Wolf song

We managed to record the howling of a family of wolves from the Świętokrzyska Forest – listen up!

Every summer we try to locate the rendez-vous (meeting place) of the wolf families of the Świętokrzyskie region by means of stimulated howling. We howl and if we are lucky – the wolves respond to us. When we hear the characteristic howl of pups, we know for sure that the family in a particular forest complex has managed to breed.

This year we got a response from many families – we will gradually write about the details on our website. Meanwhile, we wanted to give you a chance to experience the same positive feelings we experienced 1.5 week ago listening to a choral wolf howl in the forest.

In order to make this possible for you, for several days we tried to record the wolves using a special microphone and a digital recorder. The recorder has so far only served us to study the voices of kagu and other birds from New Caledonia, where the Behavioral Ecology Laboratory of the Institute of Zoology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (headed by Roman Gula, the head of our wolf project) has been conducting research for more than 20 years.

One of the scientists participating in the above research is Dr. Alfredo Attisano, who specializes in the analysis of bird voices, and who recently came to the Świętokrzyska Forest for a few days to try to record wolves with us.

In order to get good quality recordings, however, you have to get close to these predators, and if you call out to them from too close a distance – they won’t respond. So we had to use a fairly deliberate strategy to carry out our plan. After several evenings of trial and error, we finally managed to get good enough recordings to share them with you now.

Have a listen (preferably with headphones)!

Author: Roman Gula