The wolf is back: fear, coexistence and responsibility

Saying that the wolf is back doesn’t settle the argument. Some people fear for their dog, others have livestock to protect: neither is helped by a caricature. Coexistence begins when concrete questions take the place of slogans.

A real animal, not a fairy-tale one

The wolf is often asked to stand for something bigger: nature reclaimed, valleys left behind, the gap between city and mountain. These readings deserve a hearing, but they can hide both the animal and the problems that actually exist. A serious discussion should let people acknowledge a difficulty without forcing them to pick a side.

The LIFE WolfAlps EU project has published a report on the wolf’s distribution across the Alpine regions for the period 2020–2024. That time frame is part of the data: we won’t relabel it a “censimento del Bellunese 2026” (translation: “2026 census of the Belluno area”). Reports, identified individuals, pairs and packs are not categories you can add together as if they all measured the same thing.

We are not giving a current number of packs for the province here. Opening with a figure would be catchier, but what readers need most is to understand what that figure can actually explain. Making sense of an encounter takes place, behaviour, distance and context; an estimate covering a large area doesn’t automatically describe the situation in front of us.

Fear deserves to be heard, then turned into information

People who are worried gain nothing from being told they’re irrational. What they need is to know whom to contact, what to avoid doing and what details to report. Those who champion conservation should want accurate information too: keeping quiet about problem incidents doesn’t protect the animals, and it leaves room for stories that are harder to verify.

ISPRA (Italy’s national environmental protection and research institute) has drawn up a protocol for identifying and managing urban and habituated wolves. The distinction is about behaviour and context, not a new label to stick on every animal spotted near a village. Monitoring and assessment are the job of the relevant authorities. Watching a video doesn’t make any of us experts in wildlife management.

This is also a responsibility for anyone posting on social media: say when and where a scene was filmed, avoid vague locations, and don’t pass off footage that has already done the rounds as recent. Before sharing an alarm, asking for the source is a way of looking out for your neighbours, not a denial of what they went through.

If you meet a wolf: give it space

Guidance from the Forestry Service of the Province of Bolzano advises keeping your distance and staying calm, not running, and neither attracting nor feeding the animal. If the situation makes you uneasy, make yourself heard and back away slowly. Don’t try to get closer for a photo, and don’t follow the wolf once it has moved off.

If an animal keeps approaching or follows someone, the situation should be reported to the relevant services; in an emergency, call 112. A general recommendation shouldn’t be turned into a promise that every encounter will end the same way. The behaviour you observe matters more than any blanket reassurance.

«Mantieni la distanza, rimani calmo e non scappare.» (translation: “Keep your distance, stay calm and don’t run away.”)

Autonomous Province of Bolzano — guidance on meeting a wolf

Livestock farmers need someone to talk to

Talking about coexistence without listening to the people who tend animals on the pastures leaves the conversation incomplete. Prevention also has to be discussed in terms of the work it demands, the nature of each place, support and continuity. It isn’t enough to point to a tool and imagine that simply having it available will solve every problem.

In 2026 the Regione Veneto published the Melken call for proposals for new methods of preventing predation at malghe (high summer pastures and dairy huts), with stated funding of €400,000. The listing we consulted concerns public beneficiaries and gives a deadline of 23 November 2026 at 11:59 pm. So it would be wrong to present it as compensation automatically available to every farmer.

The existence of a measure doesn’t prove that it has already been put into practice or that it has produced any particular result. How allocated funds turn into actual work on the ground deserves a follow-up story, with documents and identifiable people. In the meantime, anyone looking at a call for proposals should check who is eligible, the required attachments and any corrections before making decisions.

The view from those who work at the malga

A sheep farmer’s account from the Alpago

There is now a first-hand account, gathered by the Italian daily Il Gazzettino. Igor De March has been raising sheep since 2005 at Pian Formosa, in the municipality of Chies d’Alpago. One night between Tuesday and Wednesday a wolf got into his enclosure: six sheep were killed and a seventh was badly injured. The following night the farmer chose to sleep next to his flock.

Prevention measures were in place. De March describes a double electrified fence 145 centimetres high, reinforced with an extra post between the regular ones, and a Maremma livestock guardian dog inside the enclosure, which still managed to save the other 140 sheep. He also gives the costs: about a thousand euros a year for the dog and around 5,000 euros for nets and equipment. But he insists the issue is not money: compensation, if it comes, does not repay the daily work through which he looks after the land.

It is the first attack he has suffered in more than twenty years of activity, and he finds it disheartening because, despite every precaution, he observes that “here the wolves come and go whenever and however they like”. He asks the institutions to do more and fears that in the Alpago, where there are many farmers today, few will remain.

In the same report Toni Zaccaria, of the Fardjma cooperative, gives figures for the basin: around ninety farmers and some 3,000 sheep of the Alpago breed, with more than 600 animals killed by predators over the last four and a half years and about a hundred in the last month. According to Zaccaria the wolf had been absent from the Alpago for roughly two centuries before reappearing in 2017, and the sheep keep some 1,400 plots of land tended that no one would otherwise reach. These are figures supplied by a farmers’ representative, not data from official monitoring, and we report them with that attribution.

This testimony does not settle the debate, but it makes it more concrete: carefully applied prevention may still not be enough. That is one more reason to follow, over time, what the announced measures actually achieve on the pastures.

Visitors have a part to play too: don’t tamper with fences and equipment, ask before crossing working areas and keep your distance from the animals. Wanting a photo can’t become an extra burden placed on someone who is busy working.

A dog changes the way we move on the trail

If you walk with a dog, your outing needs to be planned with its presence in mind. In the Parco Nazionale Dolomiti Bellunesi (Dolomiti Bellunesi National Park), leashes are mandatory. It’s a rule to follow before any encounter with wildlife, not a precaution to improvise once the dog is already far away.

Having a dog is no licence to approach wild animals. Keeping it close makes our own actions easier to control; letting it roam freely adds uncertainty. The same care applies near pastures: think about the animals there, the people working and any dogs used to manage the livestock.

There is no formula that turns every situation into a risk-free encounter. What you can do is choose a different route, skip a stop and move away calmly. Anyone who sees these choices as a defeat saddles themselves with an extra problem: trying to prove something at the very moment they ought to be watching.

The landscape is not an empty stage set

Many different wishes live side by side in the Dolomites. Some people come for silence, some want to keep a business going, some study wildlife. None of these experiences is enough on its own to represent the territory. Recognising this plurality makes it possible to discuss a concrete measure without immediately turning it into a verdict on the dignity of whoever proposes it.

Our editorial choice is to make sources, limits and open questions visible. Not to promise that everything is simple, not to treat every track as an emergency, not to dismiss farm work as an inconvenient detail. A good article should leave readers better able to tell things apart, not just more convinced of their own opinion.

Coexistence that can be checked

We can ask for monitoring to be readable, for procedures to be explained and for the results of prevention to be reported over time. These are requests that people with very different sensibilities can share. They shift the discussion towards what can be observed and improved, without expecting disagreement to disappear.

Before setting out, read our page on the Parco Nazionale Dolomiti Bellunesi and the guidelines for enjoying the Dolomites with freedom and respect. The guide to autumn in the Dolomiti Bellunesi helps place your outing in the season, while the one on how staying overnight in a rifugio works is a reminder to check your bases along the way. The wolf is one element of the environment: planning the day well remains a broader responsibility.

What makes a good report

Useful information separates what you saw from what you assume. Describing an animal crossing a road is not the same as attributing an intention to it; giving an estimated distance is not the same as knowing a measurement. You can pass on important observations even without being certain which individual it was. Spelling out the uncertainty stops a guess from becoming a fact as it travels from one person to the next.

Before publishing, a newsroom should ask for the original material, the date and permission to use it. It should also make clear whether the identification comes from a competent authority or from the person who sent the video. This approach doesn’t dismiss the concern: it makes it easier to bring to the right people and reduces the risk of raising the alarm about the wrong place.

What we want is a community that can report without giving chase. Nobody should move closer to get better evidence, or put themselves and the animals at risk to complete a story.

Previously in this series: Vaia, eight years on: the forest is green again, but it is not the same forest