Helping wolves in Bulgaria

Wolf Study and Conservation Program

Balkan Wildlife Society, Bulgaria
Progress report
January - March 2005

The year 2005 started well for the team of the Wolf Study and conservation program. The winter 2004/2005 was quite soft and without snow in the beginning, but after the middle of January we got snow and therefore good conditions for snow tracking. From the end of January through February and the first half of March we collected data by snow-tracking. This winter we concentrated only on the Pirin Mountains, because our work was a bit behind schedule in this study area. We mainly did tracking in a territory inhabited by two neighboring packs or this was one pack. We couldn’t be sure exactly what we were seeing though because on one side the territory is quite large for one pack, but on the other side everywhere we followed five wolves together. We could not connect the two areas by snow-tracking, but we hope to find out what the situation is by other methods.

We have almost collected all the questionnaires from local people in the two study areas. These are the regular questionnaires we collect every year. They give us information about wolf activity towards livestock, as well as about trends and the situation of livestock breeding. The results also show if peoples’ attitude towards large carnivores changing in a positive or negative direction. The results are compared with those from previous years.

In March we set our first trap line for 2005. It was on a forest road often used by a wolf pack, but also used by local people who already started going to their properties in the mountain small villages after the end of the winter. Despite this we decided to set the traps, because the area seemed to offer good possibilities.

The result came on the eight day after activating the traps. On 27^th of March, in the morning there was nothing when checking the traps (we checked them every morning). In late afternoon we got a phone call from a ranger in the National Park. He told us that some people coming down from the mountain saw a wolf trapped in a trap. We rushed towards the trap line and it was true. We had a male wolf in one of the traps. It was an adult animal. According to the condition of its teeth,  its age was determined as about 8 years. The animal was in good shape. He was barking at us when we approached. We tranguilized him and put the radio collar on. While waiting for the wolf to be immobilized, it became completely dark and we were unprepared for this situation as we had expected to catch one in the morning. The darkness prevented us from taking some of the detailed measurements we wanted. We took a tissue sample for DNA analysis and left the wolf to awake. Everything was fine and the wolf gradually started moving its eyes and ears, etc. We left him alone. Early in the morning he was gone.

This is the first wolf in Bulgaria wearing a radio-collar. We have already been following him for a week and we are already collecting interesting data. We hope he will be doing fine and the collar will keep working and we will discover a lot about wolf life in the Pirin Mountains.

Prepared by:
Elena Tsingarska - Sedefcheva