The residents of Ciutulești village of Florești district said that for over a week, they have been terrorized by a pack of wolves who killed over 20 sheep. The local mayor does not know what to do and considers the people who found the sheep killed got hysterical and should calm down.

“No one saw the wolves. Not even the owner of the sheep saw if those were wolves or dogs. I talked to hunters from the village who on Saturday and Sunday go hunting. They said they didn’t see wolves either. We, as the local public administration, cannot yet do much as the wolves were incorporated into the Red Book of the Republic of Moldova and cannot be killed,” the mayor of Ciutulești Igor Burcă stated for IPN.

Victoria Covali, deputy head of the Forestry and Protected Areas Division of “Moldsilva” Agency, said the hunters from Ciutulești informed about the presence of eight wolves there. “By the way they devour their prey, we can say that these are wolves. They live in the scrubland nearby. They appeared recently in Florești district and came from Sângerei district,” stated Victoria Covali.

She noted that genetic samples should be taken from the sheep attacked by wolves. “Regrettably, the Zoology Institute of the Academy of Sciences cannot do something like this as it does not have an accredited and outfitted lab,” stated Victoria Covali.

She anticipated that the wolves from Ciutulești in several days will migrate to other districts as they are looking for food. The wood from near Ciutulești is small and the wolves will be unable to hide there.

Asked if the wolves will be killed so that they do not cause more damage to locals, Victoria Covali said the wolves are protected at European level under the Bern Convention that was ratified by Moldova too. It is thus not so easy to shoot a wolf officially.

Alexandru Prodan, who manages the local division of the Florești Food Safety Agency, has told IPN that the wolves, if they are rabid, can pass on this virus to sheep by bites. But clinical symptoms of rabies in sheep can appear during three days to three months of the biting. The animal should be killed if this has symptoms of rabies and samples should be taken to confirm the infection. The virus is not transmitted to humans by eating infected meat.