In late October, we reported that the wolf Scyzor had found a crossing on the A1 freeway. Unfortunately, shortly after that, the collar stopped transmitting the location through the GSM system. We set out to find Scyzor with an antenna – the collar also transmits a radio signal at 150 Mhz, which makes it possible to find the animal using a radio receiver and antenna. Unfortunately, several days of searching did not yield any results. Until the collar stopped transmitting the location, none of the parameters indicated that it was defective. We also did not receive information about Scyzor’s death – when the animal is dead and the transmitter does not move for more than 24 hours, the collar sends information about the animal’s death. In the whole area where Scyzor was staying in the last months there is a good GSM coverage, so there should be no problem with sending such signal. Everything indicates that the collar has been damaged in some way. It could have happened during a collision with a car, but the collar’s transmitter is designed to withstand a lot of stress, so it would have to be a violent collision. Scyzor could also have been shot, and the collar could have been intentionally destroyed. Unfortunately, the illegal killing of wolves is quite common in Poland. We recently reported on a female from the Daleszyce Forest District shot with a shotgun. We wrote about other cases of wolf poaching in the essay “Can We Protect Wolves?” (the text is available only in Polish).

Scyzor has been in the northern part of the Silesian Province in recent months (map). If any of our readers have information regarding Scyzor or a dead wolf from this area, please let us know via email (kontakt@save-wildlife.org) or phone 608 886 527.

Roman Gula