“World’s Rarest Dog” Could Be Saved With Rabies Vaccine
Close monitoring and rapid, targeted vaccinations may be the best way to protect the Ethiopian wolf, the world’s rarest canine, against extinction.
Scientists suggest that immunizing just 30 percent of the wolf population at the first sign of an outbreak is sufficient to safeguard the endangered species from major outbreaks of rabies and other deadly diseases.
Only about 500 Ethiopian wolves remain in the wild, and the species has been ravaged by rabies epidemics at least twice in the recent past. But completely immunizing all of those animals is too time-consuming, given current technology.
The new study shows that even limited immunizations of wild canine species such as the Ethiopian wolf against rabies is “safe and effective,” said lead author Dan Haydon, an ecologist and epidemiologist at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. “[That is] something that’s not always been agreed upon in the conservation community,” Haydon added.