00:00UNTERTITELUNG
00:08In 1979, almost all of the countries across Europe signed what is known as the Bern Convention.
00:15Since then they have worked together to better protect the natural environment of their territories.
00:21This was followed in 1992 by the European Union's Flora and Fauna Habitats Directive.
00:28Both state that we humans are responsible for living together in a healthy environment alongside all wild plants and animals
00:35that exist in our natural world.
00:37Each species supports the overall structure.
00:50However, species extinction continues even today.
00:54However, Europe-wide nature conservation has also yielded successes.
00:58For example, when wolves were protected and no longer hunted intensively, they began to spread again.
01:04In Germany, the first wolf family regained a foothold in Upper Lusatia at the turn of the millennium.
01:10Wolf researcher Ilke Reinhardt from the Lupus Institute describes the further development.
01:14The spread of wolves progressed very slowly at first.
01:20For the first five years, almost nothing happened.
01:24As a young animal ultimately could not find any partners with whom they could have mated and with whom they
01:30would have been able to establish new families.
01:31And when there were various packs, meaning different boss families, the situation gained significant momentum, a similar development that occurred
01:38within other populations throughout Western Poland as well as in the Alpine region where things progressed in a very comparable
01:42way.
01:44In 2023, there were 274 wolf territories which were each occupied by either a wolf pack, a mated pair or
01:53a single lone animal in the wild.
01:56Now the wolves are increasingly spreading into suitable habitats in the low mountain ranges and in southern Germany.
02:03According to a scientific study, there would be room in Germany for at least 700 wolf families.
