A WOLF pack gained an extra member as a wildlife campaigner headed to Russia on a fact-finding mission.
Simon Cowell, founder of the Leatherhead-based Wildlife Aid Foundation (WAF), has returned from a trip to northern Russia to study the plight of wolves for his TV series “Wildlife SOS”.
?He was welcomed by biologist and wolf expert Vladimir Bologov, who rescues and cares for orphaned wolf cubs and then releases them into the wild in a “safe zone” where they cannot be hunted.
Mr Cowell said: “Many of the wolves at Vladimir’s centre have had to be either rescued or bought from the hunters themselves.
“This is an appalling situation, but without Vladimir and his team there would be no one preventing wolves being wiped out in northern Russia.”
Mr Bologov’s rescue centre, in the Central Forest Nature Reserve in Russia’s remote Tver region, 300 miles northwest of Moscow, is one of the few places in Russia where hunting wolves is illegal.
The centre’s work focuses on rearing and reintroducing cubs into the wild, ensuring human contact is kept to a minimum.
Mr Cowell added: “It has been a great privilege to spend time with Vladimir and his fellow wolf conservationists. Like me, he has been working with wildlife for 30 years, so I found him to be a kindred spirit.”
The programme will be broadcast later this year on Discovery Channel’s Animal Planet.