Russian wolf has strengthened Norwegian wolf pack

Wolf.Photo: Jens Christian Mitchell / Scanpix

Immigrant wolves from Finland and Russia have improved the genes in the Norwegian wolf pack, according to a new study.

A study presented Tuesday shows that pups born to immigrant wolves from Finland and Russia have much greater success with creating couples and breeding puppies than their inbred fellow species in Norway and Sweden, wrote the newspaper Nationen.

– Only a few immigrants from the east have improved the Scandinavian wolf population’s viability. The effect is tremendous, says Øystein Flagstad, a geneticist in wildlife data and one of the researchers behind the new study.

Research results show that a lower inbreeding levels has positive effects in mating and breeding success.

– This is good news for a Scandinavian wolf population that is highly inbred. After practically being destroyed on the Scandinavian Peninsula in the 1960s it has established itself with Finnish-Russian origin wolves in southern Scandinavia in the early 1980s, said Flagstad.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today