Amazing Africa - Unique Wildlife in Ethiopia's Highlands
The Roof of Africa is home to the last of the world’s Ethiopian Wolves. This film tells the dramatic story of Megeti, a lone wolf who lost her pack and is suddenly left to fend for herself, wandering across the highlands on a quest to find a new home.
In the far east of Africa, the Ethiopian highlands rise 4.000 meters into the sky. Here, sun and rain clouds battle for supremacy, icy winds twist their way through the leathery leaves of lobelia, and when the night brings frost, there is nothing that reminds you of the Africa most commonly known.
The Ethiopian Highlands are unique. Presiding along the African rift, the stone towers and deep gorges are home to one of the most species-rich places on the planet. With numerous endemic flora and fauna, the Ethiopian wolf stands as both a symbol of this regions uniqueness and its fragility.
Reminiscent of foxes, but closely related to grey wolves, there are now less than 500 Ethiopian wolves still roaming the planet today. Survival specialists, they retreated into the cloudy skies of the highlands thousands of years ago, adapting perfectly to the extreme habitat.
With an abundance of prey, the wolves do not have to fear any heavy competition for food, nor is there any kind of poaching or habitat destruction. However, their numbers continue to rapidly decline and the survival of Ethiopian wolves is in serious danger. The cause? Man’s best friend.
For Megeti, it is vital she finds a new family and this quest pushes her into foreign territory, occupied by cattle breeders and other wolves. Her attempts to be accepted into a new pack are risky, but the better hunting grounds and group protection are to tempting.
Following Megeti’s daily efforts to connect with a new pack, the camera captures a variety of moments with depth and sensitivity, eventually arriving at the moment when the wolf’s perseverance is rewarded. However, the success story doesn’t last long and when an unwelcome guest arrives, the narrative takes a dramatic turn.
Over a period of two years, a crew of wildlife filmmakers from Altayfilm has been filming Ethiopian wolves and other rare species across the high plateaus; capturing for the fist time ever, wild jungle lions in thick, mountainous forests. The result of their efforts is a film that offers audiences a chance to experience charismatic protagonists in an extraordinary African scenery that has rarely been seen on television.
