Below photo still referenced from the study.
Frame from a video showing the Pack 1 male. Note his right hind leg is displaced
inwards and twisted, which causes him to have a discernable limp. This feature facilitated his identification in the recordings. (Video recorded on August 16, 2023).
ABSTRACT
Using camera traps, a non-invasive technique for wildlife monitoring, we have been obtaining information about grey wolf (Canis lupus) populations in Galicia in northwestern Spain, as part of long-term studies. Here, we describe the movements of a monitored pack comprising three adult wolves, one male and two females, located south-west of Santiago de Compostela. Videos and photos recorded in early July 2023 show the two females with large and distended nipple rows, moving one behind the other at a distance of three meters. In early August 2023, at the same camera trap site, six juvenile wolves were recorded moving together. Our observations support a case of a pack with two females, possibly mother and daughter, that bred with the same male, producing multiple litters. The higher number of pups in 2023 compared with the previous years’ litters suggest that the females combined their pups in the summer. Although multiple breeding cases have been demonstrated in wolf packs in North America, Eastern Europe, and India, to our knowledge, our study represents the first case of the phenomenon in a Western European pack.
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