Caught in a camera trap Two rare black wolves spotted in Poland

The animals fall into a camera trap - a nature conservation organization is keeping the exact location a secret. Researchers are now collecting genetic material and hope to gain new insights into the color mutation.

DPA

09.02.2025, 21:08

dpa

Two rare black wolves have been spotted in a forest in Poland. A wildlife camera filmed the animals crossing a stream, according to a nature conservation organization on Sunday. The footage is very unusual, said the project coordinator of the Save Wildlife Conservation Fund Poland, Joanna Toczydłowska. The organization is now collecting droppings in the forest in the hope of finding out more about the genetic make-up of the black wolves.

Toczydłowska actually wanted to observe beavers with her camera. When she noticed that she was getting wolves in front of her lens instead, she waited and finally received the footage of black wolves a few weeks ago. In one clip, a black and a gray wolf slowly cross a stream in the forest, the water almost up to their bellies before they jump onto the bank. A second clip, recorded last autumn, shows two black wolves and a gray wolf crossing the same stream.

The organization does not reveal the exact location of the camera. This is to protect the wolves from poachers and curious onlookers.

Black fur due to genetic mutation

The animals filmed are probably siblings and around one year old, said Toczydłowska. Wolves usually travel in family packs and the two black animals weigh around 30 kilograms. This makes them about the size of a German shepherd dog. At least one of the wolves is male.

Most of the 25,000 to 3,000 wolves in Poland are gray with reddish or black accents. The black coat is the result of a genetic mutation that probably occurred thousands of years ago in domesticated dogs. The dark coat is rare in Europe due to a lower genetic diversity, but at least half of the wolf population in Yellowstone National Park in the USA has black fur.

Wolves were virtually extinct in Poland in the 1950s, but populations have been reintroduced in recent years, especially in the central part of the country in the early 2000s. Toczydłowska and her colleagues educate the public on how to live safely in areas with wolf packs.