Berlin (dpa) – A study shows that since the first wolves immigrated to Germany at least 20 years ago, the species has spread rapidly. “Survival rates among the wolf population in Germany have been very high compared to other regions – in fact they were among the highest in the world,” says Stephanie Kramer-Schadt of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) in Berlin.
This assessment is based on long-term data provided by the Federal Documentation and Advisory Centre on Wolves (DBBW) in Görlitz. The average annual probability of survival for young wolves in the two decades of recolonisation was 75 percent, while for adults of the species it was as high as 88 percent, according to the study published in the journal Wildlife Biology. The Leibniz-IZW says this rate was higher than anywhere else in the world.
Legal protection as a key factor
According to previous analyses, the highest recorded survival rates for adult wolves in other non-hunted populations were 78 percent in the USA and 82 percent in the Alpine regions of Europe. The research team say that the main reason for the high rates in Germany is the large number of suitable habitats. “Rigorous legal protection has been a contributing factor here, too,” says Kramer-Schadt, but this will not go on forever, she says, noting that survival rates can be expected to drop as soon as the habitat capacity of an area is reached.
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