2023-08-25 14:28:29
Two new litters of cubs have been spotted in the Hautes Fagnes region, the Service public de Wallonie (SPW) said on Friday. Born in the spring, the little wolves are at least seven in number.
Adults Maxima and Akela gave birth to at least five cubs for this third litter, reveal camera traps set up by the SPW. The male was first seen in the region in June 2018. He was then joined by the female Maxima in 2020. The family, of German-Polish lineage, grew the following year with the arrival of a first litter of four babies. In 2022, the couple from packs in the German state of Lower Saxony had five cubs. The second couple of adults, formed by a daughter of Akela and Maxima and a male of Italian-Alpine lineage, welcomed two youngsters. In both cases, the cubs are probably three or four months old, estimates the SPW. In fact, the young are usually born in May. They remain huddled in the family den for a month, then begin to explore the world little by little. The camera tracking system, however, covers a particularly large area in the Hautes Fagnes and only detects the cubs when they point the tip of their muzzle in the open air. In an attempt to specify the number and sex of the newcomers, clues were collected in the field and then sent to a laboratory so that it could carry out genetic analyses.
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