loader image

Codino and Sottiletta are the two dominants of the Torletto pack, we have been following them since 2015 and we have written and published a lot about them, telling you their story until 2017: you can read it here and with the opportunity we pick up the story from where we left it.

Unfortunately, even in 2018, from what we have been able to find, the cubs did not survive and occasionally we take back at least one other wolf associated with the couple. In 2019 we have very good hopes that things have finally gone better, as both in May and June we shoot in which it is clear that Sottiletta is breastfeeding. Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, the cubs don't jump out and our video traps always keep shooting the two wolves alone, clearly making us think that this breeding season was also unsuccessful.
We have not been able to understand why the Codino and Sottiletta puppies do not survive: the reasons can be many, between natural and not, and unfortunately we believe that the lack of structuring of the herd may be among the causes of what happened recently. .

In 2019 Sottiletta (in the foreground) in lactation

In 2019 Sottiletta (in the foreground) in lactation

In 2020 we continued to film the two wolves with good regularity but we found from the shooting that two other packs, as simple neighbors of the couple, have progressively taken more and more space from the original territory of Codino and Sottiletta: from the points where the territories with the other packs we saw month after month the two wolves stop frequenting those areas until one of the packs initially adjacent to them (pack of "The Bandits") began to regularly occupy even the most central part of their now resized territory.
We believe that, for the two wolves alone for at least 3 years, it had become very complicated and demanding to guard and defend their territory precisely because they were only two.
From the territorial frequentation of the last six months it almost seems that Codino and Sottiletta occupy part of the territory of another herd.

In three different areas of their territory we record passages and markings of the band of I Banditi with increasing regularity

Despite the difficult situation for the couple, we have taken back Codino and Sottiletta very frequently also in this early 2021, always alone, always together and always to mark and reaffirm their territoriality.
We were therefore ready to witness radical changes even if the tenacity of this old couple, who just did not want to give up, made us hope to continue to see them again for this season.
However, last March something happens that makes us understand that these changes were probably taking place: after having resumed them to mark together on March 9, we lose track of Codino while we continue to record passages of the pack of I Banditi and also of Sottiletta alone.

Subtle visits the marking site on her own on several occasions.

We hoped to see Sottiletta together with Codino and hypothesized that his could be a temporary absence or maybe just the bad luck of not having filmed him with the video traps, we also hypothesized (perhaps more hoped) that the wolf could maybe be injured and unable to move to follow her partner but when Sottiletta appeared in front of our video-traps associated with another male, both with a dominant and marking attitude, we understood that we would never see them again together.
The first video of Sottiletta associated with the new male is very interesting because we understand that the two, even together and while marking, are somehow still studying each other and in particular Sottiletta seems rather cautious towards the new male.

First video of Sottiletta associated with the new male

The two spent many times throughout the month of April in front of our video traps with increasingly close-knit attitudes.
The new male has a slight fore limp, a thin face mask with two white knobs on the cheeks (disjoint face mask) and appears to be a young wolf.

Sottiletta together with the new partner in one of their frequent passages

It would be very interesting to understand where it comes from but unfortunately it is impossible for us to establish it: we can only make hypotheses and perhaps the most probable one, given the appearance similar to the wolves of the band of The Bandits, which almost all have very thin and disjoint facial masks, is that it can come right from their pack.
However, this remains only a hypothesis.
We have no trace of Codino since 9 March.
The substitution is therefore unequivocal.

Last video of Codino

As for puppies, Codino and Sottiletta were certainly not a lucky couple but they were certainly good at staying alive and getting by for all these years: wolves all have a hard life that exposes them to many risks both of natural origin and of origin. and anthropic.
We do not know what happened to Codino, his disappearance could have been caused by an intraspecific clash or by other natural or anthropogenic causes, who knows ... we will never know but we believe it is unlikely that we will see him again.
Among the flocks we follow it is not the first replacement of one of the members of the dominant couple we are witnessing and we believe it will not be the last.
Given the situation of the no longer young couple, the absence of other wolves associated with them for so long and the presence of the bandit pack in what has been the center of their territory for many years, we were preparing for changes. , but despite these awareness, we are never really ready and we will miss our old wolf.
Hello mythical Codino