Women tracking wolves

Two women from Italy and the US tell Datshiane Navanayagam about following the movements of growing wolf packs in Yellowstone National Park and the Italian Alps.

Elisa Ramassa started work as a park ranger in Italy's Gran Bosco di Salbertrand, near Turin, in 1997. That same year the park recorded the first sightings of a wolf pack. They'd been extinct in the Italian Alps since the 1920s. She's spent the whole of her career tracking the local wolves, observing pack behaviour and family structures, while watching the population re-establish itself. Erin Stahler is a biological science technician and the programme manager for the Yellowstone Wolf Project. Wolves were reintroduced to the park in 1995 and there’s now 10 packs making up a steady population of around 100 wolves. She says the wide open spaces of Yellowstone National Park make it a perfect place for studying the fascinating behaviour of wolves.

Produced by Jane Thurlow

(Image: (L) Elisa Ramassa courtesy Elisa Ramassa. (R) Erin Stahler credit NPS.)