The Challenge

Our analysis shows that there are significant conservation gaps and embedded constraints that prevent painted wolf numbers recovering.

It is only by fully understanding the problem can we hope to find solutions.

We therefore invested considerable time, effort and money to understand the issues by speaking to all those trying to conserve painted wolves across Africa.

The challenges are many, but our analysis has enabled us to identify the key areas to investments that we calculate will make a fundamental difference.

The boxes below outline the key challenges and how our investments can be directed to overcome them.

THE CHALLENGE

THE ISSUE

OUR INVESTMENT

Loss of Land

The competition for land is intensifying and this wide-ranging predator is always the first to lose out.

PWF invests in the maintenance and rehabilitation of landscapes to sustain existing packs or enable reintroductions.

Community Engagement

Painted wolves are free roaming and are a threat to communities’ livestock. 

PWF supports collaborations to develop effective coexistence strategies between people and the packs

Education

Effective education is key to encouraging communities to value their wildlife and choose to protect and preserve it for future generations to come.

PWF supports collaborations that ensure effective education is delivered to young and old alike.

Spreading Conservation

For many painted wolf populations there are limited or no proven conservation measures in place.

PWF invests in spreading proven conservation interventions into areas where they are absent.

Crisis

Painted wolf packs are prone to crises where whole populations can quickly become threatened, due to disease and reprisal attacks from hostile farmers.

PWF is in a position to respond rapidly to save threatened packs.

Diminished Prey

Protecting their prey not only ensures that the painted wolves have sufficient food, but also prevents them being caught in illegal snares as a bycatch.

PWF supports robust and collaborative anti-poaching programmes.

Lack of Collaboration

Most conservation organisations work with isolated populations of painted wolves focused on their immediate pressing needs.

PWF invests to fund effective collaborations between organisations, bringing knowledge sharing and economies of scale.

Lack of Awareness

Painted wolves are not widely known and the scale of the threat to them is little understood by the wider public.

PWF invests in building awareness programmes through advocacy, events, publications, websites and social media.

Investment in Solutions

There is very limited investment in technology to support painted wolf conservation.

PWF invests in innovations to improve conservation techniques.