Feeding ecology of wolves Canis lupus returning to Germany

Following several years of occasional occurrence, several wolves Canis lupus Linnaeus, 1758 have established a resident population in northeastern Saxony (Eastern Germany). From 2001 to 2003, we collected and analysed 192 scats of C. lupus. Results of our study are expressed as the frequency of occurrence of prey species and the percentage of biomass consumed using coefficients of digestibility as well as two variants of an equation for prey mass per collectable scat. Diet composition of the wolves was restricted to a few food items, mostly wild ungulates. These remains were found in 97% of the scats, representing 99% of the biomass consumed by the wolves. Roe deer Capreolus capreolus was the most frequent and most important prey, constituting nearly of one half the biomass. Red deer Cervus elaphus was recorded in one-third of the samples, followed by wild boar Sus scrofa, mouflon Ovis ammon musimon and brown hare Lepus europaeus. Compared with game occurrence, roe deer was clearly preferred over the other species. A difference between winter and summer diets was mainly due to the high occurrence of young wild boar in summer. The general diet pattern of the wolf in Saxony corresponds with that found in the naturally occurring populations in Europe.