Wolf Silhouette

The wolf (Canis lupus) is the largest recent predator of the dog family (Canidae). Wolves usually live in packs, which are family groups. The main prey in most regions are medium-sized to large ungulates. The species has been distributed in several subspecies throughout Europe, much of Asia, including the Arabian Peninsula and Japan, and North America since the late Pleistocene. Wolves were systematically persecuted in Central Europe from the 15th century onwards, and by the 19th century they had been severely depleted in almost all regions of their global range, mainly through human hunting, and were almost extinct in Western and Central Europe and completely extinct in Japan.

Since the 1980s, the wolf has been protected in many countries. In European countries it is protected by the Bern Convention, and in the EU since 1992 it has also been protected by the Fauna-Flora-Habitat Directive. In many countries, including the Middle East, there is no legal protection for the wolf. Since the turn of the millennium, the number of wolves and wolf packs in Central and Northern Europe has increased significantly again. Wolves are among the best-known predators; they found their way into the myths and fairy tales of many peoples early on.

They are the ancestral form of all domestic dogs and the secondarily wild dingo. In many cultures the wolf appears as a totem, for example among the Indian tribe of the Tlingit, the Iroquois, the Turkmen and the Mongols. The Uzbeks and the Huns derived their origin from the wolf, and the she-wolf was also considered the ancestral mother of the ancient Turks. The North American Indian tribe of the Shoshone believed that coyotes and wolves created the world and that the dead of their tribe would enter their realm. The souls of the dead would first be washed by coyotes in a river and only then could they enter the eternal hunting grounds.