Tuesday, 16 August 2005
Eva - end of the story
Less than six months after the she-wolf Eva had been caught in a trap near Runoviæi, not far from Imotski, her repeated coming closer to settlements and humans ended fatally. On 3 August 2005 , at 3:30 in the morning, she was shot near Posu¹je in Herzegovina .
The young she-wolf recovered completely from injuries suffered from a steel rope. She had even put on some weight, which unfortunately could not be determined, because the hunter had cut off her head and kept it is a trophy. However, her collar and the rest of the carcass were preserved and thus enabled an insight into her former life. During 158 days of having monitored the she-wolf by means of a GPS collar, she covered an area of 640 km 2 , which is three times the area covered by an average wolf pack in Croatia . She primarily used to move through the area located in Bosnia and Herzegovina , but nevertheless stayed mostly around Imotski on both sides of the border.
Being a young she-wolf, Eva used to leave her pack from time to time and set about exploring the adjacent areas in search for a partner. In doing this she entered relatively deeply into Herzegovina , once reaching even Tomislavgrad. So she kept coming very close to settlements, exposing herself to the danger of being shot.
And while the wolf is a protected species in Croatia , in Bosnia and Herzegovina its killing is allowed. Given the fact that Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina share the wolf population, the situation requires an as prompt as possible regulation of the status of wolves as a protected species in Bosnia and Herzegovina too. The wolf is ignorant of state boundaries. This species may therefore only be preserved by a well co-ordinated wolf conservation regime and an active transboundary co-operation. |