In the last 60 years, the size of forests in Italy has doubled. With the abandonment of the countryside, especially in mountain regions, the forest resumes the spaces left free by agriculture, and large areas are back to being wild.
It’s a new age for the forest, where wild animals are returning, and among them, the wolf.
The project, still in progress, aims to tell about the places of this return and the people involved in the study, in the care and monitoring of this large predator, whose role in the ecosystem is of primary importance.
The work consists of photographs and graphics, the project is ongoing.
A special thanks to the Parco Nazionale dell’Appennino Tosco-Emiliano and the team of WAC Wolf Appenine Center for the maps of the places visited by the animals, made through GPS signals of the radio collars or with the method of snow-tracking.
One of the graphics is made on a map of deplacements of a single wolf, named Luna, here's her story: "September 21 st 2013, almost at midnight, we found the female 6. Suddenly it was as if from the void an entity was materialized; for years we followed her only through signs of presence as the imprints on the snow, the results of the Dna, or with the images captured with the scout cameras.
That animal, described by everybody as cruel and aggressive, when we arrived had surrendered, abandoning herself to the ground. Not having the certainty that she was the female 6 yet, we renamed that she-wolf “Luna” (Moon). Luna seemed indeed us guessed: for the advanced age it was a very clear animal and, because of its pacific reaction, gave us a sense of calm. Probably what hits more our unconscious was the full moon, that allowed us to see the sweet profile of the hills of val Baganza in the night. We applied a GPS to Luna and she was freed. From that day, we passed by knowing just about where she was, to following step by step her movements in the territory, discovering how she lived, how she hid herself from man and probably also from other wolves.
In almost 1 year Luna told us many interesting stories; she had begun a new phase of her life, she lived solitary and often she went down from the mountains, arriving so near to residential areas that it was unbelievable that for one whole year nobody ever saw her.”
Luigi Molinari, Wolf Apennine Center