SCIENCE
The Quiet Return of Europe’s Wolves
Resilient resilient New Able to recover quickly from difficulties. Able to withstand or adapt to demanding conditions. Known Learning Ignore and increasingly abundant, wolves are moving back into forests across Europe, into places where nobody expected to see them again.
For most of the last century the wolf was an elusive animal in western Europe. Hunting and the loss of forest had made the population so sparse that many countries counted none at all.
The return is contentious. Sheep farmers argue that the damage to their herds is a real hazard to a way of life that was already fragile.
Conservation groups advocate for payment schemes instead of hunting, and point out that fences and guard dogs remain the most viable protection anyone has tried.