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September 9, 2015

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Last week I was in Kathmandu setting up genetic analysis methods for the Himalayan Wolf Project.

The project, which aims to provide a scientific basis for national and international conservation of the Himalayan wolf, is led by Geraldine Werhahn who is a researcher with the University of Oxford’s WildCru. RZSS Wildgenes is partnering with the project by providing design of genetic protocols and training to the Center for Molecular Dynamics Nepal, a laboratory in the capital Kathmandu.

Geraldine has just returned from a two month expedition to the remote Humla Valley where she surveyed the wolves and collected their scats for analysis. In future, surveys will be expanded across the region where wolves are now predominantly confined to remote high valleys. Wolves are threatened by hunting both for protection against livestock loss and for the wildlife trade as their paws are popular talismans.

The survey team on the move through wolf habitat.

Helen and the CMDN team at work testing the new protocols designed by the RZSS WildGenes lab team in the Kathmandu lab.

Discussing some initial results.

Masala chai break with Kathmandu sky line.

Whilst Geraldine has been spending long days at altitude (over 4000m) looking for samples, the WildGenes team has been busy at the lab at RZSS Edinburgh Zoo developing genetic protocols for analysis of the samples. We did this with the help of the keepers from RZSS Highland Wildlife Park who collected scats from our very own grey wolves so that we could test-run the methods.

Once we had the protocols up and running, I could travel to Kathmandu to transfer them to the team at the Center for Molecular Dynamics Nepal who will conduct the bulk of the analysis. We are aiming to use genetic profiling to understand how many wolves there are, what sex they are and how evolutionarily different they are from Eurasian grey wolf.

Dr Helen Senn
RZSS Research Scientist

What it’s all about: The elusive Himalayan wolf.

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From:  The Wolf Army

Himalayan Wolves (Canis himalayaensis)

Recently the Himalayan wolf was identified as a sub species of Canis Lupus(Grey Wolf) by using DNA testing.
The Himalayan wolf is now considered to be possibly the oldest living lineage existing of all wolf species today.
Sharing habitat with both the Indian wolf and the Eurasian wolf in the Himalayan region, the Himalayas is also the only place in the world where these three species of wolf exist simultaneously. This is also supporting the theory that the India region is most likely the home of modern wolf evolution.
Even though these three species of wolf share habitat, inter species clashes are non existent.
The Himalayan wolf keeps mainly to small sections of Mongolia, China, Kashmir and India. There are only about 350 of these wolves left but only in India are they protected under the Indian Wildlife Protection Act. A captive breeding program is underway in India to try and save the Himalayan wolf from extinction but sadly it is still very vulnerable due to farmers and ranchers killing and trapping them.
Studies show that this wolf species is possibly eight hundred thousand to one million years old.

A Himalayan wolf in the captive breeding program in India

Himalayan wolves in the wild

 

 

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