Genette d'Abyssinie

Some Ethiopian Genet skins bought in Addis Abeba markets before the 1970s are kept in the Berlin Museum. It is unknown whether this species's skins are still sold in current days, and if so, volumes and geographic spread of trade would be equally unknown. Felling and cultivation in Acacia woodland and thornbush, together with pressures of herds of domestic stock in both arid lowlands and high plateaux, occur in Ethiopia (Yalden et al. 1996) and might—depending on its precise habitat use—threaten this species. The species’s natural history is too poorly known to identify which other potential threats are likely to affect it.

In Ethiopia, the Abune Yosef massif lies within a proposed biosphere reserve (Saavedra 2009). It has been suggested that only three National Parks are likely to support populations of the Ethiopian Genet: Yangudi-Rassa, Awash and Simien Mountains (Gaubert 2013), although the species’s natural history is too poorly known for a high confidence in this assessment. There is an urgent need for further survey work to generate a better understanding of the distribution, habitat requirements and population status of, and threats to, the species, so that its conservation needs, if any, can be determined.