The history of the reserve wolves

In the past two years we have told you the story of the herd of the Reserve: Antonio, LaPina, their family group, their adventures.

But they are not the only wolves to frequent the territories of the Reserve: for about a year our video traps have shot on some occasions a young solitary male who moves along the same paths as the pack, although apparently not associated with them, since he is not we never filmed it in the company of the other wolves. Its face mask is quite distinctive because it has two small white circular spots, two points on the cheeks. So we decided to call it "Point".

"Point" resumed in February 2019

Until mid-July we regularly film Antonio and LaPina: the two wolves are always very close and often accompanied by a young female, probably daughter of the couple, recognizable by two small slightly elongated spots on both cheeks, to which we have given the name of "Palla".

"Ball" young female associated with the herd

Since August we have acquired many passages of the wolves and we realize that both in the new and in the "historical" positions Antonio is missing: LaPina is associated with the young female "Palla" and with another wolf, a male. A few days were enough to understand that we already knew him: Period.

"Point" resumed in September 2019

Why don't we take Antonio again? So let's start making some assumptions: the wolf could simply have "dodged" our video traps by passing with the other wolves without being filmed, or he could be in trouble and temporarily not able to move, or he could be dead.

In "Punto" we do not notice particular attitudes of dominance and therefore we hypothesize that the wolf may be either a son of Antonio and LaPina (also considering the design of the facial mask similar to that of Palla, which we assume to be their daughter) or a wolf who arrived in their territory which over time has been welcomed by the family.

But time has said something else: in September our video traps immortalized “Punto” intent on marking together with LaPina on one of those marking sites that until recently belonged to Antonio.

At that moment our suspicions became certainty: "Punto" has probably become the new dominant male of the Reserve pack.

Since the end of July we have no longer taken Antonio, we do not know if the "old" wolf is still alive or not, but perhaps in time, if there is still, some of our trap videos will resume it.

Antonio

We don't even know if the substitution with “Punto” took place because Antonio died or because Punto established himself as the new dominant.

After understanding the important change in the social structure of the herd, there is another story that runs parallel to that of Antonio and Punto: throughout the summer we tried to understand if the herd had had puppies by concentrating our activities of research to ascertain their presence and even if the wolf howling sessions (induced recall) carried out together with the personnel of the conservation service of the Parks of the Duchy, gave negative results, the filming of LaPina, where the signs of lactation are evident even during summer make us hope that, unlike last year, this year there are puppies.

LaPina with still evident signs of lactation

So from August we have been setting up other video traps, positioned a little blindly in the territory of the pack, to try to capture the puppies. But unfortunately neither August nor September give us the answers we hoped for. So when we no longer expected it, the confirmation we had been waiting for months has arrived: the puppies are there and there are at least four!

The scene we recorded in mid-October, in addition to being spectacular, shows a glimpse of the life of the rare herd to observe together with the incredible cohesion of these animals: a group of fleeing fallow deer is followed by Punto and LaPina who stop right in front of our video trap, the dominant couple is joined both by the puppies, who in this period begin to follow the adults during their travels to learn hunting techniques, and by "Ball".

Most likely the puppies are the children of Antonio and not of Punto who, despite not being the father of the litter, takes care of and guides the herd together with LaPina and the new born as if they were his children, demonstrating the great union and sense of belonging that these animals sometimes have much more than we humans.

Since Antonio disappeared, there has been turmoil in the family nucleus and we, to get answers, whether they are confirmations or denials to our hypotheses, can not help but wait to acquire new data and hope to be able to interpret them.

We have thus decided to carry out non-invasive genetic analyzes to establish the kinship ties between the wolves necessary to help us understand the important changes we are witnessing.

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Images and text by daniele ecotti