When a wolf loses its suspicion: the case of the young she-wolf of Novi Ligure

In Novi Ligure, in the province of Alessandria, a young wolf was captured on February 24th. A female born last spring, she had been regularly frequenting a neighborhood in the city for weeks. The intervention became necessary because the wolf's repeated presence in an urban setting, with increasingly shorter distances from people and a progressive loss of suspicion, had led to a critical situation that cannot be allowed to develop, both for the sake of public safety and for the proper management of wildlife.

The reasons for this frequent urbanization are primarily related to the availability of readily available and abundant food. Not just accessible garbage or scraps, but also food left behind voluntarily by some people.
Feeding a wild animal, even with good intentions, is the quickest way to alter its behavior: when a wolf associates the presence of people with food, its natural distrust diminishes, the animal returns more and more often and eventually becomes accustomed to noises, lights, and human presence until it becomes trusting.

The young wolf captured in Novi Ligure showed no aggression, but her distrust of humans was already compromised: and when this happens, that is, when an animal becomes confident, the level of risk becomes intolerable for our safety and it is necessary to intervene.
To properly understand the issue of safety when talking about wolves, it is important to start with the data and the available scientific framework, avoiding distorted perceptions or emotional narratives that often accompany these animals.
ISPRA is the national public body responsible for technical and scientific issues related to the environment. It conducts research, monitoring, and institutional support for biodiversity, wildlife, and conservation, providing guidelines and technical opinions to ministries, regions, and local authorities.
In a recent article, ISPRA reports that, on a national scale and in a growing population, between 2017 and 2024, reports of critical situations related to wolves are increasing. Seven individuals have been identified with aggressive behavior toward humans, for a total of 19 non-lethal attacks (11 of which were attributed to the same individual). These numbers are very low, but they are useful for understanding the mechanism by which these situations can develop and why it is important to intervene before habituation becomes consolidated and turns into true trust toward humans.
To correctly interpret these data, it is essential to distinguish between danger and risk. Danger is the potential to cause harm, and a large carnivore like the wolf can theoretically cause serious harm. Risk, on the other hand, is the probability that that harm will actually occur. In Italy, the risk of wolf attacks remains extremely low: no cases of lethal attacks have been recorded for over a century, and very few non-lethal incidents have been documented in recent years.
This doesn't mean trivializing or denying the problems, but putting the data into perspective: zero risk doesn't exist in any context, and in our daily lives we live with dangers and probabilities of harm that are often much higher than those associated with the presence of wolves.

Sources:
MOUNTAIN RESCUE (CNSAS) https://news.cnsas.it/disponibili-i-dati-2024-delle-attivita-del-soccorso-alpino-e-speleologico/
ROAD ACCIDENTS – ISTAT https://www.istat.it/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/REPORT_INCIDENTI_STRADALI_2024.pdf
FATAL ACCIDENTS IN AGRICULTURE https://disaapress.unimi.it/le-vittime-trasparenti-del-lavoro-agricolo/
HUNTING ACCIDENTS – University of Urbino (official annual data)
https://www.uniurb.it/comunicati/47252
https://www.uniurb.it/comunicati/48401

To better understand the scale of risk, it's helpful to make some comparisons, including visual ones (see the images above). In 2024, the National Alpine and Speleological Rescue Corps recorded 466 deaths in rugged environments. In the same year, the University of Urbino reported 14 deaths and 34 injuries related to hunting (excluding illnesses, falls, and intentional or unlawful acts). A study also reconstructed 54 fatal dog attacks in Italy between 2009 and 2025. And, on an even different scale, road accidents in Italy cause thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries every year. The point isn't to trivialize or deny the problems: it's to think correctly about danger and risk. Zero risk doesn't exist in any context. Many activities we choose to engage in and many people we coexist with, from mountains to roads to pets, involve real, even significant, risks. Yet we accept them because we know that the solution is not to eliminate them, but to reduce them with rules, prevention, and good practices.

In the mountains, you need to be well-equipped: you assess the weather and the route, you bring a helmet, crampons, or emergency kit, and you respect the limits and conditions. With dogs, there are obligations and best practices: leash, proper housing, and safe handling in the presence of people or other animals. Not because "dogs are bad," but because even a pet can more easily cause accidents and injuries when not handled properly.
The same reasoning applies to the wolf, with one fundamental difference: the wolf is a wild animal, and its natural distrust of humans is a safety net that must be maintained. While the risk of aggression toward humans is very low, it remains a large, potentially dangerous carnivore: precisely for this reason, it is essential to prevent habituation and trust from building.

In the case of the she-wolf of Novi Ligure, the Piedmont Region and all the bodies involved acted promptly: first monitoring and evaluating the critical situation, then intervention according to a defined technical path ISPRA protocol for the identification and management of urban and confident wolves, up to the decision to remove the animal and take it into care, which will remain captive for life. After careful monitoring, it was determined that there was no scope for the gradual interventions envisaged by the protocol (removal of attractants, dissuasion, or capture and relocation to another area): the animal's distrust of humans was already compromised, and gradual options would not have been effective, simply shifting the problem elsewhere.

Critical cases are rare compared to the overall wolf population, but they exist and can increase where opportunities increase. The expansion of the species and the use of more human-influenced environments increase the likelihood of encounters and interactions with people. Furthermore, wild prey such as coypu and wild boar live near or within towns and cities. And above all, there are the food resources we make available: waste, scraps, accessible pet food, improper livestock disposal. The presence of readily available and abundant resources makes it advantageous for wolves to approach us and our facilities: this erodes mistrust of people (a typical trait of the species) and can lead to confident and intolerable behavior, such as predation on dogs or cats in backyards, even approaching people and, in the most serious cases, aggression. To truly reduce risks and conflicts, two levels must work hand in hand. The first is prevention and widespread information on best practices and correct behaviors (waste and attractants, nutrition, pet management, good behavior in the event of an encounter) through structured communication from the competent authorities, continuous, clear, and consistent throughout the country.

The second is the ability to intervene when a critical situation arises: specialized, trained, and operational teams, with rapid response times and a "pyramid" approach envisaged by the ISPRA protocol, from the removal of attractants to dissuasion where possible, up to capture and removal. But the truth is that in Italy, this doesn't happen systematically. Nearly all regions lack robust and continuous monitoring and, above all, there's no operational capacity ready to manage critical situations: limited resources, unclear procedures, insufficient or untrained personnel. The result: we procrastinate and wait, while these situations require speed. Meanwhile, behavior consolidates, the perception of insecurity grows, conflict flares up, and the opportunity for exploitation and do-it-yourself approaches opens up.

And when the state fails to intervene credibly and promptly, it effectively leaves the "management" to be resolved elsewhere. This is a failure for the citizens, for those who work seriously on coexistence, and especially for wolves. When transparent and criteria-based public management is lacking, we often end up de facto delegating to poaching: an illegal, indiscriminate, and harmful "management." This is why the Piedmont intervention is an example worth following. Resources and tools are needed for this approach to become the norm: if we don't invest in information, prevention, intervention capacity, and transparency, conflicts and exploitation will continue to grow, to the detriment of a species that is fundamental to our ecosystems, which we have a duty to conserve for ourselves and for future generations, but also for the communities that, willingly or unwillingly, must coexist with wolves.

Like I'm Not Afraid of the Wolf, we work every day to conserve the species and reduce conflicts with human activities. Therefore, we clearly call on politicians, government agencies, and regional governments to change direction: continuous and up-to-date monitoring, public and transparent data, and comprehensive information for the public; management of critical issues according to ISPRA protocols with trained and truly operational teams; assessment of wolf-dog hybridization and targeted interventions to reduce it (largely by consistently applying existing regulations); and a genuine and credible fight against poaching, with inspections, investigations, and real consequences. Illegality cannot be de facto "management."

As an association, we want to congratulate the Region and all the agencies involved for their swift and secular management of a delicate situation. This is precisely how risks, fears, exploitation, and "do-it-yourself" approaches are minimized.
Finally, we remind you that when critical situations arise, it is important for citizens to report them to the relevant authorities. Throughout Italy, for any emergency or urgent situation, call 112: the Single Emergency Number will then direct the report to the appropriate channels. Reporting and reporting is essential to enable timely and coordinated interventions: if critical situations remain merely "discussed" or posted on social media, they often fail to activate operational procedures and responsibilities.

Here you can find the full article with reconstruction and operational details of the Piedmontese Apennines Protected Areas on the case of the she-wolf captured in Novi Ligure.
https://www.areeprotetteappenninopiemontese.it/2025/02/27/lupa-catturata-a-novi-ligure-dal-monitoraggio-allintervento-sul-campo/