Romania has the one of the biggest wolf populations in Europe, but they are rarely seen as they stick to remote and isolated areas and avoid contact with humans who they’re wary of.
But recently, half a dozen wolves were caught on camera in a forested area in northeastern Romania, a rare sighting of the predator which hunts in packs, national forest administrator Romsilva said.
The pack of six wolves was filmed in the Tarcau Forest, in Neamt county an area which is home to 23 wolves, Romsilva said on Facebook.
Romania had about 3,000 grey wolves in 2016 based on snow tracks, camera sightings and other evidence. They mainly live around the Carpathians.
A sophisticated and dogged hunter, with a finely tuned sense of smell and acute hearing, wolves direct their prey to enclosed areas where they’ll get trapped, such as a river before moving in for the kill.
Wolves can cover tens of kilometers a day in search of prey and can reach a speed of up to 60 kilometers an hour, Romsilva said.
The footage was shot by professor Stefan Ciotau and made available to Romsilva. No date was given for the film.
Romsilva administers about 209,000 hectares of forest of which 161,000 belong to the state.
Wolves have mostly disappeared from Western Europe due to over-hunting, forest clearing and urban expansion.
