Finding out what happens to the wolf pups after they are released to judge the success of rearing and release methods has up until now relied on traditional tracking and fieldwork, but now GPS technology is being used to reveal the secret lives of the wolves once they are returned to the wild.  French company Airnautic have donated one GPS collar, and Vladimir is seeking help to obtain more collars to fit on the next wolves to be released.  One collar costs approximately 2,000 euros (around £1,900). 

Additional funds are also required to feed the wolves and maintain the rehabilitation facility – one euro (approximately ninety pence) will feed one wolf pup with a kilo of meat for a day. The project is supported entirely by private donations.

Since November 2008, Moscow-based English language news channel Russia Today has provided an international outlet for news and exclusive video footage and live webcams from the pup rehabilitation programme and the Chisty Les Biological Station, hoping to raise the profile of the project and attract important funds. Click here to see more.

As well as rehabilitating orphaned pups, Vladimir Bologov is working to prepare a management strategy for the wolves in the Tver region, including sustainable population control to replace the current indiscriminate bounty system, and he hopes that one day the whole of Russia will take a more enlightened view of wolves. Vladimir’s father Viktor, was a game biologist who tracked and studied wolves for twenty years, and Vladimir has become a passionate advocate for the wolf in Russia. His aim is to change public and government attitudes and to conserve the species as part of nature. 

The wolf is not protected in Russia, and a census funded by the Wolves and Humans Foundation in 2005 found that wolf numbers in the Tver region of European Russia were overestimated by a third in the official figures. Click here for more information.

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