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Gray wolves are making a huge comeback in Europe after populations were decimated by human hunting since the 19th century.
The return of wolves on the European continent has been documented in a new report by Rewilding Europe, a Netherlands-based nonprofit organization that aims to restore wildlife in the region.
The Wildlife Comeback Report 2022 shows that gray wolf populations in Europe have risen to at least 17,000 individuals, and the populations surged 1,871 percent between 1965 and 2016, with an increase from around 12,000 individuals in 2013.
Over the past 50 years or so, wolves have recolonized much of their previous areas in central Europe, with their presence now recorded in almost all continental European countries.
This increase can be attributed to changes in human behavior, according to the report, including "abandonment of mountain agricultures," which in turn has led to a decrease in livestock numbers and human presence.
Historically, human hunting of wolves was driven by the desire to protect livestock and fear of attack.
These changes have been accompanied by deliberate conservation actions such as legal protection across the gray wolf's range, leading to a decrease in hunting and exploitation.
Meanwhile, the wolves will also have found that food sources are increasingly freely available, as the same factors that have allowed their populations to rebound have enabled other animals such as wild deer and boar to do the same.
With this lifting of human pressure, gray wolves have adapted and thrived, dispersing over large distances, and this could also be good news for the environment.
Wolves are thought to have a positive ripple effect on ecosystems, keeping deer and elk populations in check, which in turn benefits other plant and animal species. The report notes that gray wolves in the primeval Białowieża Forest in Poland could lead to increased tree regeneration by scaring off herbivores in the area.
"As a researcher working on global biodiversity and looking at global trends, it can be quite depressing hearing the latest statistics, but this report is really exciting, encouraging and inspires people like me to keep doing what we're doing," Louise McRae, one of the authors of the report from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), told U.K. newspaper The Guardian.
The gray wolves' regeneration in Europe echoes their comeback in the United States, where they were similarly hunted to dwindling numbers.
Around 2 million of them once roamed North America before a federal extermination program wiped them out from the mainland U.S., with the exception of small parts of Michigan and Minnesota, according to the Center for Biological Diversity charity.
Gray wolves—once the world's most widely distributed mammal—were given protections under the Endangered Species Act in 1973, after which the animals saw huge recovery in the western Great Lakes region.
Populations are now recovering in several states including Idaho, Montana, and Washington, while some gray wolves are beginning to range into California.
