Grey wolves have returned to the Znojmo region and the Podyji National Park, adjacent to Austria’s Thayatal National Park, after more than 100 years, the park’s administration announced on its website yesterday.
The grey wolf is the largest canid that historically inhabited the entire Czech territory. Together with the lynx and the brown bear, it is among the original species of local fauna.
As a result of intensive human persecution, deforestation and expansion of human settlements, wolves were eliminated from Czech territory at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
In recent years, however, thanks to natural migration from neighbouring countries including Slovakia, Poland and Germany, wolves have been returning to the Czech landscape.
According to the Podyji National Park Administration, there have been about ten credible sightings of wolves in the Znojmo region and in the Dyje River valley in the last few years.
“Individuals have recently been spotted both directly in the Podyji National Park and in the surrounding open countryside. It can therefore be assumed that the occurrence of this carnivore will continue to be more frequent in the area,” the administration said.
It is impossible to say whether a permanent pack will form in the Podyji in the future. According to the administration, given the structure of the local landscape, this is not very likely, but cannot be completely ruled out.
Nature conservationists confirmed the appearance of a wolf in mid-January in the south of Moravia. They have had reports of wolves present in the Brezina military training area near Vyskov for some time.
Since last autumn, there have also been several documented sightings from the open countryside around Vysocany and Zdarna in the Blansko district. A group of three wolves recently ran at night through Orlovice, near Vyskov, and were recorded by a home security camera.
