The tiny remnant population which remains is now con- fined to a range of about twenty miles of the highest and steepest bays and buttresscs of the northern escarpment. One endemic species, the Walia Ibex, is the face of one of Heineken's premier beer brands. The Walia ibex (Capra walie) is a species of wild goat that is found exclusively in the mountains of northern Ethiopia.It is also known as the abyssinian ibex. of walia ibex, especially in the lowlands, have been occupied by livestock. Walia ibex are only found in the Simien Mountains of northern Ethiopia, mostly within the Simien Mountains National Park. September 8 , 2019 Since the government began funding efforts to clear the park of human encroachment in 1996, the Walia population has risen from 150 to 900, and tourism has shown increasing resonance, reports KALEAB GIRMA, FORTUNE STAFF WRITER.

Gelada Baboon The striking and unmistakable most common of Ethiopia’s endemic large mammal species, with a population estimated by some to be as high as 700,000. Walia Ibex (Capra W'alie) Amharic: Walia . The goal of our research was to determine areas of potential habitats for walia ibex in the SMNP to In this part of Ethiopia it is now extremely rare, even rarer than the Walia Ibex, but it has another stronghold, in Bale, which the Walia doesn’t. Walia ibex (Capra walie) is an endemic and endangered species restricted to Simien Mountains National Park (SMNP). The walia ibex (Capra walie), a large goat-like creature, has been on the brink of extinction on several occasions, starting in the late 1930s.Their population slowly began increasing but poor conservation strategies resulted in numbers plummeting again in 1996, prompting the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to list the walia ibex as Critically Endangered. Within the park, they are most often seen along a 25 km stretch of the northern escarpment. Nearly all of the remaining endangered population resides along 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) in the Simien Mountains National Park. Fossils of Alpine ibex date back to the late Pleistocene, when the Spanish ibex and it probably evolved from the extinct Pleistocene species Capra camburgensis. The Nubian ( C. nubiana ), Walia ( C. walie ), and Siberian ibex ( C. sibirica ) were previously considered to be subspecies of the Alpine ibex, giving populations in the Alps the trinomial of C. i. ibex . Thus, the walia ibex population is confined to relatively inaccessible areas within gorges and escarpments towards the eastern part of the park (Hurni & Ludi, 2000). The total population is estimated to be perhaps 500 individuals, with fewer than 250 mature (breeding) animals.