Return of the wolf to Germany
Oct 2001
The wolf, ‘the friend of the forest’ (because it regulates the deer populations which everywhere destroy tree seedlings), is making its slow return into Central Europe. From territories in northern Russia as well as the Carpathian Mountains in Romania and south-western Ukraine it moves via Poland into Germany, while some Italian wolves from the Abbruzo mountains migrate into south-eastern France.
‘For the first time [in 150 years] wild wolves have reared their young in Germany,’ says Frank Moerschel, biologist of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), referring to the wolf family (wolf pairs mate for life) that made its home on the area of a military training area near the Polish and Czech borders. ‘The site is situated exactly on one of the ancient wolf tracks,’ explains an enthusiastic Michael Gruschwitz of the Environmental Ministry of Saxony, ‘a huge area – absolutely quiet and very rich in wildlife.’
source: Der Spiegel [German news magazine], no. 45, 2001
