The Himalayan Plateau–a rocky, barren, sandy-brown landscape of steep highlands and dizzying mountain peaks might appear desolate and devoid of activity, as life at 4000m above sea level faces razor-thin oxygen levels. But some ecosystems endure and abound in such harsh settings, with sparsely populated peoples living a remote coexistence with a unique plethora of wildlife. The apex predator, the Himalayan wolf (canis lupus chanco) makes its claim on these heights, but it’s a little understood animal and the wolf’s future has become all the more perilous as it faces human persecution.
A leading researcher in wolf ecology and conservation, Dr Geraldine Werhahn, explores the wolf’s phylogenetic profile, a systematic method that reconstructs a species’ evolutionary roots using present-day data. In doing so, she can discover its place in the evolutionary tree and decipher what kind of species it is. This knowledge is crucial to its survival. But why?
Imagine standing on a high ridge, looking out across a vast expanse of muddy-green hills, snow crawling up the higher reaches, as a pale sun breaks over the splayed arms of a chain of mountains far away. You spy movement in the distance. Wolves! five of them, padding along the rise across the valley. You ask yourself who is the Himalayan wolf? Where does she come from? How does she differentiate from other more widely distributed wolves perhaps, say, from America’s National Parks or stalking forests of Eastern and Southern Europe. You see that these wolves largely sport sandy brown, woolly fir but as you focus a little more, some variations of white and black can be spotted too. From straining your eyes, you can tell the wolf blends perfectly into her rocky, high-altitude environment, ideal for sneaking up on a hyper-vigilant tibetan gazelle or a woolly hare.
Distributed widely across the Tibetan Plateau and reaching into China and India, the wolf is well adapted to its environment while establishing families despite its shaky coexistence with human locals. Part of this adaptability comes from their dynamic ways of communicating vocally with each other. A peruse through a fantastic textbook on the current research on species across the world highlights that wolves use a wide vocal range of howls, woofs, whines and barks to communicate complex information to it’s fellow pack members as well as to deter rival packs. This is no different for Himalayan wolves who share their quality as highly intelligent and social creatures, but on a closer look, their howling acoustics, as pointed out in a 2017 paper is distinct from the grey wolf, helping researchers to further differentiate the species.
Also, like its cousins, Himalayan wolves form packs, tight units of families who rely on community to survive and raise their young, but unlike other wolf relatives, have been found to reside in smaller packs with typical sizes of five (a breeding pair and three pups). But as the research in this is ongoing, who knows what sizes they can reach? We just know that every pack member has its role to play and not just in assisting raise young, but for helping take down prey.
If abundant, wild prey is a preference to Himalayan wolves over livestock, but unfortunately, particularly in the summer, livestock tends to outnumber wild prey and wolves will feed on whatever meat they can sink their teeth into. This puts their relationship at a knife’s edge with local farmers and villagers, who retaliate by hunting and culling tactics.
One of the most interesting traits that contrasts Himalayan wolves from its canine relatives is its genetic predisposition to high altitudes. Unlike other species, they have evolved a neat way of living up in the highland regions where most other mammals struggle. It’s a biological mechanism making it distinct from the lower altitude-dwelling grey wolf characterised by a genetic adaptation to hypoxia — increased ventilation, cardiac output and blood vessel growth, meaning it can cope with regions with lower oxygen levels.
The research is clear that widespread protection of large carnivores requires preservation of its ecosystems for which they depend. This involves understanding their feeding behaviour. Werhahn’s fieldwork utilises one simple, non-intrusive way of collecting data through scats left by the elusive wolf to try to understand its dietary profile. In the lab, microscopic analysis of the scat samples yields the various hairs and bones from consumed animals, typically small ungulates like blue sheep and smaller mammals like hares, marmots and pika, allowing researchers to pinpoint the ratio of prey consumed, and also their distribution. From this they can also find whether and to what extent wolves are attacking livestock, an important finding for advocating for their protection. In other words, researchers like Werhahn are able to draw up a more detailed map of the wolf’s ecosystem.
Because of a lack of understanding of the wolf’s taxonomic status, or its place in the evolutionary tree, it’s often inferred that the himalayan variety is simply a grey wolf, a widely distributed canine and therefore is treated as a pest. But as recent research has shown, its taxonomy is more complicated, and education needs to be more accessible to protect it. As Werhahn nails home in her presentation for the Wolf Conservation Centre, taxonomic class is the basis for conservation. Her research on phylogenetic data on the wolf helps conservationists propose policies on species’ status, gaining formal recognition from the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) and whether laws need to be modified or implemented to protect it. This includes policies against hunting, culling and harvesting body parts for trade or medicine as is common in the region and other rites that may demonise the species and encourage its decimation long-term.
This comes with problems of its own for local communities who lack the resources, government support and infrastructure to coexist with wolves and attacks on livestock become a serious issue for community survival and wellbeing. More interdisciplinary research is needed on understanding tensions among humans towards wolves, government and political manoeuvring and education on the importance of wild prey in the landscape to deter wolves from killing livestock and fostering better relations.
As we have seen, the poorly understood nature of the wolf’s taxonomy can be detrimental to its conservation and protection. We already know that the species is under threat from local extirpation methods and habitat destruction as a result of being overlooked, but in order to make a difference, local policy alteration and education is vital to better understand the Himalayan wolf’s status. This would first involve taxonomic classification, making them more easily identifiable as a species in need of protection.
While the methods researchers use to provide distinctions between species, such as using mitochondrial DNA and nuclear DNA is far beyond the scope of this article and my comprehension, you can delve into Dr. Werhahn’s thesis here for a complete exploration of these mysterious wolves.
You can also find news about the Himalayan Wolves Project, a conservation project looking to better understand the wolf and its home.