Wolves return to Denmark for the first time in centuries

DENMARK is hosting its first wolf pack in 200 years, after at least five wolves, including one female, returned to the country.

The predators came from Germany to settle in western Denmark’s agricultural region, a zoologist who has obtained DNA evidence said yesterday.

Peter Sunde, a scientist at the University of Aarhus, said the wolves must have walked more than 500 kilometres (310 miles).

“We think these are young wolves rejected by their families who are looking for new hunting grounds,” the researcher added.

Scientists have established a genetic profile from the faeces of five wolves – but there could be more. Proof was also established through the wolves’ paw prints and video surveillance showed their location, which scientists refuse to reveal out of fear that it will attract hunters.

“The wolf is an animal we’re not allowed to hunt so we must protect it,” Henrik Hagen Olesen, spokesman for the Danish environmental protection agency, told AFP.

Exterminated by hunters, wolves had been completely extinct in Denmark since the beginning of the 19th century.

In Nordic countries with a higher wolf population, culling the species, protected by the Bern Convention, is the subject of fierce debate between inhabitants, farmers, hunters, governments, the European Union and wildlife activists.