FAR LEFT This photograph shows a
rare encounter between a juvenile
and a small herd of red deer in deep
snow. After an intense exchange of
stares, a hind mock-charged and the
wolf backed off. In the Apennines there
is generally plenty of wild prey for
wolves, including red, fallow and roe
deer, wild boar, and smaller animals
on occasion.
LEFT Two juvenile wolves investigate
a mountain meadow near the pack’s
rendezvous site as they wait for the
adults to return from the hunt. The
youngsters become braver by the day as
they play and explore using their finely
tuned senses.Wolves roam in search of food – as the old Russian
proverb puts it, ‘The wolf is kept fed by its feet.’
The average size of the territory of an Italian pack is
100–250km^2 , but there are known territories as small
as 50km^2 and as large as 450km^2.
ABRUZZI APENNINES
The Apennines are a series of mountain ranges that
form the backbone of peninsular Italy and include
Abruzzo in the east. The region experiences cold
winters and hot summers. Many indigenous Apennine
species, including the Marsican brown bear, chamois,
wild boar and Italian wolf, are preserved in the reserves
Abruzzo National Park and Sila National Park, plus
several regional parks.Tyrrhenian
Seaitaly
Abruzzohe Abruzzi Apennines are close to Rome and
Naples, but remain surprisingly wild. Their
biological richness lies in vast beech forests, deep
valleys and solitary mountain plateaus that are home to
Italian wolves.
Award-winning photojournalist Bruno D’Amicis has
spent six years documenting the lives of these mysterious
canids. “We need to redefine our relationship with large
carnivores,” he says. “A cultural change is necessary so that
wolves and humans can live alongside each other.”
Centuries of persecution wiped out grey wolves in
much of Western Europe, and the population in Italy
almost suffered the same fate. By the 1970s only about 100
Italian wolves Canis lupus italicus, a subspecies of the grey
wolf, survived in a limited area in the central and southern
Apennines, but the arrival of legal protection in 1976
enabled the animal to make a comeback.
There are now about 1,000–2,000 wolves in Italy, with
approximately 1,500 in the Apennines and 120 in the
Italian Alps. According to Luigi Boitani, the chairman of the
Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe, the growth is mainly
due to an increase in availability of wilder areas, with the
abandonment of mountain and marginal agriculture; the
wolves’ ability to feed on a variety of prey and willingness
to disperse have enabled them to take full advantage.
However, the subspecies is coming into increasing
conflict with humans, contending with poaching,
persecution from farmers and dangers of hybridisation.
“The control of free-ranging dogs and illegal killing using
poison bait need to change,” says Boitani.
Despite these challenges the European population
of wolves in general is now thought to exceed 10,000,
quadruple the total in the 1970s – a success story
welcomed by D’Amicis. “More than any other species the
wolf has managed to touch human imagination.” ßT
THE LOCATION