Helping wolves in Bulgaria

Wolf Study and Conservation Program

Balkan Wildlife Society, Bulgaria
Progress report
April - June, 2003

During the period April - June 2003, the Wolf Study and Conservation Program in Bulgaria has continued to focus its activity upon the collection of biological and ecological data about the species, the status of the wolf in the country and public awareness and education activities.

During April we spent much time analyzing the collected wolf scat material in an effort to define the food base of the wolf in the study areas. In parallel with this our team continued its field work in Kraishte. Another wolf was killed in this area recently and our team managed to take possession of the carcass. We got a complete set of measurements of the animal and took various body parts for analysis. Whenever a wolf is killed in our part of the country - or any other part - we usually hear about it and we do our best to get hold of the bodies for analysis.

Towards the end of April we started the final part of the schools education program for this year. In May, representatives of our team visited all of the 45 schools where the education program was conducted. Pupils in almost all the schools participated in the competition organized by us and all those who took part received prizes. We have collected and kept the best entries.

On 7th June, a "Large Carnivore Day" was organized as a finale for the year's schools educational program. The event was held in the Education Center of Sofia Zoo and we exhibited all the pupils entries which we had collected. The pupils from V grade in Simitly town, who won the first place for their work, were invited to attend the LC Day.

Pupils from the village of Banja and pupils from some Sofia schools, also came and participated in the organized activities. Slide and video shows were organized for them along with visits to the animals and various games and competitions for best painting. Our work with the children has been very successful. Unfortunately, the media we invited were not very helpful - especially one of the national TV channels, "Nova TV". They came to the Zoo to cover our event, but suddenly the presenter started twisting the subject and it finished up going off in completely the wrong direction. When talking about wolves in Bulgaria, it is very difficult for most people to think in any kind of positive way. It is going to take a lot of effort and hard work on our part to achieve some positive changes in public awareness. Our hope is in the young generation. Still, we did get a good article in one of the national daily newspapers.

As one of the main priorities of our program is to educate people about large carnivores, our next step is the construction of a purpose-built education center in the Pirin Mountains. We are currently raising funds for this project.

We are now the proud owners of a wolf puppy, which was given to us by the zoo in Varna (a Bulgarian town). The puppy is being socialized with people and will be our "right hand" in educating people about large carnivore conservation. Vucho (the name of the puppy) will have a large enclosure in Pirin, where the education center is going to be built. We aim to construct enclosure in July.


Prepared by: Elena Tsingarska - Sedefcheva
28th of June 2003