Larger Mammals and Birds in the Lowlands and on the Plateau of the Park Daniel Hegglin, Tatjana Good, Gyula Gajdon, Getenet Asmara, Berihun Gebremedhin, Stefan Irnfeld, John Lustenberger, Josef Niederberger 1, Introduction Our team investigated the occurrence of larger mammals (primates, ungulates, carnivores) and birds of the Simen Mountain National Park. Until now most of the research was done on the plateau of the SMNP (Dunbar, R.I.M. & E.P. Dunbar, 1974 c; Nievergelt, 1981). In order to provide further information for a future management plan we collected much of our data in the lowlands. In addition to the data of our team, the other teams of the SMNP-expedition also provided interesting obser- vations. We included their data in the list of observed species, but did not use them for the more detailed ana- lyses on vegetation types and altitudes. The established list of bird species was compared with other lists (Boswall & Demment, 1970; Dunbar, R.I.M. & P . Dunbar, 1974 c; Lilyestrom, 1974; Bosmans & Moreaux, 1977) from the SMNP. 2. Methods All species of larger mammals (ungulates, primates, carnivores) and birds were identified with binoculars or telescopes on the basis of several fieldbooks (birds: Mackworth-Praed & Grant, 1957; Williams, 1973). For each observation of species we noted the date and time of observation, the coordinates of the animals (map: Simen Mountains National Park, 1:25'000, Pro Semien Fundation, 1975), the type of the vegetation in which they were (long- or short-grass area with or without Lobelia, Helichrysum-dominatedarea, village, rock, field, pasture, forest) and for mammals, if it was a trace or direct observation. For each observation the altitude above sea level was calculated with the help of the Geographical Information System (GIS) at the Institute of Geography, University of Zurich. Almost all data were collected using a transect method along the paths. At times we observed from a viewpoint. The route chosen for this expedition started on the Gich plateau (16-20 January), passed over Chennek (21-23 January) down to the lowlands through Truwata (23-26 January), Dirni (26-29 January), Agidamya (29-30 January), Muchila (30 January-2 February), with a quick trip to Nariya and Jinbar Valley, and ended back in Gich. The team spent two days collecting data in one area and moved camp on the third day to the next area. The observation of birds was more intensive in the low- lands because on arrival at Gich Camp, the first few days were spent acclimatizing and organizing the round-trip. Figure 6.4 a Figure 6.5 a