Researchers in Aarhus claim that new DNA evidence indicates there were a total of eleven wolves in Jutland in 2013 – three times as many as experts originally thought, reports videnskab.dk.
READ MORE: Farmers afraid of the big bad wolf
Researchers at the university and the city's natural history museum analysed excrement and saliva-samples found on prey and were able to find eleven DNA sample from which they have so far been able to identify three different wolves. All three were males.
No females confirmed yet
“We haven’t yet been able to prove the presence of female wolves, but they may be among the next samples," Liselotte Wesley Andersen, a senior researcher at the institute of bioscience at Aarhus University, told videnskab.dk
"It is far harder to find traces of female wolves because they aren’t as stringent with their territorial markings as males."
READ MORE: Does Denmark have its first wolf pack for centuries?
Two of the wolves from Poland
The first wolf in 200 years in Denmark was found dead in Thy in Jutland in November 2012, followed by the sighting of a second wolf a month later and an increase in the number of reports of missing sheep from farmers. In January 2014, a wolf expert said that a recording of wolves howling suggested there was a pack, most probably with pups.
One of the wolves, the DNA evidence has confirmed, is the half-brother of the wolf that died in 2012, while the other two are from Poland.
