New wolf pups of season 2005.
by laetitia Becker,
November 12, 2005.
16 June 2005: We came back from Saint-Petersburg’s zoo with five wolf pups. They were six weeks old and never had human contact. One day in a small shelter was the first step of introduction to each other: I easily recognized the single male from the others with his large head and his wonderful blue eyes! Then I found physical characteristics to distinguish the four females and gave them names consequently.
We moved them into a small enclosure in the forest and started observation. During three months, I went there every day, for 8 hours, attentively looking at them and writing down every their movement and behaviour. We quickly realized that they are very wild and that there was little chance to make them tame wolves.
I patiently waited for them to become used to my presence and realise that I don’t represent any danger to them. I could notice every step of this habituation: the day they stopped reacting to the noise of my backpack opening, the day they played without paying attention to me anymore… until the day they took food from my hand!
A week before I left, we decided it was time to release them into the 1-hectare-enclosure. It seemed this unknown environment gave them new freedom and they regained their wildness. Indeed, they hid very well and it became hard to see them.
1 November 2005: I came back for the winter… After an absence of 2 months, I wondered how they would behave towards me. It has been now two weeks since I went to them, for several hours per day: they quickly recognized my smell and remembered my harmlessness. Even more, they started following me as I moved in the enclosure and I take advantage of this proximity to film them and learn more about them…
This work is part of a global one about rearing pups for their release. We hope to find the optimal conditions for that project through such experience with pups. I also collected lots of data about the wolves’ behaviour during their development and might carry out analysis for a better understanding about this wild mysterious animal.
Research into wolf – human interactionto develop conservations profiles in Russia
by Catriona Blum,
October 12, 2005.
The project is based at the Biological Research Station “Chisty Les” (Clean Forest) in Bubonitsy, one of the many villages of the Toropets district. This district is situated in the northwest of the Tver region. The Tver region is divided into 36 districts, of which Toropets district is one. It covers 
an area of 3400 sqkm and is home to 30,700 inhabitants. The largest town, with 17,400 inhabitants, is Toropets. In the Tver region forest covers most of the area, alternating with swamps, raised bogs, lakes and open fields and, as the soil is sandy, pine is the dominant tree species.
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