The goal of the Ghosts of the Highlands project is to intimately portray Ethiopia’s endemic wolf in the Bale Mountains. This reconnaissance mission captured the rhythm of the wolves’ daily lives: patrolling their territory, hunting, resting, and protecting their pups from honey badgers and other intruders. It also highlighted the vulnerability of these animals, even in a remote mountain range that was largely uninhabited until the 1950s.
Agricultural expansion adjacent to the mountains has led to permanent human settlements in the park at higher and higher altitudes. With the humans come cattle, donkeys, goats, and free-ranging dogs that spread rabies and canine distemper to the wolves. Later projects are planned to explore the feasibility of park efforts to protect the largest remaining population of Ethiopian wolf while the fragmentation of their habitat further isolates populations across distinct peaks, jeopardizing their survival as a species.
