A five-year-old girl was playing on the beach on the Halkidiki peninsula when a wolf suddenly made an attack on her waist, according to the girl's mother to Greek Skai TV. A private person managed to chase the animal away by throwing stones.
Hunters and farmers in Greece are now raising their voices. The protected species is reproducing strongly and constitutes an increasingly larger threat, they claim.
Where I hunt, wolf observations are made almost every day, says 60-year-old Stelios Thomas from Thessaloniki.
Now I am afraid to move in the mountains. They have eaten many dogs and livestock recently. Attacks occur almost every day.
Biologist Yorgos Iliopoulos, wolf expert at the environmental organization Callisto, states that the wolf that attacked the girl seems to be unusually accustomed to humans.
This animal has apparently either found food in the area or was wrongly fed by people as a cub, he says.
In a study from Callisto, the Greek wolf population was recently estimated to consist of 2,075 animals. The range has grown to include, among other things, Attica, the region surrounding Athens, according to Iliopoulos.
