Ethiopian wolves dwell in are suitable locations for these animals.

Throughout most of my study site, the terrain is not ideal for the Ethiopian wolf. This

can be an underlining reason why Ethiopian Wolves are confined in small pockets

throughout Ethiopia and are not widespread.

Conclusion

The key finding that I made from doing a Site Suitability Analysis for the

Ethiopian Wolf is that altitude of habitats within Ethiopia is the most deciding factor.

This factor, most certainly, determines if you will find Ethiopian Wolf species dwelling

in specific areas.

Since executing my Site Suitability Analysis, I came to the conclusion have a very

narrow region of ideal habitat suitability. Since other factors come into play (habitat

fragmentation, rabies caused by stray dogs, and human agriculture), the Ethiopian

Wolves’ habitat is very unstable and conservation efforts should be closely monitored

and a main priority to ensure the Ethiopian wolves’ well-being in the future.

Special Acknowledgements

I would like to give special acknowledgements to Dr. Frazier, Brian Gilson, and

Ben Hemingway with helping me with this project.

References

Atickem, A., Bekele, A., & Williams, S. (2009). Competition between domestic dogs

and Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis) in the Bale Mountains National Park, Ethiopia.

African Journal of Ecology, 401-407.

Gottelli, D., Sillero-Zubiri, C., Marino, J., Funk, S., & Wang, J. (2012). Genetic structure

and patterns of gene flow among populations of the endangered Ethiopian wolf.

Animal Conservation Anim Conserv, 234-247.

 

Marston, D., Wise, E., Ellis, R., Mcelhinney, L., Banyard, A., Johnson, N., . . . Sillero-

Zubiri, C. (2015). Complete Genomic Sequence of Rabies Virus from an Ethiopian

Wolf. Genome Announcements Genome Announc.

(n.d.). Retrieved December 7, 2015, from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_wolf.

Ashenafi, Zelealem Tefera, Tim Coulson, Claudio Sillero-Zubiri, and Nigel Leader-

Williams. "Behaviour and Ecology of the Ethiopian Wolf (Canis Simensis) in a

Human-dominated Landscape outside Protected Areas."Animal Conservation 8.2

(2005): 113-21. Web.

"Resource Library." Resource Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Dec. 2015.

Tallents, Lucy A., Deborah A. Randall, Stuart D. Williams, and David W. Macdonald.

"Territory Quality Determines Social Group Composition in Ethiopian Wolves Canis

Simensis." Journal of Animal Ecology 81.1 (2011): 24-35. Web.

"Last 500 Ethiopian Wolves Endangered by Lack of Genetic Diversity." Scientific

American Blog Network. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2015.