Overview
- Using hidden camera–speaker traps in Poland’s Tuchola Forest, researchers played human speech, dog barks and bird calls to free-ranging wolves.
- Wolves fled in about 80% of encounters with human voices and left roughly twice as fast as after bird calls, while dog barking triggered flight just over 60% of the time.
- Activity patterns in the study area showed a marked move to nocturnality, with wolves nearly five times as active at night as humans.
- The authors note lethal risk as the driver of wariness, citing evidence that humans kill large carnivores far more often than natural causes, including reported sevenfold higher rates in the EU.
- The study recommends preventing access to human food sources through secure waste and feed storage and improved livestock protection, emphasizing that wolves near settlements are typically seeking food.