Researchers traced the remarkable journey of a male gray wolf born in Germany who made his way to northeastern Spain in three years. The wolf traveled 1240 kilometers — the longest distance ever recorded for this species.
A wolf named GW1909m was born in 2020 near the German city of Nordhorn (Lower Saxony), almost on the border with the Netherlands. In February 2023, he reached the village of Villalier, located in the Pyrenees in Catalonia.
Genetic analysis of the droppings left by the wolf on his journey allowed molecular geneticists from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and their colleagues from Germany and France to trace this route. Apparently, the predator spent the entire year of 2022 crossing French territory. On June 17, 2022, GW1909m's feces were found in the Haute-Saône department in northeastern France, and on February 13, 2023, in the Catalan Pyrenees. In the mountains, wolf droppings were searched for by specially trained tracking dogs that assist forest rangers in monitoring the wolf population.
The previous registered record for the longest journey was 1092 kilometers, which a wolf covered between Norway and Finland. Movements of wolves over 880 kilometers from Germany to Belarus and 829 kilometers from Switzerland to Slovakia have also been documented.
GW1909m's odyssey demonstrates not only the remarkable physical abilities of wolves but also their behavioral flexibility, considering that this wolf had to navigate through areas with many large and small human settlements, researchers note.
In their opinion, thanks to such long journeys, male wolves as a species manage to overcome genetic isolation of packs and avoid inbreeding, which could threaten extinction.
