Why a love of wolves can span a lifetime.


Wolves have been persecuted in Europe for centuries, having been exterminated in Great Britain by 1684, in Ireland by 1770, in Central Europe by 1899, in France by the 1930s, and in much of Scandinavia by the early 1970s.

They continued to survive in parts of Finland, Eastern Europe and Southern Europe.

There's more to them than their reputation as predatory hunters.


The wolf is a social animal. Its populations consist of packs and lone wolves, most lone wolves being temporarily alone while they disperse from packs to form their own or join another one.
The wolf's basic social unit is the nuclear family consisting of a mated pair accompanied by their offspring. The average pack size in North America is eight wolves and 5.5 in Europe. The average pack across Eurasia consists of a family of eight wolves (two adults, juveniles, and yearlings), or sometimes two or three such families, with examples of exceptionally large packs consisting of up to 42 wolves being known.

Cortisol levels in wolves rise significantly when a pack member dies, indicating the presence of stress. During times of prey abundance caused by calving or migration, different wolf packs may join together temporarily.

Click the button below to find out more.