The LIFE WILD WOLF project’s ultimate goal is to reach a balanced long term conservation of wolves, by managing potentially critical situations that arise in human dominated landscapes of Europe. We aim at improving the technical capacity of relevant authorities to manage and prevent human-related conflicts by encouraging practices that keep the wolf’s wild nature and improve people’s ability to cope with their unexpected presence.
We will develop a series of integrated science-practice-management actions to better understand and prevent or mitigate conflicts across eight European countries and through the collaboration of 18 partners that include research institutions, management authorities and NGOs.
The project, which started in January 2023 and will last for 4.5 years, will implement actions along the main following lines:
- Definition of wolves’ behavioural patterns in human dominated landscapes
- Identification of main drivers for wolf habituation and definition of best management intervention to neutralise them for avoiding wolf permanent presence in human settlements;
- Description of eventual patterns for wolf depredation on dogs and testing of protective devices;
- Technical training of relevant authorities in communication, monitoring and management of wolf presence in human settlements.
LIFE WILD WOLF is co-funded by the LIFE programme of the European Commission, the Croatian Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Environment of the Czech Republic and the Benrd Thies-Stiftung Foundation.