A recently recorded threat to wolf conservation in the Alps is the hybridization with domestic dogs.
In Italy, the widespread presence of dogs and the lack of control of occasional hybrids, means they represent a serious threat to the conservation of the genetic identity of the wolf. During the first LIFE WolfAlps project no important cases of hybridization in the Italian Alps have been documented.
However, hybrids are showing up in the Alps as dispersal from the introgressed part of the Apennine population in Tuscany advances through the ecological corridor of the Piemonte-Ligurian Apennines. This threat needs to be fully addressed in the coming years, and the project will address this by implementing Actions A6 and C5.
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The photos on the page and in the gallery are phototraps made in the Apennines, courtesy of Lorenzo Lazzeri.
