“Al lupo, al lupo!”. An historical 1979 issue of the Bollettino Panda by WWF it’s our gift

A special insert for the Wolves’ Path inside the environmental magazine InNatura’s December issue
29 Novembre 2019
Fantastic closing cerimony of the 2nd Cinematic Festival organised by the Val Roveto CAI
23 Febbraio 2020

Together with the 1st issue of Bollettino Panda by WWF, published in Genuary 1979, came this booklet "Al lupo, al lupo!".

It's an historical document that assume a unique value for all its scientific information, giving the most precise and broad possble knowledge about the wolf during he 70s of the past century.

Written by Luigi Boitani together with Alvaro Soccodato, with the consultation of Gianfranco Bologna, it was the result of the vast work-study across the Appennino commissioned by the WWF in 1972, directed by three researchers specialised in studing wolves of that time: Luigi Boitani, Erik Zimen e David Mech.

The necessity to spread this knowledge was, first of all to the local poppulation in direct contact with the residual wolves' areas of that time (10 isolated areas across the southern-central Appennino), because, as stated in the introduction, "Only b knowing the truth about the wolf it's possible to erase all that 'exasperated' and 'imaginary' prejudices, that more often than ever we heard about this animal......".

A booklet from the past, that makes us discover an important and captivating facet about nature conservation thanks to the safeguarding of a species that was on the brink of extinction: only 100 individuals had been estimated, in 1975, with a bias of 30 individuals, dispersed across the Appennino, the bigger nucleus located inside the Maiella-Parco d'Abruzzo (21-22 wolves) and across the Massiccio della Sila (25-26 wolfs).

These pages gather the testimony of a succesful conservation action, with lotsof ideas and advices that, during the following years, changed to laws and protected areas, managing to transform several behavior ad common saying tipical of the italian thinking.

But nowadays the wolf is facing, again, strenous times, its maximum expantion across national territories has caused a cmplex difficulty of coexistence between this species and humans.

We hope that this little gift, as a bridge that connect us to our virtuos past, could become a good practice, an example, a support, for all the stakeholders who are working on studing new and efficent managment actions that aims at the cohabitation between wolves and humans, helping their reasoning and deliberation.

Therefor this is a booklet in which you can find some observation that could represent the metaphore of the trekking 2.0's core: the desire to walk and finding oneself and the habits of the Appennino, with all its wildlife; and a greater and proper consciousness about the wolves, so that it can strenghten a well-balanced cohabitation with the human being

This is the integral version of the booklet (in italian) Al lupo al lupo WWF 1979.