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Giulio Roman's picture

I feel so lucky for this - one of the best days of my life

Yesterday I woke up earlier than usual and could not sleep further. The weather was relatively bad - no rain but lots of clouds, and before sleeping I was watching at a youtube video by Morten Hilmer, my favourite wildlife photographer. I restarted the playback and after a brief time I realized that I should instead turn off the laptop and go out for a hike, in the hope of being alone on the mountain, without tourists which are so abundant in my region, and hopefully see some wild animals.

After a couple of hours of hiking without any encounter I arrived near to the top of the mountain. I had my Nikon D3300 with my Tamron 150-600mm lens hanging on my shoulder, ready to snap some pictures, but as usual, I did not see any animal.

Then I spotted a small figure from very far away. With my naked eyes I could not tell what it was, it seemed to me a deer at a first glance. I immediately grabbed my camera and pointed at that, and what a surprise! A wolf!

Wolves are extremely rare in my region, they were hunted out in the past century along with bears, but in the '70s they were reintroduced in a nearby region - Trentino. After some years they reproduced and some of them entered my region. Populations are still very limited, we're talking about dozens of animals, not more.

Currently there is a lot of public debate on local media, because farmers are angry when sheeps get killed by those predators. The state has a free public insurance agains these cases, and farmers get paid when their animals are hunted by bears and wolves. Still they are lobbying to change the law and eliminate all these animals. Their arguments range from "dangerous for humans" to "dangerous for rural economy" and other crap like that.

The state does not only reimbourse farmers for killed animals. There are also subsidies for building fences (also electric ones) that cover up to 100% of the money spent by land owners to prevent attacks by wild predators. Still, until end 2017 not a single farmer has built any fence. (This was reported by journalists as you can read in this italian article https://www.altoadige.it/cronaca/bolzano/lupi-i-contadini-sudtirolesi-no...)

Long story short, I was hiking in an area where wolves were not spotted - YET! I did. I submitted my picture to a veterinary to get a confirmation. She said this was "probably" a wolf. She also said I should not disclose the position where this shot was taken, to protect the animal from poachers.

Here I am, sharing here my picture, which maybe isn't photographically a good one, but captures something extremely rare. After snapping the first picture (the one you see here) the wolf realized that I saw him and fleed immediately. I was more or less 300 meters far away from him, and he runned away. This is just to confirm how false are arguments about wolves being dangerous for humans.

If you read up to this point, thank you for let me share one of the best moments in my life.

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7 Comments

Congratulations, Giulio!
I see where you consulted the opinion of a veterinarian for confirmation as to whether this was, indeed, a wolf. Personally, I do not think that a veterinarian has any professional training or expertise that would qualify her to make such an identification. If it were I that wanted confirmation, I would consult a wildlife biologist - one who specifically specializes in canids.

Thanks Tom. I wrote an email to some experts of a public wildlife conservation office and hopefully they will answer on monday when they get into the office

It's a wolf, you don't need any one to tell you. Spotting something like this must have been reward in itself - I think they are quite shy in the wild and tend to flee and not fight.

If all wolves are like the one i saw then they are extremely shy. I had my dog with me and he was free to run. I suppose the wolf smelled him from afar and this was the only reason why he did not run away before. As soon as he realized that I saw him he fleed

Hey Giulio,
This is super cool and I'm jealous you got to see a wild wolf! I agree you shouldn't tell anyone the location, but I would consider letting the local fish and game department know, or a local research university. Could be useful data!

Hi, thanks for the reply. We have a "fishing and hunting" department, which I don't feel to be trustful enough to share the location.

Nice one Giulio! We have a wolf pack nearby since a few years. But never seen one. They are really shy.