A wolf pack has formed in the Swiss National Park in the Engadine for the first time in over a hundred years.
Young wolves were snapped by camera traps that the national park set up specifically to search for them.
“The first indications of the presence of young wolves in the national park were destroyed insect traps that showed clear signs of browsing,” the national park announced on Wednesday. Researchers then installed several camera traps to identify the perpetrators.
“The images now clearly show that young wolves were at work,” wrote the national park. Deer and chamois that had been killed by wolves have also recently been found in the area where these photos were taken.
The wolf pack was christened “Fuorn”. It is the 13th pack recorded in canton Graubünden. According to the photos, at least four young wolves belong to the pack, as Hans Lozza, head of communications for the national park, explained upon request.
“We are pleased that the biodiversity in the Swiss National Park is being expanded to include an important species,” said Lozza. This brings us one step closer to the basic idea of the national park, which is to let nature take care of itself.
It is still unclear which pair of wolves founded the pack. The female wolf F18 has been roaming through the national park area since the end of 2016, but there have been no offspring.
Since October 2022, park employees and the cantonal wildlife agency have repeatedly discovered traces of two wolves roaming together in the park and its surroundings. The two animals were also detected using camera traps. Only genetic analyses will show whether the female wolf F98 and the male wolf M312 are the parents of the young wolves.
The wolves find plenty of game in the park and there is little disruption, as visitors are only allowed to enter the protected area on the marked paths. The researchers at the national park now hope to document the effects of a wolf pack on the national park's ecosystem, which is hardly influenced by humans.
"We know the current situation in the national park very well. Now it will be exciting to see what changes the presence of a wolf pack cause," explained Head of Communications Lozza.