A wolf pack has appeared on the Taïgeti, after nearly 100 years.

As livestock farmer Ioannis Verginadis stressed, speaking to ERT, the last wolf attack on livestock in the area was recorded in 1930.

“I had heard from my father that the last wolf that existed was before World War II. In the area where the wolves appeared, there are two ranchers. What can change, nothing will change if the state does not take appropriate measures. And the few who are left will get up and leave,” he said among other things.

The president of the Alagonia Local Council, Giorgios Kazakos, pointed out that the environmental organization “Callisto”, using scientific methods, conducted a specific investigation on the occasion of an incident of killing 40 goats and a herding dog that was spending the night in the countryside on 18/10/2024 in the district of Alagonia, Messinia.

“Around 18 October we had an incident of a herd being eaten by wolves in the wider area of Taygetos. Specifically, the farmer had left the animals to graze and during the midday hours when he went to bring the animals to his pen, he found them drowned by wolves,” Mr. Giorgios Kazakos said initially.

A network of cameras was then installed and in late December nine wolves were officially recorded. Specifically, a wolf pack, with four large and five small wolves.

“I was alerted by the breeder, I went to the site and contacted ELGA and the relevant services, the Wildlife Protection Centre, the Kalamata Forestry Department, which had brought Mr. Komninos to the area to survey the jackals, so he set up cameras and recorded the first wolves. We hadn’t seen wolves for almost a century. We had neither jackals, nor wolves, nor wild boars,” he added.

A wolf can be seen in a video shown on ERT, taken by a climber shortly after the pack attack. This video led the environmental organization “Callisto” and Mr. Komninos from the University of Thessaloniki to go to the spot and make an official scientific record to make sure that there are wolves.