REPORTAGE – Their number has doubled in recent years in the Alps, and yet the wolf remains as little known as it is wild. We went to meet him, following a seasoned tracker.
Along the creek gorged with spring snowmelt, Sébastien stops, alert. He smells a strong odor. “A wet dog smell“. The wolf passed by. The track narrows. Further on, another smell of urine emanates from a moss-wrapped rock. “The wolf marks his territory, he warns the other packs that he is at home here.Wars are not trivial. The photographer decides to place an infrared camera here which starts recording when it detects movement, night or day.
The slope steepens and, with the altitude, a load of snow covers the paths. A white day has dawned, the fog caresses in diaphanous veils the tops of the fir trees. You can’t make out the sun, shrouded up there. Will the wolf show up? At the bend of a path which escapes through the brambles, traces appear. Do they announce “the gait and the powerful claws” of the one being tracked, as in the poem by Alfred de Vigny? “Oui…
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