What happens to wolves shot in Switzerland
Published: Thursday, Dec 28th 2023, 10:10
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Wolves shot in Switzerland have a long journey ahead of them after their death. While the autopsy of the wolves takes place in Bern after every regular kill in Switzerland, the genetic identification of the animals is carried out at the University of Lausanne.
The specialists at the University of Bern's animal hospital examine the wolves' carcasses to determine the cause of death and the animals' state of health.
Researchers at the University of Lausanne (Unil) are using DNA samples to find out which wolf it is. Luca Fumagalli, who heads the only laboratory in Switzerland that analyzes the DNA of large carnivores, has already recorded over 500 individual wolves in his database.
The identification of killed wolves is based on tissue samples. However, most DNA analyses in the Laboratory for Biology of Nature Conservation (LBC) at Unil are non-invasive, i.e. without direct sampling.
Analyzing killed wolves is easy
"We work mainly on the basis of samples found in the field that are deposited when an animal passes by, such as droppings, hair or saliva - and therefore not from captured or observed animals. These samples are then sent to us anonymously, for all species," Fumagalli told the Keystone-SDA news agency.
Fumagalli emphasized that the genetic analysis of the killed wolves is only a tiny part compared to the non-invasive analyses. "However, these analyses are the simplest, as we obtain a biologically rich genetic sample, be it a piece of muscle meat or other tissue from the animal," he said.
Number of samples increased
The scientists use the DNA samples to determine whether they actually come from a wolf and whether it is a known individual or not. In just under 25 years, Fumagalli has already recorded around 530 wolves in his database that have spent time in Switzerland at some point.
Since 1999, Fumagalli's team has analyzed an average of 300 to 400 non-invasive samples per year on behalf of the Federal Office for the Environment. According to the researcher, this number has risen to around 2000 per year in the last three years. His laboratory works together with the Kora Foundation, which is responsible for monitoring large carnivores in Switzerland.
Swiss wolves have Italian genes
The LBC is a laboratory for basic research. The team of around ten people, including three part-time employees who are exclusively responsible for the wolf, researches the genetics of wild animal populations. The aim is to reconstruct the genetic evolutionary history of a species, such as the wolf.
"The wolves found in Switzerland practically all belong to the same genetic line, namely that which characterizes the wild Italian population and which is exclusively present in the latter", explained Fumagalli. Only a small remnant population of this wolf population remained in the 20th century, for example in Spain and the Balkans.
"About a century ago, the wolf was doomed to extinction," says the professor, "then it came back through natural recolonization from central-southern to northern Italy and reached the Alps at the end of the 1980s." It is important to emphasize that the wolf returned to Switzerland on its own and was not reintroduced by humans.
©Keystone/SDA
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