Two rare black wolves caught on camera in Polish forest by wildlife researchers

Two rare black wolves, likely to be siblings, were spotted on camera crossing a stream in a Polish forest, a conservation organisation has said.

The unusual sighting was captured last year on a video camera set up by SAVE Wildlife Conservation Fund Poland project co-ordinator Joanna Toczydlowska.

It has prompted the organisation to collect scat (droppings) in the forest in the hopes of learning more about the black wolves’ genetics.

Ms Toczydlowska initially placed the camera to study beavers.

When she noticed she was recording wolves instead, she kept the camera there and collected the black wolf footage a few weeks ago.

In one clip, a black wolf and a grey wolf slowly cross a stream in the forest, the water nearly up to their bellies, before they leap on to the bank.

A second clip, taken last autumn, records two black wolves and a grey wolf fording the same stream.

Most of the 2,500 to 3,000 wolves in Poland are grey with red or black accents.

Black fur comes from a genetic mutation that was likely to have been in domesticated dogs thousands of years ago.

The dark fur is rare in Europe due to a reduced genetic diversity, but at least half of the wolf population has black fur in Yellowstone National Park in the United States.

At least one is male.

The conservation organisation, which has been monitoring wolves in Poland for 13 years, is not disclosing the forest’s location to keep the wolves safe from poaching and prevent misinformation about wolves from spreading.

Wolves were essentially extinct in Poland by the 1950s, but the population has been reintroduced in recent years, especially in central parts of the country in the early 2000s.

Ms Toczydlowska and her colleagues teach the public how to safely live in areas inhabited by wolfpacks.

“For people, it is a new phenomenon,” Roman Gula, head of the organisation’s wolf monitoring project, told the AP.

“Education is one of our major, major goals.”

The conservation fund announced the sighting last week on Facebook and asked for financial support to pay for the scat’s genetic testing to learn more about the black-fur mutation.