Wolf

Wolves live in packs with a strict hierarchy, separated into males and females. Group living enables better territorial defence and hunting of large prey such as red deer, elk, wild boar or livestock. Only the highest-ranking pair produces offspring. The other pack members take part in the rearing. The wolf is the ancestral form of all dog breeds. Domestication took place as early as during the Palaeolithic Age. The wolf was wiped out in Central Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. For a few years now, individual animals have been migrating from the Apennines, Italy, towards Switzerland, from Slovenia to Austria and from Poland to Germany. To this day, no other animal species is judged as differently and often incorrectly as the wolf. Until the 20th century, wolves were caught and killed in wolf pits. At the Alpenzoo we show a true-to-life replica of such a wolf pit from East Tyrol, which still exists but is no longer used. When the church bells of Innsbruck ring, the wolves in the Alpenzoo begin their “telecommunication”, the howling that can be heard from afar.