Where to go on a wolf tracking vacation

Wolf numbers in Europe are on the rise – around 12,000 animals live here – but that doesn’t mean they’re easy to spot. Living in small packs or alone, they are shy, well camouflaged and often move around at night. The Carpathian Mountains of Slovakia and Romania and the primeval forests of Poland are wild, exciting places to track wolves, but you could be lucky and spot one in France or Sweden, within a short drive of Stockholm or Nice. For a higher chance of a sighting, try Canada or the USA, with Yellowstone National Park a hotspot, home to around 100 wolves.

Martin Royle, Director of our supplier Royle Safaris: “By far the best time to try and see wolves in the USA is during winter. This is due to the fact that after the annual rut of the bison and elk the males are very tired (near constant fighting and mating for weeks on end) and so they are easy pickings. The wolves also dominate the ecosystem during this period as the bear species are hibernating. It is the main breeding season for the wolves and so they are more active in trying to find mates and establish new packs. So I would recommend January – February for wolf watching in the USA.”

Martin Royle, Director of Royle Safaris, our supplier specialising in wolf watching vacations in the USA, on the value of a good guide: “Make sure you have a good guide – invaluable when you are looking for an intelligent, top level carnivore that is naturally elusive and shy. They also have huge territories and very rarely stay in one place for very long, so someone who knows the area is vital. Also someone who knows the wolves and the individual packs and pack members and subtle variations in temperature, weather and prey movements can affect where certain wolves and packs are likely to be. We use a Yellowstone ecologist for our wolf watching tours here and he has direct access to the wolf biologists who study the wolves on a daily basis.”

Sally Guillaume from our supplier Undiscovered Mountains, gives this insight into winter weather in the Alps: “The temperatures where we wolf track in the Alps can get as low as -12°C (I’ve only had this cold once) and high as 15°C in January. I would say on average -4°C to 10°C in winter. It really depends on the day. Suffice to say you need to be prepared for the cold, but in layers so you can strip off when it gets warm! Also worth mentioning that the cold is a very dry cold so doesn’t get into your bones in the same way as it does in damp climates. The refuges we stay in are also heated with wood burners and can get quite hot.”