Two rare black wolves, believed to be siblings, have been captured on film traversing a stream in a Polish forest.
The sighting, announced Sunday by SAVE Wildlife Conservation Fund Poland, has sparked a new research effort to understand the genetics behind these striking creatures.
The footage, captured last year by a camera trap set up by project coordinator Joanna Toczydłowska, initially intended to monitor beaver activity, inadvertently recorded the wolves. Weeks later, reviewing the footage, Toczydłowska discovered the presence of the black wolves. “It’s something new and unusual,” she told The Associated Press.
Intrigued by the rare sighting, the organization has now initiated a project to collect scat (droppings) in the forest. Analysis of the scat will provide valuable genetic information, potentially shedding light on the prevalence and origins of the black coat colour in these wolves. The discovery underscores the importance of ongoing wildlife monitoring and its potential to reveal unexpected insights into the natural world.
In one clip, a black wolf and a gray wolf slowly crossed a stream in the forest, the water nearly up to their bellies, before they leap onto the bank. A second clip, taken last fall, records two black wolves and a gray wolf fording the same stream.
Most of the 2,5000 to 3,000 wolves in Poland are gray with red or black accents. Black fur comes from a genetic mutation that was likely in domesticated dogs thousands of years ago. The dark fur is rare in Europe due to a reduced genetic diversity, but at least half of the wolf population has black fur in Yellowstone National Park in the United States.
Because wolves travel in families and both black wolves were around 30 kilograms (66 lbs) — roughly the size of a German shepherd — Toczydłowska said they were likely siblings and roughly a year old. At least one is male.
The conservation organization, which has been monitoring wolves in Poland for 13 years, is not disclosing the forest's location to keep the wolves safe from poaching and prevent misinformation about wolves from spreading.
Wolves were essentially extinct in Poland by the 1950s, but the population has been reintroduced in recent years, especially in central part of the country in the early 2000s. Toczydłowska and her colleagues teach other the public how to safely live in areas inhabited by wolfpacks.
“For people, it is a new phenomenon,” Roman Gula, head of the organization's wolf monitoring project, told the AP. "Education is one of our major, major goals."
The conservation fund announced the sighting last week on Facebook and asked for financial support to pay for the scat's genetic testing to learn more about the black-fur mutation.
