A wolf pack is roaming wild in Denmark for the first time in more than 200 years after a young female wolf journeyed 500km from Germany.

Male wolves have been seen in Denmark since 2012 and the new female could produce cubs this spring in farmland in west Jutland after two wolves were filmed together last autumn.

It is further evidence that the wolf is returning to well-peopled landscapes after centuries of persecution, with wolf packs also re-establishing themselves in France and Germany and individuals sighted in Holland and even Luxembourg. Before the new population, Denmark’s last wolf was killed in 1813.

“We expect that they will have cubs this year or the next,” said Peter Sunde, a senior researcher at Aarhus University.

“People were very surprised when wolves first appeared in Denmark but they are highly mobile and are just as adaptable to cultural landscapes as foxes are. The only problem historically is that we killed them.”

DNA from two faeces samples have confirmed that the female wolf came from a pack 25km south of Berlin in Germany before travelling to north-west Denmark, probably leaving her family group last spring to do so.

There is sometimes speculation that wolves are deliberately released into the countryside by unofficial rewilders but according to Guillaume Chapron, a researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, this female’s trek north was entirely natural. “The wolf went on its four legs, it makes complete biological sense,” he said. Wolves can walk 50km in 24 hours and have been recorded making journeys of more than 1,000km across Europe from Germany, where they re-established themselves in 1998. Germany’s wolf population is currently growing at 25-30% each year, with the young dispersing across central Europe.

Researchers have found wolves in some cases living in suburban areas alongside up to 3,050 people per square kilometre – higher than the population density of Cambridge or Newcastle.

“The wolf is a predator to the roe deer – if you can have roe deer, you can have wolves,” said Chapron. “As long as we don’t disturb them, they will be fine in these human-dominated landscapes. In Denmark there’s no reason wolves can’t thrive. But the question has to be asked, are people going to accept the wolves? The wolf will need to eat something. When they realise that Danish sheep don’t taste too bad that may be a little problematic. It will be interesting to see how far we can coexist with big predators.”

Denmark’s wolves have settled in a well-farmed area of heathland and small pine plantations with plentiful prey in the form of burgeoning populations of red and roe deer.

There have been reports of wolves killing several sheep in the area over winter but the Danish government has already established a wolf management plan with compensation for farmers and funding so livestock farmers can erect wolf-proof fencing. The management plan, drawn up in consultation with game hunters as well as farmers and conservationists, allows for wolves that become “habituated” and live too close to humans to be controlled.

“There is a tradition in Denmark of reaching compromises and reaching solutions,” added Sunde, who said he was optimistic that Danes could coexist peacefully with wolves. “Technically, we can relatively easily manage the wolf population but the challenge is the psychology of humans. There are so many feelings and opinions about wolves in Denmark, as everywhere. The wolf debate is very much value-driven rather than related to concrete problems.”

There are more than 12,000 wolves in continental Europe (excluding Russia, Ukraine and Belarus) and the wolf is a protected species under the EU’s habitats directive. According to Chapron, southern European countries have often been better at accepting new wolf populations than northern Europe. Several countries with relatively small wolf populations including Finland and Norway still pursue controversial annual culls of the animals.

Chapron said he would not like to predict how many wolves could live wild in Denmark. “Let the wolf decide and let people decide as well because we are sharing the landscape. It’s very positive news for nature conservation. It shows that attitudes have changed and when we let nature take care of itself, nature comes back.

“Forget Little Red Riding Hood – it’s not a myth that is back, it’s just a natural part of the European fauna.”</s>Wolves return to Denmark for first time in 200 years

Exterminated by hunters, wolves had been completely extinct in Denmark since the beginning of the nineteenth century. — file picSTOCKHOLM, May 5 — At least five wolves, including one female, have returned to Denmark for the first time in two centuries, a zoologist who has obtained DNA evidence said yesterday.

The predators came from Germany to settle in western Denmark’s agricultural region, the least densely populated in the Scandinavian country.

Peter Sunde, scientist at the University of Aarhus, told AFP the wolves must have walked more than 500 kilometres (310 miles).

“We think these are young wolves rejected by their families who are looking for new hunting grounds,” the researcher added.

Scientists have established a genetic profile from the faeces of five wolves — four males and one female — but there could be more.

Sunde said researchers had suspected since 2012 that wolves had entered Denmark. “Now we have evidence (including) that there’s one female,” signalling the possibility of giving birth this spring, he said.

Proof was also established through the wolves’ fingerprints and video surveillance showed their location, which scientists refuse to reveal out of fear that it will attract hunters.

“We’re following that. The wolf is an animal we’re not allowed to hunt so we must protect it,” Henrik Hagen Olesen, spokesman at the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, told AFP.

Exterminated by hunters, wolves had been completely extinct in Denmark since the beginning of the nineteenth century.

In other Nordic countries with a higher wolf population, culling the species, protected by the Bern Convention, is under a fierce debate between inhabitants, farmers, hunters, the government, the European Union and wildlife activists. — AFP</s>Denmark Now Has A Wild Wolf Pack Again — For The First Time In 200 Years

It's been an awfully long time since a wolf pack has called Denmark home — roughly two centuries, in fact.

"Wolves were exterminated in Denmark because of intense persecution," Peter Sunde, a senior researcher at Aarhus University, tells Newsweek. He says that before a male wolf was spotted wandering the Jutland peninsula north of Germany in 2012, the last verified wild wolf sighting in the country took place in 1813.

While the 2012 discovery was cause for celebration, another question remained: This male can't simply be a lone wolf, right?

Now, Sunde and Kent Olsen of Natural History Museum Aarhus say they've confirmed the presence of not just other wolves in Denmark, but a full-fledged wolf pack — meaning the group has a she-wolf in its midst, as well.

They point to CCTV footage and DNA tests of stool samples recovered by volunteers in the past half-year, which together show four males and a female have been moving through the region.

The researchers believe the female, which bears the elegant code name GW675f, crossed the border into Jutland from Germany across a distance of roughly 340 miles last summer. Now, footage of a pair of wolves suggests she has also found a mate in her new home.

"We expect that they will have cubs this year or the next," Sunde told national broadcaster DR, according to a translation by the BBC.

To Newsweek, Sunde added: "They may also postpone until next year since they probably have not been established for more than eight months by now. If we observe two wolves together in May-June, they are most likely not mating as the female will stay with the cubs in or near the den while the male is foraging on his own."

Now that the wolves have arrived, though, concerns have already turned to the reason why they disappeared in the first place — specifically, that "intense persecution."

But Sunde tells The Guardian he harbors optimism for the pair, which are among more than 12,000 wild wolves in continental Europe, according to the British paper.

"Technically, we can relatively easily manage the wolf population but the challenge is the psychology of humans," he says. "There are so many feelings and opinions about wolves in Denmark, as everywhere. The wolf debate is very much value-driven rather than related to concrete problems."</s>The predators came from Germany to settle in western Denmark's agricultural region, the least densely populated in the Scandinavian country.

Peter Sunde, scientist at the University of Aarhus, told AFP the wolves must have walked more than 500 kilometres (310 miles).

"We think these are young wolves rejected by their families who are looking for new hunting grounds," the researcher added.

Scientists have established a genetic profile from the faeces of five wolves—four males and one female—but there could be more.

Sunde said researchers had suspected since 2012 that wolves had entered Denmark. "Now we have evidence (including) that there's one female," signalling the possibility of giving birth this spring, he said.

Proof was also established through the wolves' fingerprints and video surveillance showed their location, which scientists refuse to reveal out of fear that it will attract hunters.

"We're following that. The wolf is an animal we're not allowed to hunt so we must protect it," Henrik Hagen Olesen, spokesman at the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, told AFP.

Exterminated by hunters, wolves had been completely extinct in Denmark since the beginning of the nineteenth century.

In other Nordic countries with a higher wolf population, culling the species, protected by the Bern Convention, is under a fierce debate between inhabitants, farmers, hunters, the government, the European Union and wildlife activists.

Explore further: Sweden allows wolf hunt despite outcry</s>At least five wolves, including one female, have returned to Denmark for the first time in two centuries, a zoologist who has obtained DNA evidence said on Thursday.

The predators came from Germany to settle in western Denmark's agricultural region, the least densely populated in the Scandinavian country.

Peter Sunde, scientist at the University of Aarhus, told AFP the wolves must have walked more than 500 kilometres (310 miles).

"We think these are young wolves rejected by their families who are looking for new hunting grounds," the researcher added.</s>Wolves are back in Denmark. The Telegraph has the scoop:

At least five wolves, including one female, have returned to Denmark for the first time in two centuries, a zoologist who has obtained DNA evidence said on Thursday.

Those wolves sure do live for a long time.

Posted: 5th, May 2017 | In: Broadsheets, Strange But True Comment | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink</s>More than 200 years after Denmark’s last wolf was killed, the future looks bright for a new resident pack.

That optimism is all courtesy of a lone female who arrived in the country after an incredible 500-kilometre journey from Germany. She has joined a small group of male wolves that have been spotted around near Jutland since 2012.

“People were very surprised when wolves first appeared in Denmark, but they are highly mobile and are just as adaptable to (different) landscapes as foxes are,” Aarhus University researcher Peter Sunde told the CPH Post.

Germany has been an epicentre of sorts for a wolf rebound in several European countries, including France, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The current continental population is estimated to be around 12,000, with the German population growing by about 25 per cent a year. There were zero wolves in Germany as recently as two decades ago, but a breeding pair is suspected of having crossed the border from Poland in 1998.

“The wolves live here and multiply,” German forestry official Volker Einhorn told The Telegraph. “They see us as guests in their territory, they don’t run away. Young cubs in particular are curious.”

The German government has declared their wolves a protected species, and farmers who lose livestock to their hunts are compensated. The Danish government offers a similar program while also subsidizing the construction of fences to keep the packs off farmland.

The Denmark wolves have set up in an area that is thick with forest and plenty of deer for them to hunt. Sunde expects the newly arrived female to give birth to her first litter sometime this spring, and at that point the pack will be there to stay.

“Once they get cubs, they won’t move,” he said. “Only if the female dies will the male start off somewhere else again.”

Even if the female doesn’t have pups, Sunde predicts many more females will cross venture into Denmark as European populations continue to grow.</s>Denmark's last wolf was killed in 1813, but after a female travels 340 miles from Germany and meets some males, cubs are expected soon. As it stands now, there are some 12,000 wolves in continental Europe , returning to places like France and Germany after hundreds of years of fear and persecution.

Start the conversation, or Read more at TreeHugger.</s>BACKSTORY

In the 1970s, the Mexican gray wolf nearly vanished from the Southwest. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began reintroductions in New Mexico and Arizona in 1998, but conflicts with ranchers kept numbers low, and the already-endangered species became dangerously inbred. In 2015, an agency plan gave wolves more room to roam in New Mexico and allowed the release of captive bred animals to increase genetic variation, but the state sued and a federal court ruled in its favor, halting releases (“Line of descent,” HCN, 8/6/16).

FOLLOWUP

In late April, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision; Fish and Wildlife can again release wolves into the New Mexico wild. Meanwhile, the first-ever Mexican wolf pup has been born through artificial insemination, using frozen semen, at a wildlife center in St. Louis. The technique may improve the species’ genetic diversity over time, enhancing its chances for survival.</s>"The information that we have about wolves, which is all hard data, we believe justifies a delisting," state wildlife commission spokeswoman Michelle Dennehy said on Friday.

In reaching their decision, she said, state biologists found the wolves cover a large geographic area, that populations are expected to increase, the probability of extinction is low, and the wolf habitat in Oregon is stable.

The commission is due to vote on Nov. 9 on whether to delist the wolves under the state's Endangered Species Act, and the recommendation prompted dismay from wildlife advocates.

Steve Pedery, director of Portland-based advocacy group Oregon Wild Conservation, said in a statement that the public overwhelmingly supports continued protections for wolves.

"Conservation groups and tens of thousands of Oregonians have told the commission that delisting of Oregon's tiny wolf population is premature and that wolves still face threats ... in significant portions of their historic range - and the scientific community wholeheartedly agrees," Pedery said.

Gray wolves, native to Oregon but wiped out in the state by an eradication campaign in the early 20th century, first returned in 2008 and have spread to several parts of the Pacific Northwest state. Oregon has about 80 wolves and 15 packs.

Dennehy, the commission's spokeswomen, said delisting the wolves would not immediately change protections for the animal, and that a general season hunting of wolves would still be prohibited.

"There's still a lot of protection for wolves going forward," she said.

But wildlife advocates highlighted comments from some scientists who have questioned the state's process for recommending the delisting.

Michael Nelson, a professor of environmental ethics and philosophy at Oregon State University, said it was "logically indefensible" to suggest wolves are recovered when they are missing from almost 90 percent of their suitable range.

"Dropping state protections for wolves right now would suggest that politics, rather than science and law, are guiding wildlife management decisions in Oregon," Nelson said in a statement.
Scientists confirm that Denmark has its first wild pack of Gray wolves for the first time in 200 years.