Italian 
Wolves 
A dog howls in the middle of 
the night as a lone wolf passes 
through a sleeping village high 
in the mountains of the 
Abruzzi. Otherwise unnoticed, 
the wolf searches for the food 
scraps that help it eke out a 
precarious existence 
by Erik Zimen 
In 1972, when a compilation was 
made of Italy’s endangered plants and 
animals, the wolf was at the top of 
the list. Wolves were not legally pro- 
tected and could be shot, poisoned, 
or trapped by anyone, anywhere, at 
any time. But a campaign conducted 
by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), 
brought a surprisingly swift reaction 
from the Italian government: the wolf 
was made a protected species for two 
years. The effort to save the wolf suf- 
fered from a great shortage of infor- 
mation, however. No one knew how 
many of the animals there were or 
where they were living, and so it was 
agreed that the WWF would conduct 
an inquiry into the distribution of 
wolves in Italy. 
When the WWF offered me the 
job of conducting the inquiry, I did 
not hesitate for long. The project 
would allow me to supplement my in- 
vestigations of captive wolves with ob- 
servations of wolves living in freedom. 
Also, I had often criticized biologists 
for making scientific studies of dif- 
ferent kinds of animals without both- 
ering about the question of their being 
threatened with extinction. There will 
be plenty of time for academic in- 
quiries when the urgent practical prob- 
lem of protecting such species has 
been solved. So I accepted on the con- 
dition that the WWF provide me with 
an Italian counterpart, namely, my 
colleague Luigi Boitani. 
Luigi and I agreed that attempting 
to count the wolves in Italy would 
be a hopeless task. The area that would 
Excerpted from The Wolf A Species m Danger, by Enk Zimen 
Translated from the German by Eric Mosbacher Deiacorte 
Press New York. 1980 
Erik Zimen 
67 
