Sandra Lai

What it was really like

You think seeing snow leopards is the most exclusive experience ever? Think again 🤣

Still a genuinely amazing experience 🙌

Safe distance from the animals is always respected to avoid disturbance 🤍

📸🐆: Chloé Warret Rodrigues, Dorge Angrup

#SpitiValley #Kibber #Himalayas

Watch the Canadian passport transform under UV light! 🇨🇦🍁✨

Christmas at the Department of Biology? This means quiz! 🎄

Happy to have been able to join the WildCRU team this year for the Biology Christmas Quiz. It took place at the Life and Mind Building, with the Oxford skyline in the background.❤️

PS: we won! 😁

@biology.ox.ac.uk
@wildcru.bsky.social

How it’s been at the new office lately…

How’s yours?

🦊 @wildcru.bsky.social
🌱 @biology.ox.ac.uk

Anders Angerbjörn and Paula White kicking off the first day with important talks about the potential impacts of climate change on the Arctic fox 🔥❄️

#ArcticFoxConference2025

Scientific American covered our #MovementEcology work on Arctic foxes a couple of years ago, beautifully illustrating their continental-scale dispersal across Arctic Canada, through islands and sea ice straits.🧪🌿🌎🦊🌐🦑🐻‍❄️ #wildlife. If interested, enlarge map below (with full reference to article).

Meet Postdoctoral Research Associate @sandralai.bsky.social! 🦊

As an ecologist and carnivore researcher, Sandra’s work investigates the behavioural adaptations of mammals in extreme environments, from Arctic foxes in the High Arctic to the endangered Ethiopian wolf.

[1/2] @biology.ox.ac.uk

EWCP, in partnership with EWCA, is leading the first large-scale preventive vaccination of Ethiopian wolves in the Bale Mountains. Combining vaccination and GPS collaring, we aim to protect the world’s rarest canid and the Afroalpine ecosystem they call home.
@biology.ox.ac.uk @sandralai.bsky.social

🔥 I am thrilled to have been chosen as a 2025 Flag Carrier by WINGS Women of Discovery!

With their support, I’ll join the team in Ethiopia’s Bale Mountains to vaccinate and GPS-collar endangered Ethiopian wolves.

➡️ wingswomenofdiscovery.org/explorer/san...

@wildcru.bsky.social
@biology.ox.ac.uk

Cat wisdom 🐱

New EWCP publication here ⬇️
doi.org/10.1111/csp2...

Find out more about our work and help us in our mission ⬇️
www.ethiopianwolf.org

@wildcru.bsky.social
@biology.ox.ac.uk

📹 Abdi Samune

He was the first of his kind to be rehabilitated. This case proved something important: under the right conditions, and with careful planning, rehabilitation and release can work.

And in this case, one wolf made it count.

Rehabilitation is not a simple fix. It is a last resort. But in a place where wolves live on the edge of survival, it gave this one wolf another chance at life. And he took it.

From near death to starting a new lineage in the wild, his story has become a rare symbol of hope for a species with fewer than 500 individuals left.

He didn’t just survive. After rejoining his original pack, he decided to disperse and settled in a new territory nearby. He found a mate. And in the following breeding season, he fathered pups. Today, the Terefe pack still exists.

After weeks of intensive treatment, careful observation, and dedicated care in captivity, he miraculously recovered. He was named “Terefe”, meaning “The Lucky Survivor” in the local language. What happened after his release surprised even us.

He was found by park scouts, who called us. EWCP, in collaboration with EWCA, immediately jumped into action. He was brought into care. But there had never been any record of an Ethiopian wolf being held in captivity... Could he make it?

In 2020, a male Ethiopian wolf in the Simien Mountains sustained a severe leg injury caused by a gun shot. Unable to keep up with his pack, weak and bleeding, in a place as harsh and exposed as the Ethiopian highlands, that’s usually the end of the story.

But this time, it wasn’t.

🌍🐺 Wolves Across Borders 2025 — EWCP joined the Himalayan Wolves Project and WildCRU colleagues in Lunteren to represent wolves from Africa, Europe and Asia.

A powerful global gathering sharing field insights and coexistence strategies.

Thanks to all who came to listen and share!

Over the years, we've published multiple #MovementEcology papers using the Arctic fox as a model. But I’ve never shared this video of a flying Arctic fox!
Filmed on our Bylot Island study area by my former PhD student Clément Chevallier. #wildlife 🧪🌿🌎

Acceleration Data Reveal Behavioural Responses to Hunting Risk in Scandinavian Brown Bears We used accelerometry data to evaluate behavioural adjustments to temporal variation in hunting risk in Scandinavian brown bears. We find that male bears become more nocturnal after the onset of the ...

The first publication of my postdoc on Scandinavian brown bears is now published in Ecology and Evolution! Go check it out!

We used accelerometry data to evaluate bears' behavioural adjustments in response to temporal variation in hunting risk.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

EWCP is excited to join the pack!

Stay tuned as we share insights and highlights from the event! 5/5

Wolves Across Borders—first held in Stockholm, Sweden in 2023—brings together more than 350 researchers, policymakers, managers, students and stakeholders to facilitate conversation and knowledge exchange on wolf ecology, management, and conflict resolution. 4/

EWCP Science Director, Dr. Jorgelina Marino, and Senior Scientist, Dr. Sandra Lai, will be presenting our latest work on Ethiopian wolves in the highlands. 3/

EWCP founder and director, Prof Claudio Sillero, will be giving a plenary talk on wolves in Africa, and will be part of a panel session on the wolf debate within dynamic politics, misinformation and social media. 2/

EWCP delegates, Prof Claudio Sillero, Dr Jorgelina Marino and Dr Sandra Lai, just arrived in Lunteren, Netherlands, for the International Conference Wolves Across Borders 2025! 🧵1/

#WAB2025 #WildCRU #OxfordBiology #OxfordUniversity #WolvesBorders #conservation #research

African wild dog playback experiment gone bad 😂

#PhDLife
#Fieldwork
#nevergiveup

💥 Flash news: I’ll be at WAB 2025!

Anyone else going? Let’s meet 🦊

An Arctic wolf chases away a polar bear while other pack members rest nearby on the sea ice. Picture by Richard Cayer, 20 September 2020, at CFS Alert, Nunavut, Canada.

Action on the sea ice: An Arctic wolf chases away a polar bear while other pack members rest nearby on the sea ice. While not a rare event, it's also not a common one at our CFS Alert biodiversity study area, Nunavut, Canada. Picture by Richard Cayer, 20 September 2020. 🌿🌎🦑 #addMam #wildlife