They attack pets and pursue people: Khmelnytsky region is "attacked" by wolves - why the population has grown

Journalists spoke with the residents of Shepetivsky district about cases where wolves went out to the villages and pursued people. Valentina Gordiychuk from the village of Orlinka shared history when the wolf pursued it. For the first time the woman saw a predator in her own garden in June. "At first she went back, looked at him. He saw that I was leaving and I began to catch up. The wolf ran directly to me, the dogs were held. According to the woman, her savior became dogs.

Animals bark on a wolf, trying to scare it, and it stopped the predator. However, there were times when wolves were not afraid of dogs. Another resident of the settlement said that the wolf had scared her dog, and her husband saw a predator near the bar where the cattle stood. The man tried to scare the wolf, but the predator looked, according to him, not at all frightened. The local hunter said that the wolves first began to go to settlements in early 2024.

At the beginning of 2025, the cases were significantly increased - predators were seen by residents of at least 10 villages. Yuri Pikus, the chief hunter of Shepetivsky district, believes that the only way to solve the problem is to give permission to shoot predators. He counted at least 15 individuals in the area.

Vitaliy Smagol, a leading researcher at the II Shmalhausen Institute of Zoology, NAS of Ukraine and Candidate of Biological Sciences, told the RBC-Ukraine agency that a population of predators-wolves and foxes has doubled in Ukraine. Previously, there were about 2 thousand, now - 4 thousand individuals. The expert explained that the reason for the increase in the population of wolves is in the ban on hunting.