Prague, Feb 18 (CTK) – The Czech Republic has its wolf pack again, with ten wolves living in the Kokorin area, central Bohemia, and others coming back to the borderland, daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) wrote on Thursday.
Wolf became extinct on the area of the present-day Czech Republic in 1918, but in the past months, the news about the return of the predator has been increasingly coming, MfD writes.
The latest evidence came from the Jeseniky Mountains, north Moravia, a month ago, it adds.
Experts from the Nature and Landscape Protection Agency of the Czech Republic (AOPK CR) have estimated the number of wolves at ten pieces.
However, Jiri Benes, from the Friends of the Earth, believes there may be 15 of them, MfD writes.
“The only and repeatedly reproducing wolf pack in the Czech Republic lives in the Kokorin area,” Benes said.
“According to the latest recordings from camera traps, it has at least seven members,” he added.
“Uniquely, though in the past months more frequently, we have recorded the movement of wolves in almost all border mountains, from the Beskides, to the Jeseniky, the Ceskosaske Svycarsko and the Sumava Mountains,” Benes said.
Karolina Sulova, from the AOPK CR, said the number of wolves was largely rising thanks to the Kokorin pack.
In the Beskides, the reverse may be true.
“Much depends there on the migration from Slovakia. Wolves’ shooting is allowed in a certain period of the year there,” Sulova said.
She said the number of wolves may not have increased as suggested and their more frequent observation may be due to the growing number of camera traps, she added.
Wolf has been doing well in abandoned mines in the German Lausitz and the adjoining area in Poland in recent years.
For young males who leave their packs in order to form their own one, the Czech borderland may be one of their destinations, MfD writes.
The state is facing the new situation actively. It has pledged to pay the damages wolves may do to the breeders of livestock and other domestic animals, it adds.
“If the wolves establish themselves here, much will depend on the position game-keepers and hunters will adopt to them,” Sulova said.
“The experience from Germany has shown that one can share the landscape with wolves without any problems,” she added.
