Shrinking Canid Populations

[Blackduiker]

The 8 most endangered canid species. This article was originally released on May 17th, Endangered Species Day:

Dogs are going extinct: 8 most endangered canid species : TreeHugger

 

[Arizona Docent]

For those who do not want to click through the entire slide show, here is the list. (Note that endangered species may be misleading because at least a couple on the list are subspecies, not full species). Still, suprising to see that exactly half the list are from the United States. I wonder if this is accurate or just a bias that information from the United States is more readily available.

1. ethiopian wolf
2. red wolf
3. mexican gray wolf
4. dhole
5. african wild dog
6. darwins fox
7. channel island fox
8. san joaquin kit fox

 

[IanRRobinson]

Still, suprising to see that exactly half the list are from the United States. I wonder if this is accurate or just a bias that information from the United States is more readily available.

I did wonder about that myself. We know so little about many of the smaller canids. How many people have even seen a photograph of a Small-eared Dog?

For that matter, a taxonomist really needs to take a good, long hard look at the Wolf and Golden Jackal. The recent findings of Wolves and Wolf DNA in Africa do seem to suggest that there might be more than these two species in North Africa and the Middle East. There may well be a more urgent need for canid conservation in these areas than we currently realise.

 

[jbnbsn99]

I did wonder about that myself. We know so little about many of the smaller canids. How many people have even seen a photograph of a Small-eared Dog?

For that matter, a taxonomist really needs to take a good, long hard look at the Wolf and Golden Jackal. The recent findings of Wolves and Wolf DNA in Africa do seem to suggest that there might be more than these two species in North Africa and the Middle East.

Fully agree. Wolf taxonomy is a nightmare right now.

 

[TeaLovingDave]

I did wonder about that myself. We know so little about many of the smaller canids. How many people have even seen a photograph of a Small-eared Dog?

A bloody strange species even by the standards of the South American canids; I've always thought that Atelocynus strongly resembles some of the civet species.