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Wolves In Wales?

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pinkstarbuck

Gone But Not Forgotten
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I have a youtube channel with several home made educational videos about wolves,(devilsfanuk) as i am passionate about the wolf and i`ve been a wolf studies student for a year now, as well as being active with several wolf conservation groups.
Last week a youtube user commented on one of my videos about the history of the wolf in the UK and Ireland with "You forgot Welsh wolves. There are still some of those around". Which i found interesting as it implied that the person is suggesting that Wales still has a population of wolves! I also found interesting that during research for my videos i found no mention of wolves ever being in Wales, although they were indigenous to the UK and Ireland so they would have been there too,surely? The books i have on the subject doesn`t mention Wales either. I was wondering if anybody from Wales knows of any cryptozoological sightings of wolves in Wales? There have been several in the UK, mainly along the Kent/Bluewater road. I`d love there to be wolves still in the UK but i am aware i`m clutching at straws here! :)
 
no wolves that I'm aware of in wales.
presume there were some at some stage.
saw telly prog recently that suggested possibility of reintroduction of wolves to scotland?
could I be any more vague?
 
Mal_Content said:
saw telly prog recently that suggested possibility of reintroduction of wolves to scotland?
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Wasn't that beavers? Or are they reintroducing wolves too? Something to eat the beavers, maybe?
 
gncxx said:
Mal_Content said:
saw telly prog recently that suggested possibility of reintroduction of wolves to scotland?
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Wasn't that beavers? Or are they reintroducing wolves too? Something to eat the beavers, maybe?
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Saw something about beavers alright. Maybe the wolves would deal with the Haggis problem.
 
There were plans to reintroduce a wolf population in Scotland but they deemed the land available would have been too small for a wolf packs needs so the plans fell through. I think they still plan to reintroduce Lynx to the area. Sadly the UK has become too industrialised since the wolf was exterminated and with so little forestry around (and with government plans to sell off our green and pleasant land-whats left of it) releasing wolves now would be pointless.
The person on youtube who commented on my video says you can hear them howling in the Powys region- i know there is a wolf sanctuary on the Welsh border, its possible its their wolves howling that they can hear. They also claim to have photos from relatives dated from the 1920s featuring indigenous welsh wolves (the last wolf was estimated to have been killed in the late 1700s) and claim to have seen a wolf in the mountains when they were younger.
I think if theyre are wolves there they would not come into contact with humans-accidental or otherwise and they`d be far more sightings if there was. And after speaking to this person i think they might have an overactive imagination-which is fine as i like to "hear" wolves howling in the distance too! :)
 
I also found interesting that during research for my videos i found no mention of wolves ever being in Wales, although they were indigenous to the UK and Ireland so they would have been there too,surely?
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No, really?

I was wondering if anybody from Wales knows of any cryptozoological sightings of wolves in Wales?
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Pardon me being sarky earlier. I saw one about 15-20 years ago. My father and I were driving on the Swansea/Gower boundary one night, when we rounded a corner to see an Alsatian and a wolf in the middle of the road. My father, who was driving, stopped the car and we watched them for a short while as they crossed the road into the adjacent scrub. They were about 10 feet in front of the car illuminated by the headlights.

We both had a clear view of it, and are both familiar with wolves and the breeds of dog that look similar to them.

A year or so later on I described this sighting to someone who was familiar with the area, they told me that about 40 yards or so from where this happened illegal fighting dogs were being bred.
 
It seems to be a recurring theme with suspected wolf sightings in the UK, they seem to be appearing on roads that have woodlands/scrubs next to them. I would guess these would be the most excluded from people, as we tend to drive along them and they rarely have houses nearby. I have a book called mysterious animals of the British isles-Kent which mentions several wolf sightings along the A40 road towards bluewater in the same context-crossing a motorway into woodland. There is a whole series of these books, i`ve yet to read other volumes though.


A year or so later on I described this sighting to someone who was familiar with the area, they told me that about 40 yards or so from where this happened illegal fighting dogs were being bred.
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I guess if you wanted to breed illegal dogs you probably would be cross breeding them with wolves. there are plenty of people who have wolves, private collectors etc along with plenty of private zoos, sanctuaries and the like. Whos to say that somebody without a dangerous animals license "lost" a wolf, their premises was ill equipped and the wolf escaped? (huskies are ace escape artists, we have one and we have to watch him all the time. I know they`re not wolves-aside from the DNA aspect- but their behaviour is remarkably similar!) or they simply didn`t want the poor animal anymore so they let it free in the nearest forest?

Personally if there are wolves in our forests, i think the least people that knows, the better! Maybe its the British Isles best kept secret?
 
GNC said:
Wasn't that beavers? Or are they reintroducing wolves too? Something to eat the beavers, maybe?
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The 'Great British Public' is keen to see a bloodbath, it seems.

These polling results from the end of 2019.

Ezgg2gzXIAEo8uO.jpeg


(Brown bears are lunacy--can you imagine the outcry when farmers start blasting them?)
 
As with ABC sightings, most people have never seen the real thing so identification may be unreliable. "It looked like a puma/wolf" should be followed by "as a I vaguely imagine a puma or wolf to look, not that I've ever seen one."

There are also various fashionable but comparatively rare breeds of dog that look very "wolf like" — especially if glimpsed briefly at twilight by an imaginative observer.

Even a fox or a muntjac may be mistaken for something else in the right circumstances. The first time I saw a wild muntjac, my first impression was that it was a wallaby. (We have small populations of wild wallabies in parts of England.)

Many dogs howl. Many years ago I was alone in a hotel room in Manchester, having just been to see American Werewolf in London at the local cinema, and there was a dog in a nearby garden howling all night.

Someone upthread suggested fighting dogs may be cross bred with wolves. there is a lot of illegal dog fighting in parts of Britain. It doesn't involve cross breeding with wolves. However, I believe that centuries ago the British may have used war dogs which were either wolf like or cross bred with wolves. Maybe the poster conflated the two ideas.

There were wolves in Wales and other parts of Britain centuries ago. There is the famous story associated with Beddgelert in North Wales. The gist of it is that a wild wolf attacks a royal baby, and the loyal hound, Gelert, kills the wolf. The king comes home, sees the injured baby, and spots wolf's blood dripping from the dog's mouth, puts two and two together, makes five, and kills the poor dog before tripping over the wolf's corpse and realising his mistake.

The Welsh remember the king as Llywelyn the Great but Welsh dogs remember him as Llywelyn the Ungrateful.
 
Those Muntjac fangs are awesome :D


We have loads round here, and see them regularly...my 7 year old wholeheartedly and 100% believes these are "vampire deer"...of, course this is absolutely nothing to do with me....ahem...
 
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I think Mikefule is right above, misidentification based on unfamiliarity. I mean, how many of us have REALLY been up close and personal with wolves? And the wolves that range free in the US and Europe are, of necessity, going to look very different to any wild populations of wolf which may (although I'm pretty sure they don't) roam wild in the UK, where available ranges would be much much smaller and they would, I suspect, like the urban fox, have taken to raiding human rubbish. Anywhere food is easily accessible without having to hunt. I think they'd be smaller, scrawnier, with thinner coats and much less muscle than we'd expect from our 'traditional' view of the wolf.

Talking of which, I had a GSD at one point who would often make people point and say 'there's a wolf'. She was just a big, dark coloured German Shepherd dog. And my last big dog, a Border Collie crossbreed called Dylan, got the odd 'wolf' comment too. Absolutely not relation to a wolf apart from the obvious.

People, commonly, don't know what they are looking at.
 
The realisation of wolf reintroduction in the South Wales-England borders region is the culmination of a long process of research and development supported by public opinion and political change. In particular this process was accelerated by the radical changes in thinking and policy which followed the visionary Well-Being of Future Generations (Wales) Act of 2015 and subsequent declaration of a Climate Change and Ecological Emergency in 2019 by the Welsh Assembly and UK government.
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More At:
https://wolves.live/the-welsh-borders-and-wye-valley-pack/
 
Yithian said:
The 'Great British Public' is keen to see a bloodbath, it seems.

These polling results from the end of 2019.

View attachment 38412

(Brown bears are lunacy--can you imagine the outcry when farmers start blasting them?)
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I suspect most of the people who were polled hadn't given it much thought before.
I wouldn't support re-introducing any of those.
 
TangletwigsDeux said:
More At:
https://wolves.live/the-welsh-borders-and-wye-valley-pack/
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Strange. When we talk analytically about cryptids, we consider minimum breeding populations, population density, food availability and so on.

For example, it is "obvious" that the Loch Ness Monster could only exist with a viable breeding population of not less than [insert figure] and it would require [insert figure] units of fish to support its nutritional needs — and so on.

But when they reintroduce a top predator into an area of Britain, we have a single pack which now numbers 12 including 2 cubs that have been born in the wild.

Then one wolf leaves the pack, which is normal behaviour when looking for a mate, but there are no other packs and no mates available. That lone wolf loses the social environment and cooperative hunting resources of the pack. What could possibly go wrong?

Who cannot love the romantic idea of wolves or bears roaming our forests? But in reality, on a crowded island, with main roads, livestock, cyclists, horse riders, joggers, family picnics — and almost certainly, sooner or later, trophy hunters — it seems to me that this project is doomed to fail.

A dozen wolves is not a long term sustainable breeding population. If there were enough wolves for sustainable breeding, there would be too many for the territory and the food resource. Conflict would be inevitable.

A nice idea, but not a good idea.
 
It seems that a lot of “animal lovers”, who would cross the M25 blindfolded at rush hour to sign an anti-stalking/hunting petition, coo over the idea of releasing wolves into the wild in the UK.

Might l suggest the viewing of a few YouTube videos showing wolves attacking prey animals, both wild and domestic? Here’s the result of 30 seconds’ Googling:

NOTE: Nature has no pity. Viewer discretion advised.



I’m very confident that, given a binary choice, my local deer would take an unexpected bullet every time.

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
It seems that a lot of “animal lovers”, who would cross the M25 blindfolded at rush hour to sign an anti-stalking/hunting petition, coo over the idea of releasing wolves into the wild in the UK.

Might l suggest the viewing of a few YouTube videos showing wolves attacking prey animals, both wild and domestic? Here’s the result of 30 seconds’ Googling:

NOTE: Nature has no pity. Viewer discretion advised.



I’m very confident that, given a binary choice, my local deer would take an unexpected bullet every time.

maximus otter
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I think that wolves are remarkable and fascinating creatures, but I sure as hell don't want them living nearby--because they are wild and dangerous (in a host of ways).

The British public are brainless.
 
Completely agree that this island is now too small and over-developed to allow an unrestrained introduction of any apex predator.
There are plenty of existing endangered indiginous species that need help. Wild cats, red squirrels, otter. Dont introduce more, help what we already have.

EDIT: I note in FT405 pg.26 that someone claims to have seen a wolf in the Gloucestershire area, surely not a coincidence?
 
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TangletwigsDeux said:
Completely agree that this island is now too small and over-developed to allow an unrestrained introduction of any apex predator.
There are plenty of existing endangered indiginous species that need help. Wild cats, red squirrels, otter. Dont introduce more, help what we already have.

EDIT: I note in FT405 pg.26 that someone claims to have seen a wolf in the Gloucestershire area, surely not a coincidence?
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My neighbour has a husky (which escapes for a pasttime) and I daily expect 'wolf sightings' to be reported in the local paper. She's a young female, quite thin but with a very 'wolf like' attitude (head held low, very 'stepping' gait, tendency to slink along). I can imagine that a brief glimpse of her as she slinks along the local lane would have visitors from the city thinking they'd seen a wild wolf.
 
catseye said:
My neighbour has a husky (which escapes for a pasttime) and I daily expect 'wolf sightings' to be reported in the local paper. She's a young female, quite thin but with a very 'wolf like' attitude (head held low, very 'stepping' gait, tendency to slink along). I can imagine that a brief glimpse of her as she slinks along the local lane would have visitors from the city thinking they'd seen a wild wolf.
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I would point out to your neighbours - if you haven't already - that Yorkshire is agricultural country, and that local farmers would quite rightly take grave - and possibly fatal - exception to a dog Fenton-ing their sheep.

Yesterday: "Dog shot by farmer after killing six lambs in sheep worrying incident near Hebden Bridge."

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
I would point out to your neighbours - if you haven't already - that Yorkshire is agricultural country, and that local farmers would quite rightly take grave - and possibly fatal - exception to a dog Fenton-ing their sheep.

Yesterday: "Dog shot by farmer after killing six lambs in sheep worrying incident near Hebden Bridge."

maximus otter
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They know. She's a rescue dog and I'm not sure they were quite prepared for the escape antics of a husky. He's started taking her to work with him in the van, which should help.

EVERYONE who lives round here is very well aware of the penalties for sheep worrying - most of our neighbours have very young lambs at the moment.
 
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