Convener: Prof Claudio Sillero-Zubiri
Chair of the IUCN SSC Canid Specialist Group
Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, University of Oxford, Tubney House, Tubney OX13 5QL, UK
An informal meeting of the IUCN SSC Canid Specialist Group, open to those working or interested on the biology and conservation of wild canids worldwide.
Contemporary canids are the most widely distributed family of the Carnivora, with members on every continent besides Antarctica. While most canids are widely distributed, several relatively common species are persecuted as livestock raiders. Others have very restricted distributions and small, isolated populations. For example, Ethiopian wolves (Canis simensis) are restricted to a few mountain enclaves, Darwin’s foxes (Pseudalopex fulvipes) are endemic to coastal forests in southern Chile, and Sechuran foxes (P. sechurae) are restricted to the costal deserts of north Peru and south Ecuador. While more widespread and abundant, dholes (Cuon alpinus), short-eared foxes (Atelocynus microtis) and bush dogs (Speothos venaticus) are forest specialists of particular concern, due to the rapid fragmentation of their forest habitats and our insufficient understanding of their biology. An additional and increasing threat for many canids concerns the impact of domestic dogs upon their wild relatives, through disease transmission, competition and hybridization.
We will review the state of knowledge of a few selected threatened canid species, and discuss research and conservation priorities for wild canids.