The Scientific Council of the Macin Mountains National Park (PNMM) decided on Friday to reintroduce the wolf species into the park and to at least double the strictly protected areas, while banning human activities on an area of about 75% of the park, according to Agerpres.

PNMM Administration Director General Viorel Rosca told AGERPRES that the decision to reintroduce the wolf, a species protected elsewhere in Europe, into the park was taken after an evaluation presented by Romanian and Dutch specialists from the Rewilding Europe foundation, and together with this species, specimens of red deer and fallow deer will also be introduced.

„A pack of five or six individuals is introduced that must include an alpha female who will pick the alpha male. It will be a permanent monitoring to see if the space it provides and the local fauna cover enough space for the key species, the wolf. For that to happen, we will have to bring in not only the wolf, but we should also be careful of competitors, and the jackal is the main competitor. Our desire is not to eliminate him, but to inhibit his instinct to reproduce, so that the wolves will hold control over the area,” said Rosca.

The wolf specimens will be imported from the Vrancea area and kept under monitoring for two years.

Rewilding Europe is said to submit in March 2023 to the Life program a funding application for the reintroduction to the Macin Mountains of the wolf, a species that existed in the area until around the 1980s.

During its meeting, the Scientific Council also approved the expansion of the strictly protected area of the PNMM from a current 4,000 hectares to about 8,500 hectares, which means that about 75% of the park’s surface will be subject to a ban on natural resource exploitation.

With over 3,450 species of flora and fauna, but also with important areas of steppe vegetation, the Macin Mountains National Park, declared a biosphere reserve in 1998, is the only area in the European Union where the steppe ecosystem meets sub-Mediterranean and Balkan forests. The Macin Mountains are the oldest mountains in Romania.

Agerpres