A viral video shows a rare sighting of two black wolves crossing a stream in an undisclosed forest in Poland. The black wolves shown in the video are believed to be siblings.
According to The Associated Press, the rare sighting was recorded last year by SAVE Wildlife Conservation Fund Poland project coordinator Joanna Toczydłowska’s video camera. The outlet noted that the wildlife conservation’s discovery has led the organization to collect wolf droppings in the forest so researchers can learn more information about the wolves’ genetics.
Toczydlowska told The Associated Press, “It’s something new and unusual.”
A video shared on X, formerly Twitter, shows two different crossings of the same stream by the wolves. In the first wildlife video clip, a black wolf and a gray wolf can be seen crossing the stream and jumping onto the bank. The second video clip shows a gray wolf and two black wolves crossing the same water source.
According to The Associated Press, Toczydlowska initially set up the wildlife camera to record beavers. After discovering that the camera was recording wolves instead of beavers, Toczydlowska decided to leave the camera up to gather information about the rare wolves.
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The Associated Press noted that the SAVE Wildlife Conservation Fund Poland did not reveal the location of the forest where the rare wolves were located due to safety concerns for the wolves. According to the outlet, most of the roughly 3,000 wolves in Poland are gray with either black or red accents, making the discovery of the two black wolves especially significant.
Toczydlowska told The Associated Press that since wolves typically travel in families and both black wolves were roughly 66 pounds, she believes the black wolves are siblings. Toczydlowska also indicated that the wolves were approximately one year old and that at least one of the wolves was a male.
The Associated Press reported that while wolves were almost extinct in Poland by the 1950s, the wolf population has increased in Poland, especially in the central region of the country. The outlet noted that wildlife conservation leaders like Toczydlowska help people learn how to safely live in locations with wolf packs.
“For people, it’s a new phenomenon,” Roman Gula, the head of the SAVE Wildlife Conservation Fund Poland’s wolf monitoring project, told The Associated Press. “Education is one of our major, major goals.”
