Malcolm and Sillero-Zubiri Wild dogs in Ethiopia Canid News Copyright © 2001 by the IUCN/SSC Canid Specialist Group. ISSN 1478-2677 The following is the established format for referencing this article: Malcolm, J.R. and Sillero-Zubiri, C. 2001. Recent records of African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) from Ethiopia. Canid News 4:1 [online] URL: http://www.canids.org/canidnews/4/wild_dogs_in_ethiopia.pdf Field Report Recent records of African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) from Ethiopia James R. Malcolm¹ and Claudio Sillero-Zubiri² ¹ Department of Biology, University of Redlands, P.O. Box 3080, Redlands, CA 92373-0999, USA. Email: malcolm@jasper.uor.edu ² Correspondence author. Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK. Email: claudio.sillero@zoo.ox.ac.uk Keywords: African wild dog; Ethiopia; Lycaon pictus Introduction African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) have declined dramatically over the last century. They were once distributed through much of south- Saharan Africa, but have now been extirpated from most of west and central Africa and popu- lations in the east and the south have been con- fined to areas where human population density remains low (Woodroffe et al. 1997). A smaller concentration of wild dogs exists in Ethiopia, which may spread into southern Su- dan, northern Kenya, southern Somalia and even northern Uganda. Yalden et al. (1980, 1996) presented known records for the species. This note summarizes recent information on the distribution of African wild dogs in Ethio- pia (with one record from Sudan), including recent sightings which improve existing distri- bution knowledge and extend the distribution of the species in Ethiopia. Methodology Data come from two main sources: Chris Hill- man’s compilation of information on Lycaon in Ethiopia’s National Parks and Reserves up to 1992 (Hillman 1993); information collated by the authors from people working in the field that might have seen wild dogs. Claudio Sillero-Zubiri worked with the Ethiopian Wild- life Conservation Organisation (EWCO) from 1988-2000 and James Malcolm from 1994-95. Additional information emerged from respon- dents to a mail survey organized by the IUCN Canid Specialist Group (Fanshawe et al. 1997). Older records are summarized in Yalden et al. (1980). Results The map (Fig. 1) indicates locations where wild dogs have been reported. Older records from known current localities are not included. Wild dogs are reported in six geographic regions discussed below. 1