Press+and+media+report

=** Poland will commemorate hero bear of World War II **=

** [|For more details press here !] **
= Hunters from Belgium shot two wolves which are strictly protected in Poland =

=
Last Saturday (10.12.2011) near the Drawa River National Park, within the Natura 2000 site "Uroczyska Puszczy Drawskiej" PLH320046 (North-Western Poland), hunters from Belgium during a driving hunt on deer shot two adult wolves (a male and a female). Wolves are strictly protected in Poland. The Polish hunt organizer from the Głusko forest division called police and a prosecutor at once. During an investigation hunters explained that they mistaken wolves with raccoon dogs. Is hard to believe that such a mistake is possible knowing the differences in appearance and size between these two species. Thus there are two explanations: these hunters hunted wolves intentionally or they shot to unidentified targets, which breaks the basic rule of a hunt. After paying a deposit 2000 Euro each, hunters came back to Belgium. The investigation is in progress. As results from a wolf monitoring conducted by the Association for Nature “Wolf”, both wolves belong to a small pack including 3 adult wolves and 2-3 pups. This family group only two years ago settled the forest on a Drawa river and raised their pups in the Drawa River, which is also the Natura 2000 site. Last spring a one family member was deadly hit by a car on a regional road. Death of the next two wolves, presumably a parental pair, has caused a very serious threat for the pack survival. This pack according to EU belongs to a critically endangered Western Polish - German wolf population. Currently in Western Poland this population includes 20 family groups (95-100 wolves) living in the biggest forest tracts of the region. Since several years, due to strict protection of the species, wolves gradually resettle western part of the country, where they were eradicated 20 years ago. Unfortunately, because of a long distance to more numerous source population in Eastern Poland (about 700 wolves) and dispersal barriers, these wolf packs are extremely sensitive to numerous threats such as road mortality, poaching and illegal hunting, parasites and disturbance in refuges. ======

= Vets take action to save Poland's lynx =