This Website has been set up for the sole purpose of raising money for Wolf Conservation.
We support Balkani who are based in Bulgaria and work tirelessly to keep wolves safe in the wild.
We will keep you updated on Wolf news from Bulgaria and other Countries
Every penny of profit on this site goes directly to Wolf Conservation.
Your support and contributions will enable us to help
keep Wolves Safe in the wild.
Last year we helped purchase some new Camera Traps for Balkani and this year we would like to purchase some new Trap Transmitters.
The trap transmitters send an alert as soon as an animal is caught in the trap which enables the team from Balkani to go and fit a GPS collar quickly which minimises the distress caused to the Wolves.
Each trap transmitter costs approx. £295 which is a huge amount of money in Bulgaria and we really want to help them in their work to keep Wolves safe in the wild.
Camera Traps are a vital tool for recording the health and movements of the Wolves.
Every penny donated will be very gratefully received and help Balkani keep these beautiful misunderstood animals safe in their natural environment.
Thank You so Much for taking the time to read this post.
Files coming soon.
The Education Center in Bulgaria is vital to keeping Wolves Safe in the wild.
Here people young and old get to learn different ways of living alongside predators harmoniously.
Young people meeting a rescued dancing bear. There are 2 rescued wolves and 2 rescued bears at the education center.
We help supply guarding dogs that keep the flocks safe. The people who live in the mountains are incredibly poor and their flocks are very important to their welfare.
Wolves are Radio Collared so important data can be collected. This way it can be proved as to where they are going and what they are eating.
These wolves were caught on camera just before Christmas going about their daily business..
We want wolves to be roaming free forever but there is a lot of work to be done and your help will be invaluable for future generations.
Studying elusive species like wolves is a big challenge. Moreover, in countries like Bulgaria, where wolves have been permanently persecuted, these animals are extremely shy and careful. The predominantly rugged mountainous and very forested terrain adds to the difficulty of the job.
Modern technologies like transmitters, deployed on wolves for their tracking and cameras that can record some moments of these secret animals’ life are very helpful for studying them.
The camera traps are helpful in many different aspects of wolf studies. During the last year we mainly used them to collect complementary information about the studied wolves in two areas of Bulgaria. In West Pirin, we GPS-collared a wolf in early spring and since then we have been trying to study closely his pack (Vuchkovci pack). We also deployed camera traps in areas around this pack's territory to learn more about the neighbouring packs. Camera traps were deployed in the core area of Vuchkovci pack. The GPS-collared wolf’s behaviour showed us that the pack is most probably raising pups. Very useful data complementing the GPS data from the collar were collected with the cameras. It was recorded that wolves supplied food to the denning area, which was another proof for the presence of pups. Later in the year, pups were recorded by some of the camera traps, deployed within the home range of this pack.
Thanks to the recordings of the cameras we could obtain the number of wolves in the packs inhabiting the study area of West Pirin.
In late summer, we got a shot of a pair with pups from the neighbouring pack to the South. That was very useful to record the successful reproduction of the neighbouring pack.
Combining the data obtained through the various field methods gives us a complete picture of the wolf population status in the studied areas and helps to form reasoned positions in support of the protection of the species in our country
Please see video's below showing film that was caught on Camera Traps
Files coming soon.
We have been committed to the study and long-term conservation of wolves in Bulgaria since our beginning as an organization. In 1992, a group of environmental protection organizations, including us (then Zeleni Balkani – Sofia), launched a joint campaign to cancel the order issued by the then Forestry Committee to poison wolves and other predators on a national scale. It was a successful campaign. Four months later, the order was revoked.
In those days, we realized that there is a lot of work to be done in our country for the research and conservation of wolves. Many years followed, in which we learned about them, about the state of their population in our country, and about what needs to be done in order for these iconic animals to be preserved in coexistence with humans. Years of intensive fieldwork, research, working with local people implementing activities to reduce their conflicts with wolves, and educational programs. A Large Carnivore Education Center was also established, where people could receive realistic information about the wolf and the other large carnivores inhabiting our country.A Huge Success Story - The National Wolf Action Plan was adopted in July 2022
14 years ago, back in 2008, the moment came to start the development of an Action Plan for the wolf in Bulgaria.
We initiated meetings with all the interested groups: responsible institutions, scientists, conservationists, hunters, foresters, and farmers. A working group was formed to develop the plan. a It was a huge challenge to gather at one table such diverse groups in terms of interests and beliefs and to reach a dialogue. The goal was to reach a consensus on the main points for the long-term conservation of the species, accompanied by minimal conflicts with people.
All over the world, the topic of the wolf arouses divergent opinions, emotions, and, if you will, passions in people. In such cases, a good and experienced mediator is needed to lead the meetings. It was a pleasure for us to work with Prof. Alistair Bath from the University of Newfoundland, Canada, who, in addition to his undoubted qualities as a skilled mediator, has behind him the experience of leading numerous meetings on large carnivores in various European countries. Prof. Bath is also a member of the Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe (LCIE) at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
It was a great honour and success to bring Prof. Luigi Boitani from the University "La Sapienza" in Rome, Italy to one of the working group meetings. Prof. Boitani is Chair of LCIE and one of the leading experts on the wolf, co-author of the famous monograph "WOLVES - Behaviour, Ecology and Conservation" together with Dr. David Meech.
In 2018, the action plan was adopted by the Ministry of Environment and Water (MoEW) with a decision of the National Biodiversity Council. The document also needed to be approved by the Executive Forestry Agency (EFA). Well, this is already a fact. This is the place to express our special thanks to the MoEW and EFA teams with whom we worked in 2021/2022, and in particular to the Minister and Deputy Minister of Environment and Water – Borislav Sandov and Toma Belev, to Filip Kovashki – director of EFA, who approved the plan, and to Alexander Dunchev, also a former director of EFA.
We would like to thank everyone in the working group who gave their time to participate in the workshops. Thanks to the authors of the texts and to the team that undertook to summarize the decisions of the working group and present them in the form of a finished document.
We are grateful to the Bernd Thies Foundation, the Anglian Wolf Society and Wolfaware whose support made this process possible.
Now the action plan has to be implemented conscientiously in order to preserve a healthy population of the species in our country, in the coexistence with humans.
The year 2020 passed under the siege of Covid-19, but despite of all the difficulties and constrains of it our team managed some progress in its work.
Unfortunately some of the planned activities had to be postponed.
We continued some work on the Wolf Studies which we have been doing for many years, in order to collect reliable and up-to-date data about wolves in Bulgaria and the status of the population in this country.
We’ve been trying to maintain at least small scale activities on data collection and analysis.
Wolf trapping and tracking to collect data and studies on wolf genetics became one of our priorities through the years.
During the spring lockdown of the country because of the first Covid 19 wave, our team concentrated on field work in the mountain, which was one of the few things not forbidden by the Government.
We set the first trap line in Pirin in April, but it wasn’t successful.
Then we set a second trap line in May, in the west slopes of Pirin Mountains and on the first day after activating the line we trapped a young (about 2 years old) female wolf. We equipped her with a GPS-GSM collar and gave her the name Vuchica.
From then on, following her movements we collected a vast amount of data about preferred habitats and about the amazing distances a wolf can cover.
From May to November this wolf crossed many times the highest peaks of Pirin going to different parts of the mountain.
In June she stayed in areas that we assumed were part of a pack core area.
We set camera traps there and managed to get photos of two wolves carrying food.
In the same area remains of a dead wolf was found and samples were taken, we are yet to find out through genetic analysis if this animal is part of the local pack or not.
The genetic analysis will also discover if the collared wolf Vuchica is a member of the local pack, or she is a disperser from another pack.
Unhappily, from 18th of November we stopped receiving locations from the collar and now by field tracking we have been trying to get some VHF signal.
So far it is not successful but we haven’t lost hope, attempts will continue.
We are hoping that only the GSM module of the collar is damaged.
In this case all the GPS fixes are stored in the collar memory and we will download them when the collar drops off the animal.
For all this we need to continue our field search via VHF tracking with a lot of driving and hiking in the mountain.
In May 2020, a female wolf from Pirin was equipped with a GPS transmitter by SDP BALKANI expert Elena Tsingarska, who has dedicated more than 25 years to the study and protection of wolves in Bulgaria. This is another important step for the study of wolves still roaming free in Bulgaria.
Catching a wolf is not an easy task! Skills acquired through years of learning and improvement are required. It is necessary to study and know the habits and psychology of these intelligent beings.
Wolves protect themselves from humans with all their abilities and skills because they are afraid of us! Outwitting them is extremely complicated!
SDP BALKANI's mission is to study wildlife by using scientific methods to achieve a peaceful coexistence between humans and large predators. The aim is to preserve biodiversity and habitats, but also to introduce effective measures to protect human livelihoods. and this cannot happen on the basis of folk beliefs and traditions. Management of large predator populations requires reliable scientific data collected consistently over years.
For more than 20 years, SDP BALKANI has been making efforts to develop skills and capacity to study wolves for scientific purposes. The secret life of the large predator and the conditions of a warming climate (winters without snow) require the application of various, innovative methods for their study. That's why they turned to telemetry, which reveals unsuspected details of wolves' lives but there is still a lot to learn!
Balkani check the places where the animals equipped with transmitters were. They also use the simulated howling method to find out where the families' dens are and many other important details of their habitats.
The young wolf carries the transmitter and reveals the places she prefers to roam to rest and where she finds food, etc. It is hoped that she will remain unharmed and will have the opportunity to live and survive as she deserves and that she will continue to teach Balkani how wolves survive in Bulgaria.
This work is of paramount importance to the wild existence of the wolf and every penny counts.
If anyone has a couple of pound they can spare please donate at
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/wolfaware2020
Your help to keep these beautiful animals free is very much appreciated.
Thank you.
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