As of last Monday, 30 days of mandatory quarantine had passed at Skopje Zoo for the young but sizable wolf that was found last month in Kozle, a neighbourhood of Skopje.
But the wolf will probably remain in isolation much longer, as it cannot be placed with the other wolves at the zoo and a more suitable habitat has not been found.
The wolf, which had a chain leash and had likely been abandoned by its unidentified owner shortly before being found in a parking lot near the residence of Tina Mickovska, a long-time associate and spokesperson for Skopje Zoo.
When she came downstairs, the police were already there and had tied the wolf to a pole. From there, the wolf was moved to quarantine.
“Most likely he had been chained up all the time, because he only reacts to the sound of the chain. Unfortunately, it still cannot adjust. Being in a larger space is strange for him now,” Mickovska told BIRN.
She said the wolf is a young male that had not been properly fed. It has now undergone treatment, been cleared of parasites and is being fed according to European wolf nutrition guidelines.
Keeping wild animals as pets is illegal in North Macedonia. But when a wild animal is found being kept in unsuitable conditions, or when individuals discover an injured wild animal, it remains unclear what the next steps for its care should be.
Authorities are forced to improvise and a proper shelter for rescued wildlife is yet to be built.
Bears are the hardest animals to return to the wild as they become accustomed to human environments. Photo: BIRN/Elena Petreska.
The wolf from Kozle is not an isolated case. Professionals who work with wild animals describe this as a serious problem.
Over the years, Mickovska has witnessed various forms of abuse involving wild animals, from smuggled lion cubs and monkeys to local wildlife.
When she tried to help these animals, she sometimes faced threats and unpleasant situations, she said.
“Several years ago, someone brought us a wolf cub that they had been keeping at home. They literally told us: either you take her, or we will kill her, and then threw her in front of the zoo,” she recalled.
She says that because people know animal activists work there, they often contact them about problematic cases.
There have been posts on social media and niche websites advertising entire litters of wolf cubs, which, according to Mickovska, are later used to train dogs for fighting, which is also illegal.
Some of the animals advertised for sale in these posts were successfully rescued.
However, Mickovska says the situation has improved compared to the past, because the trade in wild animals is more regulated through the international CITES Convention, an international agreement that controls the cross-border trade of wild animals and plants signed by some 180 countries.
This means that although smuggling of wild and exotic animals still sometimes happens, because North Macedonia is a signatory to the convention, a wild animal cannot be imported into or exported from the country without a CITES certificate.
Wolves in North Macedonia have no protection from hunting at all. Photo: BIRN/Elena Petreska.
Dime Melovski, head of the Wild Species Programme at the Macedonian Ecological Society (MED) says that apart from being dangerous for the people who keep wild animals, this type of captivity is extremely harmful to the animals.
