Danish researchers say they can no longer put an exact figure on the country’s wolf population, because it has grown beyond what the previous monitoring method could cover.
DR reported on August 12 that wolf monitoring in Denmark has changed as the population expanded. Peter Sunde, wolf expert and professor at the Department of Ecoscience at Aarhus University, states that no one knows with certainty how many wolves live in Denmark.
According to Sunde, researchers can still count breeding territories and use them to calculate an approximate spring population. The most recent tally showed 49 adult wolves at the end of April 2026, measured just before the year’s pups were born. A wolf typically has five to six pups per litter.
Kent Olsen, scientific director and senior researcher at Naturhistorisk Museum Aarhus, leads and coordinates the national wolf monitoring. He told DR that some wolves cross the border from the south while others wander out again, which makes a running total impossible. As stated by Olsen, the task is not to track every roaming individual animal.
Before 2024, researchers followed each wolf closely and analyzed all wolf droppings to map movements and numbers. That work became too large as the number of wolves in Denmark rose, DR reports. Sunde notes that close tracking of every animal is no longer possible with the available resources and the number of DNA samples that can be analyzed.
Monitoring now relies on searching for DNA traces and setting up wildlife cameras in territories where wolves are known to have settled. Far from all collected samples are sent for DNA analysis, because there is neither the funding nor the capacity, per Olsen. He says he would like to analyze every sample, but that it is not necessary to complete the monitoring task.
Olsen adds that the primary focus is identifying where pairs and packs have established themselves, and that this can be done with the current setup. The wolf management framework in Denmark depends on those territory counts for its population figures.
Why the question is being asked now
DR links the timing to videos of wolves in close proximity to people that are currently circulating. One clip shows a wolf trotting in front of a family restaurant north of Nørre Nebel. Earlier this year, a 14-year-old girl filmed a wolf following her as she walked home.
Politiken has also reported on the population, quoting Olsen as saying it is growing more slowly than its biological potential would allow. In a separate case involving a video from North Jutland, Olsen assessed that the footage did not show a dangerous situation.
BT reported on that same case, with Olsen describing the situation as not dangerous but undesirable. According to BT, he said the wolf likely expected a reward and should instead have negative experiences with humans. Concerns about wolves approaching populated areas have been raised in earlier reporting.
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