If colonising the Earth is a measure of the success of a species, then wolves have made and lost an empire. Only a few centuries ago they occupied much of the northern hemisphere, from the icy wastes of Greenland to the deserts of the Arabian peninsula: among the mammals, only humans were more widely distributed. But these two great colonisers have always clashed, and as human populations grew, wolves were persecuted, eventually to the point of virtual extermination.
Now, wolves are making a comeback in Europe – but in a Europe changed beyond recognition. The vast wilderness where wolves once roamed is gone, and the fate of the wolf lies in human hands. We have a choice: to eradicate wolves from populated areas, or to find solutions to the traditional conflicts between people and wolves. Experts throughout Europe are agreed that by working together, they can manage the spread of wolves and find ways for them to coexist with humans. Already Brandenburg, Germany’s most easterly state, is drawing up Europe’s first management plan for wolves which should be ready by August.
Ask any European about wolf territory, and most will think of Siberia and Alaska. Many are unaware that there are several isolated groups of wolves in their own back yard. The European wolf, at a weight of between 30 and 35 kilograms, is the largest surviving member of the dog family, Canidae. They live in packs that usually consist of a pair and their offspring, and are nomadic for most of the year. The young, born in April or May, are raised in lairs in rocky caverns, beneath the roots of fallen trees or in burrows. What has made European wolves such a successful species in the past is their adaptability. They can live in habitats as various as tundra, forest, open plains, desert margins, and mountain sides up to altitudes of 3000 metres.
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Today, thriving populations include the 3000 or so individuals living among the Carpathian Mountains – mostly in Romania, with a small population in Ukraine – and as many as 2000 animals in northern Spain; there is also a group of around 600 in Poland. As in North America, most European countries have, over the past decade or more, imposed laws that at least partly protect wolves. These moves, and an increase in numbers of deer, hares and other animals on which wolves feed, are the reasons why the wolf population is growing.
And that’s not all: wolves are now starting to move out of their strongholds in the mountains of eastern and southern Europe. The animals’ migration to the west and north naturally shows no respect for national boundaries. It will require a concerted effort on the part of European countries if the wolves are to continue to flourish. Over the past decade, dramatic political changes, and particularly the burgeoning accord between Eastern and Western Europe, mean that for the first time this sort of coordination is possible. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Germany.
Hounded out
Wolves were once common throughout Germany. But as human populations grew, farmers became more and more antagonistic towards wolves. In 1848, the last wolf living in the Bavarian forest was shot, and a few years later, the last breeding pairs disappeared from Brandenburg. Lone wolves were spotted from time to time in the east of the country, but these were probably solitary individuals straying across the border from Poland’s Masurian swamps and from the Carpathian Mountains.
Then numbers also began to decline in Poland. At the end of the Second World War, some 1000 animals were recorded as living in the country; but over the next thirty years this figure dropped to about 100. Polish farmers considered wolves a nuisance because they preyed on livestock, and as they were officially classified as vermin, wolves could legally be shot on sight. However, in 1976, following a coordinated campaign involving naturalists, hunters and foresters, the Polish government changed the status of wolves. Now they are recognised as a game species, which means they are protected from April to the end of July while they rear their pups.
With the Polish wolf population significantly increased since the late 1970s, it was inevitable that more and more wolves would migrate to Germany. But up until recently, many Germans still regarded wolves with fear and suspicion. According to official records, in East Germany, where government policy allowed it, around twenty animals were shot in the 35 years following the Second World War. The real figure is probably much higher. But German reunification changed all that. On 2 July 1990, wolves became fully protected by law throughout Germany under the federal nature conservation act.
Migrating wolves currently seem to be converging on Germany from three fronts. First and most important is Brandenburg, where several wolves have already crossed the Odra river from Poland. Here, in 1992, conservationists found wolves successfully breeding in the wild – the first recorded in Germany for 150 years. The second migration zone is in southeastern Germany, where the Bavarian Forest National Park and the Sumava National Park form a combined protected area of 818 square kilometres straddling the border between Germany and the Czech Republic. Wolves from eastern Slovakia are expected to recolonise this area within the next few years. Italian wolves, too, are migrating – in their case, northward through the French Maritime Alps and Switzerland towards the Alps on Germany’s southern border.
It is not surprising, then, that Germany is at the forefront of Europe’s protection plans for wolves. In April 1992, the Munich Wildlife Society organised a meeting with delegates from Portugal, Spain, Italy, Norway, Finland, Germany, Poland, what was then Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece and Russia. They established the European Wolf Network to improve communication and strengthen wolf conservation. They also agreed a Wolf Conservation Strategy, adaptable to different regional needs within Europe. Its three main aims are to increase public awareness and acceptance of wolves, to find ways in which they can live peacefully with humans, and to ensure the long-term conservation of wolves and their habitats where local conditions allow this.
Wolf conservationists agree that their first task is to change public opinion. Prejudices run deep even though reports of healthy, non-rabid wolves attacking humans are extremely rare. Again, Germany is at the forefront in tackling these misconceptions. A year ago, the Munich Wildlife Society started a public relations campaign. To date, more than 1500 articles supporting the comeback of wolves have been published in newspapers and magazines, and reactions have all been positive.
But re-educating people is not enough. Wolves will continue to prey on livestock, and in many areas of Europe this will probably create more conflict than the local residents are willing to tolerate. The Wolf Conservation Strategy, therefore, poses this question: what limits should be imposed on the wolves’ comeback? Unfortunately, there is no simple answer because farmers live and work under extremely diverse conditions throughout Europe. If humans and wolves are to coexist, different policies for managing wolves must be adopted to suit the needs of various human cultures.
Norway, for example, where two hundred years ago wolves roamed freely, has adopted a strategy that will keep wolves outside areas where reindeer graze. Policy makers are sympathetic to the wishes of semi-nomadic reindeer farmers who believe that the reintroduction of wolves threatens their livelihoods. In Portugal, the problem is quite different. There, former wolf habitats have been destroyed, often by forest fires or the introduction of eucalyptus plantations. Local conservationists are pressing for measures to re-establish habitats in which wolves and their prey can thrive.
Finally, the first full-scale wolf management plan in Europe is being drawn up in Brandenburg by the Munich Wildlife Society and the local Ministry of the Environment. Issues under consideration include the evaluation of habitats suitable for wolves and the zoning of Brandenburg into areas where wolves are and are not welcome. The two bodies are also drafting plans for damage prevention, compensation and control, a PR strategy, and a policy for wolves and tourism. They aim to use geographical information systems and computer data-bases to record the spread of wolves and help monitor the management plan.
Brandenburg Concerto
What makes Brandenburg a prime site for wolf repopulation is the density of human habitation. Germany as a whole is densely populated, with an average of 221 people per square kilometre. But in Brandenburg the equivalent figure is a mere 91. This is comparable to the population density in eastern Slovakia, where wolves are common. Furthermore, prey is abundant in the area. Local hunters killed game weighing more than 4.7 million kilograms in the 1991/92 season. Given that a single wolf consumes around five kilograms of meat each day, in theory these game animals could support a population of over 2500 wolves. The limiting factor, however, is the total area of the state, which at just under 29 000 square kilometres is only big enough to sustain fewer than half that number.
Many other regions in Europe are not as favourable for wolf migration because they have larger human populations than Brandenburg, and are not as wild. There is, however, already evidence – most notably from Spain – that wolves can adapt to living on cultivated land. But if this trend is to continue, intensive management of wolves is vital to maintain a tolerable level of conflict with human interests.
Navigating through Europe
With many large forested areas still extant in Europe, other migration sites will prove better bets for wolf repopulation. In the long term, preservation of all suitable habitats is essential. Conservationists working for the wolves’ cause are well aware that if they are to succeed, they will ultimately need to create corridors of territory inhabited or navigable by wolves to link today’s isolated groups into an integrated population. If wolves from populations in all areas, from Spain to Siberia, were able to mingle and mate, their genetic vigour would increase and with it their ability to cope with the stresses of living in a changing Europe.
For this vision to become a lasting reality, more knowledge is essential. Intensive research into the ecology, population dynamics and prey relationships of wolves has been carried out since the mid-1960s on Isle Royale, Minnesota, and throughout Canada and Alaska. However, these findings are of limited relevance to Europe, where both habitats and prey species differ. And Europeans can learn little from US management plans because the main strategy is to make use of large wilderness areas to segregate humans and wolves. There is now an urgent need for Europe to undertake its own studies.
Reinhard Piechocki is a scientific officer at the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, Lauterbach, Germany.
